Crafting high-quality stories propels Final5's growth

When Matt Dibble goes to his job each day, he isn't thinking about the work he has to do as much as the stories he gets to tell.

The founder of Final5 has learned a lot in the five years since launching his creative agency, first and foremost that the biggest successes come when his clients better connect with their community through stories.

"We realized that our unique ability is in the designing and crafting of stories," Dibble says. "For us it's a little bit more about the story."

Dibble launched his company, which was originally called Final Five Productions, as a video-production firm that made short videos for companies at a premium. The business model worked for a time, but Dibble found a way to create something bigger.

He moved his firm to the Green Garage and started to working with mentors there on how to grow it. They taught him to look beyond his narrow scope of work -- to stop focusing on making video and start telling stories.

"First we find and craft the story," Dibble says. "Then we build it according to the best medium for it. It has opened us up to a larger client base in Detroit"

Now Final5 produces a variety of content for a variety of clients, which includes for-profit companies, social entrepreneurs, and nonprofits. One of its most recent projects was to create an employee handbook for The Empowerment Plan, a social venture that hires previously homeless women to make sleeping bag coats for homeless people.

The diversification of clients and media has helped the firm grow its team (two new hires) and its revenue, setting up Final5 for its best year yet. Dibble and company recently opened up their own office in TechTown with the idea of helping more companies and nonprofits tell their stories.

"We do our best work and have the most fun when we are helping people," Dibble says.

Source: Matt Dibble, founder of Final5
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.