043: All Maple, Amazing Mentors, Arcane Marketing, and More with Eric Vardon

The Digital Marketing Mentor

Today, we delve into Eric Vardon's journey from pioneering the digital marketing landscape in the 90s to co-founding and gracefully selling his first agency, Arcane. We discuss the valuable lessons in mentorship, business growth, and smooth acquisitions he’s learned along the way.

Episode Highlights

• Eric Vardon started his career by finding one of the only colleges near him offering a website coding and development course. He then went on to co-found All Maple Apparel. While that may sound like a clothing store, which it did evolve into, it originated as more of an e-zine (like an internet magazine, a format popular before blogs took over). It started out discussing all things happening locally to them in Canada, and eventually, merchandising became a piece of their offerings, and that blossomed into a couple of brick-and-mortar All Maple Apparel stores. Eventually, they couldn’t keep up with the need for capital investment and had to close down.
• A mentor is someone who sees something in you that you can’t see in yourself. It’s usually a reflection of something they see in themselves. For Eric, there’s also a sort of connection or spark that happens right away when a mentorship begins. Eric has had a few impactful mentors, including his business partner, other co-founders, and an investor. They’ve all taught him many business and life skills and have done a brilliant job of keeping ego out of the way to maximize personal and business growth.
• Eric has gone through the mergers & acquisitions (M&A) process with his first agency, Arcane Agency. He and his co-founder came to that business with the knowledge and internal resolution to replace themselves and get out of the way of the business as soon as possible. They’ve always known what they were good at and what they weren’t. They utilized an M&A firm to manage their transition, and while expensive, it was worth it as they managed to help a process often fraught with issues go incredibly smoothly.

Episode Links:

• Eric Vardon
  • EventConnect
  • Socials:
    • LinkedIn

Follow The Digital Marketing Mentor:

• Website and Blog: thedmmentor.com
• Instagram: @thedmmentor
• Linkedin: @thedmmentor
• YouTube: @thedmmentor

Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:

• Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
• ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.