John Van Dinther

Playing Dungeons & Dragons taught me everything I know about marketing. When you’re the dungeon master you’ve got to convince a crew of people to join you in a story that you’re all making up together as you go along. You need images, avatars, and a narrative thread. Underneath the hood it’s like juggling chainsaws on a unicycle but somehow it all has to look and feel natural in the moment. It takes so many moving parts to have someone feel like the hero of a story wielding a magic sword to slay the dragon. So maybe it matters that I’ve been an entrepreneur for 30 years, but I really think it’s about 5th grade when I ran a crew of adventurers during lunch in the library.

I founded Two Hats Consulting in 2007, we do branding and marketing for nonprofits and small businesses. I swear creating a brand is just like making a Dungeons & Dragons character, really.