Small Business Spotlight September 2020

1. Tell us about your business; and what is your business philosophy? The Artisan Agency is a full-service ad agency built around incredibly talented individuals that are passionate about their work and seeing results. As a creativity-centric business, we strongly believe great ideas can come from anywhere. We’ve built a truly horizontal organization that empowers every employee to put forth ideas, take risks, and be heard. Some of our greatest successes have come from the least expected places; fantastic ad copy written by a digital marketing manager, or a great idea for a client experience coming from a graphic designer. We keep the lines blurred and invite everyone to participate in any aspect of the business that excites them.

2. Why are you passionate about your commitment to United Way? Almost every member of Artisan is native to Miami – and everyone on the leadership team is born and bred. We’re fortunate to have great opportunities afforded to us which allow us to do what we love and direct all of our energy towards our personal and professional growth. Miami is an incredibly diverse city, and that diversity includes people with lesser means and fewer opportunities. It’s important to our personal and corporate culture that we do what we can to give others opportunities to free up some of their own bandwidth so they too can focus on growth that’s important to them – United Way provides us with this opportunity and we’re fortunate to have them help form our culture.

3. How did your business get started? Immediately after graduating from UCF in 2006, Daniel Bustamante – our founder – decided to put a pin in his Electrical Engineering degree and focus on developing websites for one year to see if he could make a living as a self-employed web developer and graphic designer. The experiment was a success, and it wasn’t long before Daniel had enough work coming in that he needed to begin hiring. Our original clientele was primarily in the professional services vertical with an emphasis on healthcare. Since then, we have expended our portfolio and now serve a wide variety of clients including Fortune 500 tourism and media companies as well as SMB’s throughout Florida.