Alumnus Jeremy Minick has discovered the secret to better online marketing: humanity.
Jeremy Minick ‘16 woke up one morning and decided, “I don’t want to be an attorney.”
Minick, a Christendom philosophy major, was a junior at the time and had planned on studying law after college. His brother, Jake, a 2006 Christendom graduate, runs a law firm in North Carolina, and Minick had planned to join him there after graduation. While “Minick & Minick Law” still had a nice ring to it, Minick felt the call to pursue a different vocation.
Jeremy Minick earned his philosophy degree from Christendom in 2016. Now, he’s in an elite class of today’s emerging entrepreneurs.
Almost two years later, Minick is now the founder and owner of Enable, a startup company specializing in web design, marketing, and graphic design for small businesses. While other young college graduates around the world are struggling to get themselves started, Minick has joined the elite few that makes up today’s class of young entrepreneurs, taking a familiar market — online marketing — and reinventing it in a way that’s earning him big clients and great success.
“What makes Enable truly unique is how it provides the human medium between do-it-yourself website design and expensive, in-house marketing. We’ve reinvented the wheel, as it were, not by reinventing the services currently available, but instead by offering proven methods to small businesses with real, human interaction, all at an affordable rate,” says Minick. “About 50% of what we do is related to soft skills. Our ability to think big picture and communicate well with clients gives us a human element that we rely on. This is how Enable sets itself apart.”
The idea for Enable came to him the summer after he decided against studying law. Still needing a summer job, Minick traveled to North Carolina to help his brother redesign the website for his law firm. While Minick had never worked on web design before, he quickly discovered a knack for it — with a little help from Google, and a lot of help from the near-constant drive that has helped him his entire life.
“I realized that, while I didn’t want to be an attorney, I liked marketing attorneys. I liked helping businesses find their voice and be discovered,” says Minick. “Many small businesses simply don’t have the time to make a website, create logos, and market their business. I saw the perfect opportunity there to provide that service out of house at an affordable price.”
Enable specializes in delivering website design, marketing strategy, and graphic design support all in one place, and all at an affordable price.
Upon returning to Christendom, Minick began setting the foundation for his own company and began working on a long-term strategy that would help him see it through to fruition — and this is where his philosophy classes were beneficial.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today without my philosophy degree. Yes, I could have gotten a degree in marketing from another college. But, I wouldn’t consider changing my college decision for a moment. Why? Schooling in marketing, for one thing, doesn’t help that much, because by the time you’ve learned it, marketing trends have already passed you by,” says Minick. “A liberal arts education gives you the ability to plan for the long-term, which a lot of companies aren’t doing anymore. They don’t plan with the end in mind, which is what philosophy taught me to do: start with the end, and then plan for it,” he says.
Minick’s success with a philosophy degree is similar to other recent startup successes, such as with the founder of Slack Technologies. He also graduated with a degree in philosophy, and his company is now valued at 2.8 billion — causing Forbes to say that the “‘useless liberal arts degree has become tech’s hottest ticket.”
Enable currently employs a number of current Christendom undergrads who are helping Minick realize his big picture plans for Enable. At the same time, Minick is helping these students get a leg up on their future careers, giving them jobs and also setting an example for them about what can happen if you chase your dreams while you’re young.
With his drive and his philosophical mind, Minick’s dream, which all began one morning when he decided against being an attorney, is quickly becoming a realty.
To discover more about Enable, visit their website at enablewebdesign.com.