May 17, 2016

Dudedads 2.0

I've realized for some time now that Dudedads has not done its best to properly define itself.

When people asked me "what is it?" I even struggled to give them the right perspective...that of a dudedad, not as a business owner. If I can't even give those who are curious the quick and easy response, how can the rest of the dudedads?

When Dudedads was created it was done so in a broad way, and that was on purpose. Dudedads was born to put a badge on "proud dads who like to do dude things."

The good part about not defining it too much was that dads who connected with it had room to make it their own thing as well. Their dude thing was 100% their thing. That was, and is, still very important to us.

I like to believe that when someone asks another dudedad "what is it?" today, they give their own answer that is more or less aligned with how we defined it, but with their own feelings included.

At this point, and after many conversations with close friends and fellow dudedads, I'm very certain that what we could do a better job of is brand messaging - beat the drums to reinforce the definition we did create, initially.

Further diluting our ability to bring more clarity to who dudedads are, has been the focus on the stuff we sell. We still have to sell stuff, but it won't be so prominently presented.

Starting yesterday, we're making some changes.

1. Our website and social media pages will be reworked to better allow us to present who we are as dudedads, not what we sell (Dudedads, Ltd.). We are taking steps to do this already (no more shopping on Facebook), and you'll see more changes in our website in the near future to foster this new dudedad community. We've always wished that we had more dudedads engage with each other, and we're going to try harder to make that a reality.

2. We are going to round out and strengthen our message with a supporting tag line: Work Hard. Play Hard. Dad Hard. Bring on the dick jokes if you must, but you know what this means. We'll also be adding some further supporting verbiage beyond this to help people get a clear picture for what we're about; proud dads who live and love passionately as parents and as individuals. That said, we're not self-righteous, we're aware that we're learning as we go and doing our best, just like everyone else. BUT we think we're onto something good...something that can do some good.

3. We are going to work to create more events to allow a place for dudedads to do what we tend to want to do with our kids when we're in charge: Adventure. Fun. Experience. Making memories, darnit. And maybe some life lessons, too.

We'll have to continue to grow locally in Colorado for now, given the budget constraints, but our goal is to have Dudedads host small events globally, one day... Hey, we can dream.

Thank you to all who have supported our thing so far! I am still very much looking forward to seeing what this becomes and I know a lot of that will have to do with you who are readying this.