Whether it's Content Production, Engineering or Business Development jobs at Ozmo, each Ozmonaut has a unique story of how they reached their current role at the company. Their hard work and dedication are apparent, collaborating with other Ozmonauts to improve the customer experience at all levels.
This month, Business Development Manager Dan Fithian discussed his progression on the New Business Development team at Ozmo.
Q: How long have you worked at Ozmo and what were you doing when you first joined the company?
I've worked for Ozmo for about two and a half years, heading toward three. I started in May of 2019 as I was heading into my senior year of college.
Q: Describe the path from how you started at Ozmo to the role you’re in now.
When I started, I was a Business Development Intern heading into my senior year of college and I did a year-long internship, which was really cool how Ozmo offered not just a summer internship but a year-long option. After my internship, I was lucky enough to receive a full-time offer as I graduated college. This role was Business Development Associate, so I got to jump into an Associate role directly out of college. I was doing lots of different support roles for our Business Development team and I was offered a promotion to Business Development Manager, where I'm at now. The whole journey has been really awesome and rewarding. I’ve enjoyed this position the most because I get to own my own pipeline, my own deals and manage my own accounts. This has been extremely challenging but it is really, really awesome to get up every day and make an impact, not just at Ozmo directly but also with these really cool companies.
Interested in learning more about business development jobs at Ozmo?
Q: Why did you choose to work at Ozmo?
Choosing to work at Ozmo is one of my favorite parts of my Ozmo story. As I began applying for internships in my junior year of college, I also had in mind that I wanted to get engaged within the next few months. Ozmo provided me with the job I wanted in a business role as well as it allowed me to stay in Blacksburg, Virginia because I was attending Virginia Tech at the time. It also provided me a competitive pay in the area, affording me the ability to save up for an engagement ring and later propose to my girlfriend, who's now my wife.
Ozmo was supportive of my schoolwork too. They allotted me as much time as I needed to do work in my school and then gave me a really flexible schedule. It allowed me to work as much as I really wanted to. I was able to work hard and long to save for that ring. So, a lot of different reasons why I wanted to work at Ozmo but a lot of it was that it’s a really cool job while in college, directly applicable to the career that I wanted and they were really flexible with what I was doing with my personal life, which really meant a lot to me.
Q: What makes Ozmo such a unique place to work?
Ozmo is unique for a number of different reasons. Firstly, the culture. Everyone likes to talk about the culture of their company but I think Ozmo is really something special. The Ozmo culture is that of a startup – it's a village really. I've never gone to an Ozmonaut and have been told “No, I can't help you” when I needed something. It's either “Of course, let me see what I can do” or if they know someone who can help better, they're happy to point me in that direction. We're all here to help each other succeed, so that's really special to the culture.
The culture is really fun, whether it's from people playing video games like Super Smash Bros in the office, going out for drinks or going to lunch every day. Ozmo is also really intentional about cultivating this culture of employee relationships and they host a lot of different events that are really fun. There are multiple yearly parties that are hosted where Ozmonauts get together.
Secondly, I’ll say what makes working at Ozmo such a unique place is the work that we get to do and the companies we get to do business with. Especially while in college while I was in my internship and now right out of college, not many people of my peers get to say that they work with big enterprises like Google, AT&T and Verizon and scale all the way down to more regional companies like Nex-Tech Wireless or C Spire. These companies have a direct impact on people's lives and Ozmo has a direct impact on those companies, indirectly supporting their customers. So not just the support in the support world but also really impacting how people live their life is really unique and especially getting to work with those larger enterprises. I love the ability to actually get out there in the world and make relationships while also helping to grow Ozmo.
Want to know what makes Ozmo's business development jobs so special? Visit our careers page.
Q: What is your favorite Ozmo memory?
My favorite Ozmo memory is while I was in my internship, we won a new customer which is always exciting at any young company. There was an employee party celebrating this customer and Ozmo huddled all the employees together and announced the customer. There was a bunch of food with mimosas and it was a fun time where we all got to celebrate not just the people who worked on winning the deal but also everyone at the company. No matter what their role was, everyone joined in for the celebration and it reverberated a message for me that this isn't a small team doing these things, it's the entire company that's responsible for these wins.
Q: What are some of your proudest accomplishments while at Ozmo?
One of my proudest accomplishments was before I came into my Business Development Manager role was I got to work with our co-founder who was overseeing my internship where I was able to develop and create this living and dynamic forecasting sheet. We pulled out all of these different data points from our customer relationship management software (CRM) and measured how much our current deals are worth and how much our prospective deals are worthwhile trying to pull together all these data points to create an accurate sheet that will inform our growth in the future. Also, we wanted to report on our current performance, so it was really challenging to develop. It was really rewarding to complete. Another is the first customer deal I was able to close, which was also very rewarding. I'm really proud of that accomplishment in that we were able to actually beat out a competitor which is very exciting and always a really cool thing to do.
Q: What does day-to-day life look like for you at Ozmo? What do you enjoy most about your role?
Day-to-day being on the Business Development team, I’m usually either calling or communicating with people who I think could benefit from Ozmo, either customers themselves or the businesses where their support agents can benefit as well. So I’m either communicating with them or I'm in meetings to demo our product and help move our current opportunities and our current open accounts forward, whether that is discussing which products are going to be best for the company. We also figure out how we'll make things work for them and their current situation. One of the most amazing things about Ozmo is that we're committed to not just growing a business but really helping people and helping other organizations. That means being flexible with how we're making these deals and that's a really fun part of the job.
Q: What does being an Ozmonaut mean to you?
Being an Ozmonaut means so many things. I think it is having opportunities and making an impact on the world. Not just in the support world but in real people's lives – our product is really impacting these end customers in the device support world. People are really engaging with Ozmo’s product and it's helping them in their day-to-day life. It's helping them solve issues and frustrations they're having and that's really powerful. I think everyone wants to leave a legacy and being an Ozmonaut you get to be a part of really a significant legacy in the world of tech support and that's really special to be able to be a part of that
Q: What do you like to do when you aren’t working?
What takes up a lot of my time is playing with and taking care of my one-and-a-half-year-old yellow labrador, Maple. I love to take her out and play with her around town. I enjoy cooking and sharing meals with family and friends, as well as hosting get-togethers. I love doing anything outdoors as well, like fishing, hunting, playing sports or even just hanging out by a fire or around any body of water.
