Garrett Winder and Ryan Dunagan both graduated from ACU – Ryan in 2008 and Garrett in 2009. Garrett graduated with a degree in Accounting and Ryan graduated with degrees in Marketing and Management. We’re proud of these alumni entrepreneurs and grateful to Ryan for taking the time to share a little bit about GANDR Web with us.
Ryan Dunagan ('08)
1. Tell us about your company. What do you do?
GANDR Web – a web design and online marketing agency. I handle all of the internal marketing efforts and project management as well as research and user experience work for our clients.
2. In a few brief paragraphs, how’d you get started?
While roommates in college, Garrett Winder and I decided we wanted to work in the web industry. He learned how to develop and I learned the marketing and project management strategies involved in the web. The more we spent time learning it the more we enjoyed it. Our work started off small but projects started getting bigger and our small side gig became more real.
I graduated a year before Garrett and went into the commercial real estate industry. I enjoyed it but working on web projects was more of my true passion. A year later, once Garrett graduated we decided to make GANDR a full-time thing. So I quit my job and we started GANDR. We got an office in downtown Abilene, hired a few interns and a designer and began work.
3. What class, project or professor helped prepare you the most for your journey?
I would probably say the entrepreneurship class along with my marketing classes. It helped me to recognize some of the characteristics of an entrepreneur in myself. The marketing classes were beneficial in learning how to strategically put together a plan to grow a business.
4. What’s one piece of advice you’d share with future and current business students at ACU?
Be proactive with your career. It’s hard to achieve anything if you’re sitting on the sidelines.
Note: In 2011 GANDR became a part-time venture. Garrett was offered a great opportunity as a developer for a company in Nottingham England and I was offered a job as a Marketing Manager for a startup in Austin.
For more information about GANDR Web Design, visit http://gandrweb.com/
To take a look at what Garrett is working on these days, visit http://erskinedesign.com/.