KarmaDharma: The Beginning
Peter Georgariou
Founder & CEO
After an 18-year career with media giants such as Corus Entertainment, Astral Media, and Bell Media, I decided to open up a strategic planning and marketing agency called KarmaDharma. I felt that providing professional consulting and marketing services to Small-Medium sized Businesses (SMBs) was a huge opportunity for me to fill a gap in the market; majority of the large-scale marketing agencies only targeted the big fish.
Since the beginning, KarmaDharma has been helping organizations define their business model, establish their positioning and value proposition, as well as audit and create branding and go-to-market strategies. We offer a wide range of services to help organizations with their digital presence with services that include, but are not limited to, website development, SEO, social media, influencer, and content marketing. From a traditional standpoint, we offer clients media planning and buying services, TV & radio commercial production, graphic design expertise, and more.
Growing Pains
As the founder of a start-up, I wear every hat under the sun; some of which suit me better than others.
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[/su_column][su_column size=”4/5″]As KarmaDharma started to grow, it became evident that I was not all-knowing and that the company was facing roadblocks in the areas of accounting and structuring to effectively manage the fast-paced growth we were realizing.
Some of the growing pains KarmaDharma faced included knowing when to take on a new employee vs. a contract worker, how to pay out dividends, and how to defer taxes.[/su_column][/su_row]
KarmaDharma’s Hero: Scott Murdoch
Scott Murdoch
Partner
smurdoch@welchllp.com
I met Scott while we both sat on the board of Generate U, a not-for-profit I help to run. After one of our board meetings, Scott and I sat down to chat… and chat, and chat. It became evident that Scott was a valuable resource and a person that I could trust to help manage all of our growing pains.
Below is a list of just a few of the reasons why Scott Murdoch is KarmaDharma’s hero:
- He listens. Actively listens. Which is a rare commodity these days.
- He explains things to me in a way that I can easily understand and never makes me feel stupid.
- He is a business strategist at heart that just happens to be an accountant.
- He presented me with all my options for managing KarmaDharma’s growth, and we chose the best option together.
- His vast experience helped me realize the need to be patient in the process of starting a business (still a work in progress!)
- He is very reassuring and helped to alleviate the entrepreneurial feeling of being utterly alone.
- I didn’t get official before-and-after measurements, but I am convinced my blood pressure dropped after every meeting.
Scott was very clear up front that Welch wasn’t the cheapest accounting firm in town, but that I would make that money back in spades with the strategic advice they could provide me as a business owner. He could not have been more right. Nearly a year later, we are a team of 5 with several strategic partners, in the black, no debt, and growing!
Beyond being an amazing person, a wicked business mind, and rock star accountant, I feel like I have an honorary advisory board member that is watching out for both the health of my business and my personal health.
For that, I remain forever grateful.