This time, we’re speaking to Mark and Carissa Stewart of wonderMakr, an Innovation & Creative Technology Studio that turn ‘what if’, ‘if only’, and ‘I wish’ into award-winning human experiences for brands and agencies. wonderMakr was established in 2014 and since then, their work has been showcased in Brazil, South Korea, all over the USA and Canada. wonderMakr has 13 full-time employees and over 100 clients.
As President & Chief Innovation Officer of wonderMakr, Mark has an extensive background in creative technology, digital strategy, event marketing and production, content marketing and building future-forward interactive brand experiences. Over the past 15+ years, Mark has worked with clients in identifying and developing innovative campaigns, products and platforms that connect the digital and physical worlds. In that time, he has worked with brands like Nike, Under Armour, Adidas, IKEA, Disney, Dyson, Mattel, Benefit Cosmetics, Canadian Tire, General Motors, Nissan, Twitter and many more.
Carissa has almost two decades of experience in advertising and marketing. In her more recent years before joining wonderMakr, she focused on intellectual capital development and supporting entrepreneurs with implementing their growth/business strategies—she’s now able to merge her love of business and relationship-building with her passion for solid strategy as VP, Chief Client Officer at wonderMakr.
Tell us a bit more about wonderMakr and what you guys do.
Carissa: We are an award-winning innovation studio and we collaborate with agencies and brands across North America – from smaller, more local events to the past two Olympic Games. We are trusted to deliver one-of-a-kind experiences. Our team is comprised of creative technologists, engineers who have electronics, mechatronics, and robotics skills, and software developers who understand how to connect the digital and physical world. We also have what I like to call “logistical ninjas” who produce and manage projects from end-to-end. Our sweet spot is building innovative, bespoke, interactive experiences for agencies who either have an idea, need an idea, or just want to collaborate and build epic things. But we also offer shorter lead-time solutions like experiential vending—which was where we got our start—RFID event systems, interactive games, and bespoke photo solutions.
What’s one of your favourite examples to illustrate the kind of work you do?
Carissa: I always come back to Love Lights, kinetic light installation. I have so much affection for that, because it was one of the most truly collaborative initiatives we’ve been involved with. It was also a 35-foot fully-custom installation with 484 individual motors and lights. It delivered on all of the things that we love—showstopping, measurable, interactive, and beautiful installations.
Tell me a bit about how wonderMakr got started.
Mark: wonderMakr was born out of frustration and inspiration. At a previous agency where I was Director of Digital, we did a project for Mattel Hot Wheels—a Twitter-activated vending machine called the Camaro-matic. Mattel wasn’t sure it was possible but they gave us the green light to try. However, we only had about five weeks to pull it off. During that time I got connected to the world of makers and technologists and together we figured out how to make it happen. A lot of times, getting the digital and physical worlds together is difficult. You’ve got digital agencies that really want to stay in the world of pixels, and you’ve got fabricators who want to stay in the world of wood. Bringing those two worlds together was really inspiring for me because I was tired of being told “we can’t make that happen” or “it doesn’t fit within the parameters of our product”.
We’re not afraid to put things together. There was a time when people thought it was crazy to put chocolate and peanut butter together, but here we are!
People have been building amazing things for decades, but when new technologies come out some people can be reticent about incorporating them into their process in case it dilutes or devalues their own technology. We believe that everything can work together—you just have to be motivated enough to give it a try. That’s why wonderMakr was born. We’re not afraid to put things together. There was a time when people thought it was crazy to put chocolate and peanut butter together, but here we are!
What problem are you solving with wonderMakr?
Mark: It’s one thing to run an agency and say you can do everything, but you really need to have people in-house with a variety of talents, especially across non-traditional digital marketing. Connecting hardware and software systems out in the real world is difficult to do and you need a certain type of person who isn’t afraid to fail. At wonderMakr, we’re not afraid of anything—as long as we’re not breaking the laws of physics, we believe that anything can happen. The team is confident and take pride in the build. Once you create something that hasn’t been done before, the sense of accomplishment—not only from our team but for the people that interact with them—is contagious.
We need to think more like entertainment designers than marketers. If you’re interrupting someone on their way to their favourite concert, for example, you need to make the experience interesting and entertaining. At the end of the day, we’re there to inform consumers and tell them a brand story, so the problem we’re solving is mediocrity or doing things just for the sake of doing them. We hate wasting money and we don’t like technology for technology’s sake. There’s got to be an entertainment component to it and it’s got to inspire a sense of wonder.
There are more cost-effective ways to get tweets or to get somebody to post about your brand on Instagram than setting up a giant vending machine. But it does allow you to stop people and have a deeper engagement with them about the brand and what the story is.
You talked a little bit about wonderMakr’s origin story, but it’s not an average business. What gave you the confidence to take the leap and start your own company?
Carissa: Mark was increasingly frustrated because he was getting a little bored with what he was doing previously. I started championing him to go out and make a go of it on his own. For years, we joked about starting our own agency because he and I have similar-ish backgrounds in marketing and traditional advertising and we came to that realization that we both had different but complementary skill sets. Mark is very much the creative visionary and problem solver and I had an understanding of the process, the team, the culture, and also the nature of the clients. It felt like another perfect marriage.
That is a great segue into my next question. You are both business partners and a married couple. How do you define roles and address conflict?
Carissa: We do a really bad job of keeping work and home life separate but we’re working on that. I personally waffle on about it because I like our children to understand the journey that we’re taking. I believe in sharing stories—it’s why we’re here today talking with you. Sharing stories is how people learn and grow and how they vet ideas and gain confidence. But I think we both acknowledge that we need to minimize how much our work enters our personal lives and our home lives. It can take over from time-to-time and lines can get blurred. Sometimes I will say, “I need Mark my husband today, I don’t need Mark my business partner”.
If something tough happens in the workplace, how does that impact conversation at the dinner table?
Carissa: The kids are really interested and they ask us about work all the time. We typically answer them and explain why it was a tough day and how we handled it. We try to be positive about every situation but we don’t sugarcoat things so we just work really hard on carving out time that doesn’t involve talking wonderMakr.
What’s the most powerful lesson you’ve learned as entrepreneurs?
Mark: I think the most powerful lesson I’ve learned as an entrepreneur is that I am one. It was only around two or three years ago when I realized I actually am an entrepreneur. Even when I started wonderMakr, I didn’t think of myself as an entrepreneur. I just thought, “I’m just going to do the next thing”. I’m personally following things that interest me and that I think have potential. I’ve always found jobs that interest me and I was lucky enough to work in a couple of agencies where I could change roles relatively easily. I’m a really curious person by nature. I started my career in radio as a copywriter, became a creative director, moved to be a copywriter at a marketing agency, started doing some account work, then moved to become a studio manager. I’ve always jumped into things that interest me because I want to learn a lot. I’m a really astute generalist and I know enough about enough things that I can think of ideas that are plausible and not screw anybody around. I think that’s what being an entrepreneur is—being able to absorb a lot of information and then make a decision.
I’ve come to realize what a difference it makes when you have somebody to bounce ideas off of, to commiserate with, to look to for advice, and to channel wisdom through. It really makes you feel less alone.
Carissa: I would say there are two lessons that have been the most powerful for me. Number one, I didn’t realize how much I needed and wanted mentorship. I feel like it’s so important. Even though we’re doing this as a couple, there’s something very isolating sometimes about the struggles of running a start-up and being entrepreneurs. In my post-advertising career, I had become very involved with entrepreneurs and start-ups, helping them build branding packages and package their intellectual capital. Through that process, I would hear “my mentor said this”, or “my advisor said this,” and I’ve come to realize what a difference it makes when you have somebody to bounce ideas off of, to commiserate with, to look to for advice, and to channel wisdom through. It really makes you feel less alone.
The other lesson is the power of planning, which sounds incredibly obvious but when things are new or you’re chasing the next deal it’s so easy to get caught up and be reactive instead of proactive. But planning your time, your projects, and your future has so much utility. The moment you have a plan, it helps carve a pathway that feels less complex and frightening. It’s also pretty liberating when you can look back and see that actually followed your plan.
What are some of the pressing challenges your business is facing at the moment?
Carissa: For me, I would say the gap between client expectations and what we’re able to deliver in the time that we have available. We’re not producing a print ad, so it’s not as simple as going in and changing a Pantone colour or resizing something. For the kind of work we do, the level of complexity involved in changing something—even something that’s seemingly minor—can have a dramatic ripple effect on anything that we build. When a client throws in what they think is a very small request, I have to explain why that might delay a program or have an impact on our QA and testing. We’re trying to get better at having these conversations upfront and educating our clients about what goes into these kinds of projects at the point of signing the statement of work. It’s a fine balance because you don’t want to scare anybody away. We often need our clients to hold our hands and trust us. Client education and risk management are some of the bigger challenges I have to deal with pretty much on a daily basis.
Mark: I would say the most pressing challenge is trying to define who we are. We get called an agency a lot and I understand how people would think that from the outside. But we’re really trying to skirt that line between agency and supplier. What I mean is, we’re there to complement the brand or the agency’s current planning and strategies. Our job is to listen to the brand and the story they want to tell and either come up with a showstopper idea or to deliver on ideas that the agency may have come up with that seem improbable and unique.
The challenge sometimes is that agencies won’t let us in. If all we’re told is “here’s what we want you to build” it’s a pity. Ideas don’t live in isolation and if we have a better understanding of what they’re trying to get people to think, feel, or do, we might be able to suggest other directions that no one has thought of yet. People are very, very protective, and I get that, but I’m not out to take anyone’s business. There should be mutual respect for what expertise each team has and know that when you come together, you complement each other, you don’t threaten.
Getting a seat at the table can be tough. We try to encourage agencies to think of us as their outsourced creative tech team. We want to be a complement to their service offering, we’re not trying to take anything away.
Ideas don’t live in isolation
Carissa: In fact, even in some of the best relationships that we have there’s still some hesitation. I think part of it is on us to better drive that partnership. I think we need to be more overt about why we want a seat at the table and start having those conversations. Like everything else, it comes down to how much time and bandwidth we have. But the more conversations where we can explain why we want that seat, the better. It’s actually not that advantageous for us to only work directly with brands, because then we only work with one brand. We love working with agencies because, hopefully, once we’ve proved ourselves, we can start working with more of their teams on more of their clients.
If you could remove one task or responsibility from your day-to-day, what would it be?
Mark: I’ve read a lot of great articles about creative people running their own businesses and the challenges they face, and I identify with all of it. I’m really always about the ideas and, on the operation side of things, I think I get a little bit bogged down. The day-to-day management of people and resources is tough for me. I think that’s why Carissa and I complement each other so well. She is definitely more of a people person. Not that I’m not a people person, I’m very comfortable being in front of people and I do talks all the time, I’m just in my head so much. We could be having a conversation and I’m somewhere else. So the minutiae of things, and trying to solve those little problems that don’t necessarily have to do with the work that we do is not something I relish. I’m not a big fan of drama. Whenever I try to figure out what the problem is, people get annoyed at me, because I’m just really drilling down to facts and everybody likes to talk outside of those. I just want people to give me the facts and I’ll give my answer and move on.
Carissa: For me, it’s something that I feel like is probably quite solvable but is just a big time suck—allocating and booking my time. Whenever I look at automated systems for that, it makes me nervous because I have some control issues. I like the nuances of my schedule! Juggling that can be really time-consuming. I also need to figure out how to better manage the distractions that come across my plate.
When it comes to your operations, what are some of the more specific pain points and how you tackle them?
Carissa: Because of the very nature of the programs we do, we tend to wind up feeling quite reactionary. We are consistently willing to change and evolve the way we do things. Take QA and testing for example—we have some great ideas about how that’s going to play out with our team, but the timeline shifts or we have to be out of the office for some reason and suddenly the plan that we had in place and the operational protocol goes out the window. We are always doing our best to stay one step ahead and make sure that things are moving through the ranks properly, but it’s a challenge because of the multiple hats we’re still wearing. I think there’s going to be a role we will need to fill at some point to help oversee all of the day-to-day operations.
Mark: We are under a lot of pressure to deliver because if an event is going live at 8 am, it’s going live at 8 am and we need to get the work done. There can be a lot of late nights, a lot of weekends. So load management and trying to make sure that the team has time to recover and rest can be a pain point. We’re really flexible with time. Family is really important to us and having that work-life balance is important. Does that mean that everybody here takes all the time they should to recover? Probably not. There are so many variables that lead to a situation where you’re in the office at 11 p.m. the night before a project is due, trying to get the work done. You regroup and you learn and you try not to let it happen again, but it’s tough.
What do you each of you think is the best part about being an entrepreneur?
Mark: There’s a freedom you get when you’re doing your own thing. You can make calls that are risky and if it goes wrong, you’re probably the only one that’s going to get upset about it. That’s the best part—how your day goes is entirely up to you. Every now and again I’ll have days where I feel like I’m stuck in the drudgery but I remember it really is up to me to change it. It isn’t always easy. Everyone says that if you put the effort in you’re going to succeed, but that’s not true. There are no guarantees and you have to be comfortable with the idea that you could fail. The stars are not always going to align, you just have to have faith. Sometimes you can get upset and doubt yourself, but I’m allowed to do that because I don’t have anyone telling me how I should feel. I’m the one who determines how to react and cope with the difficulties of being an entrepreneur.
Everyone says that if you put the effort in you’re going to succeed, but that’s not true. There are no guarantees and you have to be comfortable with the idea that you could fail.
Carissa: I love—for better for worse—the emotions involved. The highs and the lows. I don’t relish the lows but the lows keep you humble. Humility is very important to both of us and there’s nothing like running a business to keep you super humble! The accountability piece is definitely high on my radar as well. Some days it can be frightening—I look at the team we’ve amassed and I care deeply about each of them, their families, their mortgages… and it can be frightening, but it’s also so satisfying. There’s a purpose way beyond Mark and I and that’s why we get up every day. We’re not just getting up for us and we’re not just getting up for our kids. It’s about something bigger and bolder.
There’s a purpose way beyond Mark and I and that’s why we get up every day. We’re not just getting up for us and we’re not just getting up for our kids. It’s about something bigger and bolder.
What are some of the tools you rely on to either make your job easier or to inspire you?
Mark: I love absorbing information on a wide range of topics—I’m a big reader of news but I try to read a variety of sources to get I as many different opinions as I can. I’d love to read more but it can be tough to find the time so I listen to a lot of audiobooks and a lot of podcasts. There’s a podcast Alie Ward does called Ologies where she interviews biologists, palaeontologists, herpetologists… anything she wants to know about that ends in “ology”. And to me, that’s fascinating because I want to know as much as I can about this world. To me, innovation is about connecting disparate things. So one day I might listen to a podcast about the moon and then listen to something from Sam Harris on the changes in culture and society and how best to navigate that as a conscientious person. I’m a consumer of as much information and sources as I can get. I’d be happy just walking around a library all day and picking up random books. As an eight-year-old, I used to sit there with the Reader’s Digest and the Great World Atlas. I must have read that thing about 50 times, just looking at all the different maps, trying to memorize capitals.
In terms of technologies, we use Slack for team chat and we use Monday for tracking projects. I love those two tools but I also love that there are so many tools going live all the time. We started using Pipedrive for sales stuff and, though I’m not necessarily going to use that all the time, I love knowing how it works.
Carissa: I listen to more business-related content. I really enjoy Kerwin Rae. He’s an Australian business coach with a very refreshing perspective. He has a podcast, is active on Instagram, and he does a lot of blogging. He really appeals to me because so much of what he speaks about is related to human connection and how that applies to business. I also listen to Seth Godin and I’m a big fan of a book called Traction by Gino Wickman. I’ve used a lot of the tools he laid out in that book and feel like they’re very digestible and easy to follow.
I’m always looking to follow people who I believe are trailblazers for various reasons. I really enjoyed reading Michelle Obama’s book Becoming and learning a bit about what she and Barack went through. On a smaller scale, there’s a great podcast called The Birds Papaya by a female influencer called Sarah Nicole, who’s based in Guelph. She’s shining a light on so many important issues and is empowering women. That’s where I want to drive my focus because there’s so much to be learned from these people and all of their triumphs and failures.
Learn more about wonderMakr by visiting their website https://www.wondermakr.com/ and follow their amazing work on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
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