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Entrepreneur Interview with Bob Clancy Spiral Design Studio

Bob Clancy, Spiral Design Studio, Albany,NY, USA:

The next entrepreneur I interviewed was Bob Clancy, from my high school class in Albany,NY. His company, Spiral Design Studio is located there and he said he received his inspiration from both Albany State and also his experience in Junior Achievement where in high school he learned about starting your own business. Bob founded his company in 1989.

The mission and background of Spiral Design Studio is a progressive, graphic communications firm whose basic mission is:

• To develop original and creative design solutions on behalf of its clients.


• To excel in high end traditional print and web based interactive media.

Spiral Design Studio is a full service graphic design and marketing firm serving national and regional clients since 1989. The Spiral Design team expertly balances creativity and innovation with marketing strategy, logic and analysis. It is this center brained approach that helps our clients to reach their corporate objectives through marketing that is engaging and effective, tactical and targeted, meaningful and memorable.

Spiral Design Studios services are:

• Graphic Design


• Website Development


• Corporate Branding

The New York State Small Business Development Center at the University of Albany helped Bob initially in advising us how to do their accounting and how to structure our business. He did not have any requirements based upon their contribution. Their assistance service was free. They served as an “anchor institution.” They had no Philanthropy or Intermediary Institutions, but they did have support from family members who helped with our initial financing for the purchase of equipment.

One of the challenges they faced was that there were many long term established design and marketing firms in their marketplace. When they started their company, digitally based graphic design was in its infancy. We were able to take advantage of this technology to rapidly grow their business. This gave them a great advantage over other designs firms who were still creating commercial art the traditional way. Not only were they able to produce camera ready art for one tenth of the cost, but they were able to produce it rapidly.

They measure success by competing against themselves to always improve what they are doing. Obviously, success can be monetarily measured, but more so for them, it is important to have client satisfaction for the return on their investment. They have largely built their business upon word of mouth referrals and currently have clients such as: Citi Group, Activision, Sears, Zales, Sunoco, Best Buy, Home Depot, Disney, among others.