Today we’d like to introduce you to MB Jarosik, Anne Callahan, Karen Dendy Smith.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
While attending an AIGA conference “Love, Power, and Money” in Chicago 27 years ago Anne, Karen, and MB, had dinner, a few bottles of wine, and mapped out a business plan. We had a longing to work for ourselves so that we could treat our staff with respect and work for clients who we truly believe in.
Once we are back in our hometown of Boston, we developed our company name kor group. kor is the phonetic spelling of the word core kôr/ which means the central or most important part of something which also defines our branding and design approach.
It took the three partners 1.5 years of working nights and weekends for kor group to raise enough capital to rent a space and to pay one of the partner’s health benefits and salary for a year before. As soon as we had that capital in the bank, Karen Dendy Smith was the first to quit her day job and work full-time for kor group. Within two weeks of Karen being full-time, both MB and Anne quit their day jobs and joined kor group full-time as well.
kor group turns 25 this year! We’ve managed to remain a boutique sized firm since 1993. Our biggest challenge has been keeping the company small enough so that we aren’t in the position of taking in any kind of work to pay people and overhead.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The bumpiest part really was getting started. Anne, Karen, and MB all have various design degrees and spent our first ten years working in design firms and ad agencies. We sought out other small business owners to get advice on how to get started. We heard a lot of; “three partners isn’t a good number” “you’ll never get a bank loan as a women-owned, service firm”… rather than get knocked down it got us riled up. We never borrowed a dime from a bank, we hired the best CPA firms, bookkeepers, attorneys, and health and wealth employee benefits consultants to keep that side of our business in great shape so that we could focus on what we do best. We are still working with most of these same consultants 25 years later.
The other bumps in the road are attributed to a number of recessions over the course of the past 25 years—being diversified has kept us fiscally sound and super creative.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the kor group story. Tell us more about the business.
We are a senior team passionate about branding and design. We work with organizations to define, express, and orchestrate their brands. We are in most markets: education, healthcare, real estate development, A/E/C, and nonprofit. Our branding and design services include: qualitative research, experiential discovery, naming, design, photo/video direction, ad campaigns, environmental graphics, wayfinding, and websites.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
We always say: Wow, we are so lucky to be doing what we love and with people we enjoy and respect. Our clients are always quick to say no, it isn’t luck, that it is kor group’s passion, energy, talent, and client relationships, that keeps us going so strong 25 years later.
Perhaps, the luck happened for us 30+ years ago when Anne, Karen, and MB met!
Contact Info:
- Address: 374 Congress Street
Suite 503
Boston, MA 02210 - Website: kor.com
- Phone: 617-330-1007
- Email: mb@kor.com
- Twitter: @korgroup
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