Meet Daniël-James van den Berg | Founder, Creative Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Daniël-James van den Berg and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Daniël-James, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I go by Daniël-James van den Berg a multimedia design agency owner and a ginger South African who loves to break dancer who loves to break dance in my spare time. Back in 2011, I interned at a Fortune 500 executive coaching company that focuses on car dealers like Mercedes and other companies. Back then I was working as a server at Spur steak launches one of the biggest chains in South Africa. I was doing this part-time while interning at this other company. It taught me a lot about being humble and how to serve people even from cleaning the floor to serving them food or hearing their story for the day and helping them process emotions at the dinner table. Another fantastic fact about Spur steak ranches was they had a very intense sales Commission and incentive program each waiter would work on Commission only back and compete in regionals and other sales competitions select it was a ruthless environment that taught me to work hard and push boundaries in a reasonable manner. Following that, I was the multimedia designer for graphics, video, web, and presentation design for large events. The most important lessons I learned about business was strategy first then sales followed by creativity and execution on projects. I created a video course that was 24-36 months long with one video training of an hour a week for Exec Clients. Finally, that evolved into the company expanding back into the US they had a US and Canadian owner who had their focus on Fort Collins Co. After six years of being in this company I was inspired by bringing psychological design and concepts to the market. Yet I wanted to expand more on that rather than just focusing on executive clients to reach more companies in the space of car dealers, property management companies, construction, contractors, and manufacturing companies. The thought process behind starting DJM.Design was really building out freelancer hubs and allowing people to have the same opportunity I had starting as an intern freelancer. While running the company for the last six years it’s been an absolute joy to see client results and for them to embrace the model that we have. Sure there are bumps in the road and hurdles and obstacles to overcome like any business but the core stays the same our mission statement is designed tomorrow together. Our values are ESC which stands for excellence simplicity and compassion for the community and the African saying Ubuntu. It describes a spirit of interconnectedness, humanness, and mutuality. Ubuntu, meaning “I am what I am because of who we are”. This is deep-rooted in the company and speaks volumes for the mindset we carry. Deciding to use empathy for those around us when doubt and fear run rampant which causes impetuous decision-making among clients and vendor partners can lead to a spiral effect. Empathy deflects this and allows for hearing out rational understanding to lead to breakthroughs and problem-solving. My Christian faith also ties in a lot of these values when portraying Jesus as a cornerstone role model for inspiration and endurance to grow slowly and steadily, which tends to get lost in the alfa social media culture push we are seeing today.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
The most simple way that sets us apart is that we are multicultural in every sense we also have a very diverse team that our clients really enjoy we focus mostly on execution and customer service above everything else. Speed leads to certain problems and so we try to take our time with the clients our surveys have shown that people enjoy quality more than speed for the most part. Secondly, We are psychologically focused on design practices that lead to action and we emphasize the design and the experience more than anything else. Part of that is sales psychology and the knowledge and training we’ve picked up over the years. Lastly, we pride ourselves to giving 11% to nonprofits from our net profit. These selfless companies include serving USA communities with resources like the Dream Center Northern Colorado, Youth For Christ Northern Colorado, and The Clothing Bank in Cape Town South Africa ( Which provides jobs for families and education for kids in rural areas via mobile phone).

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If they were in Greeley Co I would take them to the hatchet house where we can do axe throwing. Following that we would probably do an escape room and have dinner at Austins green steakhouse. Alternatively, if they were in my home country I would take them to Cape Town to go see Table Mountain the 7th wonder of the world they call it God’s wonder because it has 12 peaks which they call the 12 apostles and one tabletop flat mountain that you can run marathons on. Connected to the end of the 12 peaks you have what’s called where two oceans meet the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean at certain times of the day you can see the heat difference between the two oceans and it’s beautiful. Following that we would go and do some wineries on the ocean route and then do dinner at the waterfront in Cape Town. For a morning activity would rise early and go do a nature safari in one of the private reserves with animals are untouched see Lions, buffalo, rhinos, elephants, and leopards. This is what’s called the big 5 in South Africa and it is rare to see all of them at the same time. A massive bucket list item finally for lunch we could paraglide from one of the mountains down to a beach in Cape Town. For lunch, we would visit Clifton where they have a bunch of beach restaurants. This is a long list but if you’re wanting to swim in the ocean I would recommend going to mossel Bay the water is warmer and you can go and see seal island where great whites breach.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Black Mountain Manufacturing Leading Edge Electric
Oneway.Build
Norco Roofing
Oneway.Realty
Eaglecompany.us
Biltritesigns.com

Website: www.djm.design

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danieljamesvdb/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieljamesvdb/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanielJamesVDB

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/djmdesign

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-otSRk7_FxHN1PpawmlJ_A?sub_confirmation=1

Other: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@djmdesign

Image Credits
The hot sauce image is with Matt Shoup from M and E Painting and mattshoup.com on the DJM.Design – MoneyBru Show podcast content that we feature every Tuesday at 10am.