Interviewer:  This is Pat Henry, Executive Editor, WhatTheyThink.com, and today I’m at the offices of MSP Digital Marketing, New Canaan, Connecticut.  We are speaking with two of the four partners of MSB Digital Marketing, Roy Grossman.  Good morning Roy.  

Roy Grossman:  Good morning. 

Interviewer:  And John Fogel, hello. 

John Fogel:  Hi Pat. 

Interviewer:  I will begin by asking Roy, a bit of a history.  Tell us about the formation of MSP Digital Marketing.  Why did you form it?  How did it come together? 

Roy Grossman:  Well, it began sometime in 2007 when I was still with my former company and I was keenly aware, as we all were, what was going on in the industry and of the surge in digital media and the rapid technological advancements in that area, and I thought to myself, well, I’m in my mid-50’s, there’s time to do one more great thing and why not go for it.  And I decided to make an entrepreneurial leap and see what happens.  

Interviewer:  Now, Roy, it’s my understanding that the four partners are veterans of the printing and graphic communications industry, particularly in the northeast.  Could you just run down the names of the other two partners and their background? 

Roy Grossman:  Well sure, Chip Stein, who was with John and I at Sandy Alexander, and he was a Senior Manager as well, and the fourth partner is a gentleman named Ed Epstein, who in the ‘80’s, when I was in my family business, he was running another local printing company called Press of Acolish, and we merged our businesses together before becoming a part of Sandy Alexander.  So, I had originally had me Ed through the industry.  When Chip and I went to Sandy and later John, Ed decided to go off and do other entrepreneurial things and when we formed MSP, he decided to come back into the fray and take a leap with us. 

Interviewer:  Gentlemen, what kind of a network are you attempting to build here.  You have a recent acquisition that we will talk about, but what does the network consist of, what will it consist of? 

John Fogel:  Well first of all, we made a acquisition of a company called Tech Doc Digital which is located in Hudson, Massachusetts, and that’s the first company that the platform for building our network.  A very well-respected network company run by Paul Marinelli and Dave Trombino, two very, very successful people in this industry, and we are now in the process of looking to build upon that.  We have a couple of companies in the New England area that we want to merge in with Tech Doc and we are looking at least three or four other company in a variety of industries right now. 

Interviewer:  And once the network is fully constituted, what service will you be providing and why do you feel there will be a demand for what you have to offer? 

John Fogel:  Well, I think the variety of services are really going to be dictated by the customers that we serve.  One of our objectives is not to necessarily be in the digital output business, but to be more a digital communications partner with our clients.  What we want to do is help them understand what their strategies are, what their communications objectives are and be a very significant part of executing those strategies.  So, our goal is to have the correct arsenal of output devices so that we can help our clients communicate their message properly. 

Interviewer:  Roy, finally, someone would say that this would not be a particular propitious time economically speaking to launch the kind of venture that you have launched, build the kind of network that you are contemplating, why do you see an opportunity in these difficult days. 

Roy Grossman:  Well, I think whenever you are having the kind of really revolutionary change that we’re seeing right now in our industry, there’s opportunity.  And the role of communications is changing so dramatically that it’s just creating a wealth of opportunity for anybody who wants to seize it.  And I think – we believe that if we can get involved in building a way to manage and distribute content in an efficient, effective way, we can’t go wrong, and that’s our goal. 

Interviewer:  Well, we certainly wish you all success with MSP Marketing and we thank you for updating us today. 

Roy Grossman:  Thanks, and it’s great to be with you Pat. 

John Fogel:  Thanks Pat. 

Interviewer:  Pat Henry WhatTheyThink.com.