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DrydenWire Awarded 'Innovative Business of the Year'

DrydenWire Awarded 'Innovative Business of the Year'

It gives me great joy to announce that DrydenWire was honored Wednesday as the Innovative Business of the Year by the Washburn County Economic Development Corporation (WCEDC).

The 2017 Innovative Business of the Year award goes to DrydenWire for transforming the way information is made available to the public, and how they utilize technology to distribute that information,” said WCEDC Executive Director Joel Zimmerman when presenting the award to DrydenWire. We were also nominated for New or Newer Business of the Year, and Business of the Year.  

Backstory... 

I graduated high school from Shell Lake in 1995, I had moved to larger cities for my career of managing businesses. Every time I came home to visit my parents, I stated that I felt there was a hole in the news coverage in this area – specifically that it was news presented just once a week; news that was already outdated by many days before it was presented in paper form; there was a charge for this largely outdated news; and social media was not being fully embraced/used.

I believe news should be free to its community and presented in a way that is easily accessible and without bias and with the least amount of editorializing as possible. During the holidays at the end of 2014, my mother, Diane Dryden, finally got tired of me complaining and said “then do something about it”. 2 months later I moved back to the area with the idea of starting a New Media outlet in our area with the goal of having the most informed community in Northwest Wisconsin.

In March of 2015, I spoke to about 100 people in the community asking them if they thought an additional news & information media outlet was needed or wanted, and if this new outlet would be successful. 2 people said it was needed and that it would work: my girlfriend (now my wife) Jerusha, and my mother Diane Dryden (who has been a featured writer for over 13 years and has two published novels). So I first want to say thank you to those 98 people who said it would fail – that continues to motivate me.

DrydenWire – which was never meant to be called that, in fact, I did not want the name Dryden in the business name at all and it was a last minute decision to use it, but that is a story for another day – started production in April of 2015; exactly 2 years ago.

After securing a loan, Magnifisites out of Sarona was chosen to create our website and take my idea and turn it into a reality. With their help, my families input, and a few months later Holly Snyder's help, DrydenWire.com launched on October 1, 2015.

The 1st 3 months we were just figuring things out. Our featured story was only updated once a week, we were publishing 2 to 3 posts a day, had a very little social media presence, and had only 2 advertisers. After 6 months, we started to find our groove. We were changing our featured story twice a week, had 6 advertisers, were publishing 4 to 5 posts a day, and had about 1,500 facebook likes. I realized around 10 months in that we were going to need a completely new website. So in August of 2016, I brought in Kara Vincent of Kara Vincent Art to not just 'refresh' our page, but take us to a new server and completely change our site allowing us to address our current needs, and give us the flexibility to continue making changes in the months and years ahead.

Exactly 1 year after going live, we launched our new site on October 1, 2016. Just like the previous year, it took a few months to work out the kinks as well as beginning the implementation of our 2017 goals and focuses for the year.

From January 1st, 2017, through April 1st, 2017, we consistently posted a new featured story every day (sometimes twice a day), published 7-12 posts a day, hit over 4,000 facebook likes, relaunched our twitter page with new logos for both Twitter & Facebook, and averaged over 100,000 unique users and 290,000 pageviews directly on our site, according to google analytics.

From April 1 through yesterday, April 21, we surpassed 5,000 facebook likes (currently over 5,300), and are now sitting at 115,000 unique users and 379,000 pageviews... and we still have over a week to go this month.  Every time I think we are going to hit a plateau, we don't; we just keep growing and growing. We now have 80% of our advertising spots full - thank you so much to our partners that continue to believe in us.

I do not have a desire of replacing local newspapers like the Advocate, Register, Inter-County Leader, Burnett County Sentinel, etc., rather, my goal was to bridge the gap from weekly publications and provide news & info not only daily, but when it happens and doing so for free.  Our community needs these weekly paper publications as they are staples in our community, so please support them.  I have a great rapport with a lot of our area news outlets and it's exciting to see how they have evolved as well since DrydenWire has taken off as this only benefits YOU, the viewer, going back to my mission from day one to have the most informed community in NW Wisconsin. 

Thank you, all of you.

I also want to say thank you to the following:

  • My wife, Jerusha: With 12-16 hour days being a normal work day, and with limited revenue – especially the 1st year – her patience and support have allowed me to always be in a good place, and to put the time & energy & focus into this business.
  • My mother, Diane: Not only was she on board since day one, she also writes for DrydenWire and has taught me a lot about the news business.
  • My brother, Matt: Greatest. Sounding Board. Ever.  Matt has helped in so many ways it's crazy.  Thank you, bro.
  • Marcy & Todd at Magnifisites: They taught me so much about SEO and were always there to answer my many, many questions.
  • Kara Vincent from Kara Vincent Art: Most talented and creative person I have ever met. Kara is almost finished with our next big thing for DrydenWire – stay tuned... it's looking like a May launch for this.
  • Holly S. Snyder: Although Holly was only with us full-time for a few months, those months were vital, as was she. She is also responsible for creating all of our original social media pages. Holly still contributes to DrydenWire to this day.
  • Joe Morey: Joe contributes to DrydenWire in many ways, covering a lot of the news out of LCO, including the stories he has done on the mold houses.
  • Community: 95% of my tips come from you, the community. Mainly it is via facebook message, but also comes in many other ways. In a way, you are the reporters for DrydenWire, we just piece it all together. We would absolutely not be enjoying our initial success in our new business without the information provided by the you, the community.
  • YOU: Last, but certainly not least, is a thank YOU! If you are reading this, you are our viewer. Everyone mentioned up till here is irrelevant if it were not for the tens of thousands of you that follow our content. This award is not just about us, it's about you – because if it were not for you, we would not exist.

Other quick shoutouts:

Aaron Arf and the Spooner Chamber, Joel Zimmerman and the WCEDC, the entire gang at the Dock Coffee (my second home), CWS Security, Ted Schmitz, Tim Frey, Cristina Masterjohn, Alexia Gannon, Tom Foss, Al Hobbs, Kasey King, Karina & Mike Shafer, all the folks from the Roost of Sarona, Jeremy Beecroft, my main man Brian Cole, Tammy Hopke and all the great people at Restorative Justice, JJ, Michael Macone from the Potter's Shed (brilliant fella), Dave McNulty at LakePlace, Vic Sacco, Wolverine Auto & Tire, Green Valley Dental, Stacy King and the Dan King Agency, the Washburn County Health Department, Spooner Health, all of our local and area law enforcement officials and agencies that put their lives on the line everyday to keep our communities safe, Eric Larson, Erin Jean, the Spooner Rodeo and Parade, and so many more of you that have given me counsel and support over the last 2 years.

DrydenWire isn't finished, in fact, we are just getting started. Stay tuned....

Last Update: Apr 24, 2017 6:43 pm CDT

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