BRUCE T DUGAN: A Daredevil Technopreneur
Digitization and its explosive opportunities have inspired entrepreneurs and business leaders to step beyond the fence. They have actuated digital interaction with business and people, automation, and much more; in short, our way of life. Based on these innovative inputs, it’s safe to say that they’re continually demonstrating their ingenuity. Being innovative is the need of this era. We are living at the edge of transformations, and it is important for leaders to adapt – to grow.
Bruce T. Dugan, the founder of Incognito Worldwide and several other tech-enabled enterprises, is a native New Yorker with imaginative and experienced leadership. It’s unusual for an entrepreneur to go to a country on a short-term project, then meet a few locals and form a business around them. He did, and the result was Incognito Worldwide. Let’s dive into this dignitary’s entrepreneurial journey to know more about him and him and his company.
AN UNORTHODOX INCEPTION
In 2012, Bruce visited Bangalore to hire a friend’s firm to complete a project he was involved in. His sole intent was to stay for a month to design the project, then fly to Thailand while that team completed coding, before returning to Bangalore for the final phase of the project. But fate had something else in store for him. He found a group of young people and decided to launch an offshore digital service company built around them. Two years later it was selected ‘Startup of the Year’ and quickly went from 3 people to 20.
Incognito Worldwide has evolved from a web development company to a full-fledged digital services firm, offering branding & design, website development, online marketing, and automated platform solutions. Another Inicia subsidiary, I2MEDIALAB, provides high-level custom software, and platform development, while the parent company, Inicia Incorporated, manages operations of these and other brands. while also offering additional services to startups, SBEs, and large corporations alike, including accounting, investment materials development. and specific industry consulting. The group of companies forms an end-to-end provider with a single point of contact.
An Unbridled Passion For Entrepreneurship
Bruce is a serial entrepreneur who has conceived, launched, and operated several innovative startups over the years, beginning with Worldway Freight Systems in 1982. He was a thought-leader in that industry with innovative accounting and bookkeeping systems, and a service leader of point-to-point LTL long haul delivery. He exec-produced and secured distribution for two films, and launched two nationally distributed record labels. before finding his way into technology and media in 2005.
But it was during his logistics years working closely with Fortune-100 manufacturers and branded consumer product companies that he gained eclectic insights — across a broad range of industry sectors — from his client’s operations that he would later use in his career to recognize operational pain points and choke points, and then develop strategies to increase productivity and/or reducing redundancy.
While Bruce learned how the big corporations were structured and operated, as an SME he had to be able to adapt to changing conditions much faster and combine the two, or in his words “be nimble enough to dance between the elephant’s legs.”
Recognizing the need to share and channel values, visions, plans, and strategies with his team and team leaders, his operating philosophy had been to identify the company and team goals, and then allow the team leaders the freedom to (A) pursue their own strategies, (B) learn from those successes, and (C) rinse and repeat. With the overall company and subsidiaries integrated but sprawled out over three continents, the company has been a remote-based operation long before anyone knew the word COVID-19.
Bruce and the executives invested extensive time and energy into building the company processes and infrastructure on technology that could transcend time and distance barriers. They hold regular virtual meetings, oversee and manage projects, layout long/short-term goals, and action plans, utilizing that technology with each department communicating in real-time to fulfill client needs.
As an American, Bruce, also focused on teaching his India-based team how to adapt to a U.S. client mindset, during his 6-year residency in India. Those efforts have seen stellar client reviews, affording them the luxury to pick and choose which customers they work with, with nearly 100% client satisfaction. To date. most new customers are acquired via referrals.
AN ADRENALINE PUNCHED PERSONA
While Bruce had deep knowledge and experience in startups. logistics, production, marketing, and distribution, he approaches projects with an abstract vision combined with a linear process and excels at industry trend recognition, strategic and planning & development. The result is his ability in deep market research and to convert client’s vision into practical reality. In 2020 he and his co-founder & CTO, Mario Delfino, along with the Incognito directors. Kiran K, Nihanth K, and creative directors Shalini V and Ruby Gonsalez, successfully designed, built, and published Dinevite me, both now available in the Apple and Google app stores, and oversee the marketing roll-out.
Bruce has been a maverick throughout his career, often proving naysayers wrong to foresee coming trends, but also embodies the concept of being a digital nomad and adventurer. At the age of 60, along with Nihanth, they took motorcycles and set out on a 30-day motorcycle adventure from Bangalore to Kardung La (https://rideofyourlife.in/), the highest road in the world located in the Indian Himalayas. He and team would often spend weeks each year in huts on the beach of South Goa where they’d decompress, working a few hours each day. He is well-traveled and lived in Buenos Aires, Cannes France, and San Pedro, Mexico. currently running the company from Cancun, Mexico.
He had his share of failures but used each to learn and adapt. His team endured setbacks and challenges but emerged stronger and more resilient from each, Today they operate several brands, including i2Medialab, Incognito, I2Webservices, First Drum Films, Intech Creative LLC, Dinevite, and several online magazines and resource directories.
UNABASHED BY TECHNOLOGY IMPEDIMENTS
Incognito Worldwide avoids tech-speak and maintains clear communications with clients to meet expectations. Whether it’s as simple as making an appealing logo, developing websites, web or mobile apps and/or marketing them, or helping clients streamline their operations. the team’s track-record has been impressive.
According to Mr. Dugan, “the goal of the company isn’t making money; that is merely the result of a job well done, and my co-founding partner Mario and Incognito directors have contributed to make that a reality: I could not have achieved it without their passionate commitment and efforts. We’ve been blessed to have been able to help so many SMEs achieve their own success, to developing complex custom projects for the city of Buenos Aires, banks, and industry leading brands.”
JOURNEY OF AN ACHIEVER
Bruce’s efforts in business and leadership is quite significant and has attracted major attention. Some of the recent accolades include:
- 25 most valuable CEO’s in India ( profiled Bruce T. Dugan )
- Entrepreneurs to Watch, 2018 ( profiled Kiran Kumar R )
- Technology 50 Emerging Company, 2020 ( profiled Mario Delfino )
However, Bruce says his greatest achievements have been the ability to work with creative people and interesting projects of choice. amassing a multi-dimensional multi-cultural client base, and robust team of friends. who have become more like family.
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