Before the Logo

In January 2022, The Toro Company acquired Intimidator Group for $400 million. By that point the company had a full marketing department, a dealer network across the country, multiple product lines, and brand recognition that turned heads at every trade show.

I helped create the logos.

Both of them — Spartan Mowers and Intimidator UTVs. I was in the room. And I need you to understand what "in the room" meant back then, because it's nothing like what you're picturing.

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There was no room.

There was no creative brief. No brand strategy deck. No agency presenting three options with mood boards and font pairings. There was a company that made products and needed a visual identity so people would know who we were.

Marketing wasn't my job title. It wasn't anyone's job title — because the role didn't exist yet. I took it on because it needed doing, and I kept doing it until we eventually brought on dedicated marketing personnel years later. But for a long stretch, I was the marketing department. Singular. One person responsible for everything the outside world would see: the logo, the website, the social media presence, the sponsorships, the photoshoots, the collateral, the trade show materials.

My qualifications? I was there. I cared. And I was willing to figure it out.

That's how things work at a company before it's a company. There are no job descriptions. There are no swim lanes. There's a thing that needs doing and someone who raises their hand.

I raised my hand for everything.

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The website was the first big project. I found a web development company, hired them, and then spent weeks going back and forth making sure the site actually represented who we were — which was a hard question to answer when we were still figuring that out ourselves. Every piece of content on that site came through me. Every image. Every word.

Social media was next. I set up every account. Facebook, YouTube, whatever platforms mattered at the time. I monitored them. I posted. I responded. I learned what worked by doing it wrong first. Those accounts I started from zero? Today, the Spartan Mowers and Spartan UTVs Facebook pages alone have close to 100,000 likes combined.

Sponsorships came after that — figuring out which events and which partnerships would put our brand in front of the right people. Then executing those deals. Then showing up. Then shooting the photos.

All of this while working on the branding that would go on the actual products — the decals, the visual identity that a customer would see on a mower or a UTV in their driveway.

I want to be clear: I'm not telling you this to impress you. I'm telling you because this is what the early days of a $400 million company actually look like, and it's nothing like the version that makes it into the acquisition announcement.

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If I'd Had AI…

I was one person trying to be an entire marketing department. It was unsustainable. It contributed to a pattern of overwork that I'll talk about more in future posts — the "burnout" half of this series title.

In 2026, a single person with AI tools genuinely can operate as a full marketing department. Content generation, social media scheduling and analysis, brand asset creation, competitive research, SEO, email campaigns — the tools exist now to do what took me 60-hour weeks. You wouldn't even need to hire a web dev agency to get started — AI-powered website builders can get you from zero to a professional site in a day.

And here's the part that doesn't get talked about enough: AI doesn't just make work faster. It makes work enjoyable again. It takes the soul-crushing repetitive tasks off your plate and lets you focus on the parts you actually care about — the creative decisions, the strategic thinking, the human connections. The burnout I experienced wasn't because the work was bad. It was because the volume was impossible. AI fixes the volume problem.

But here's the thing I've learned since leaving Intimidator and diving into AI enablement work: the tools are only as good as the person who understands the actual work. Every AI marketing tool in the world won't help you if you don't understand what a brand is, why it matters, or what your customers need to feel when they see your name.

I know that because I built it by hand. Sheet by sheet. Post by post. Sponsorship by sponsorship. Logo by logo.

That's the advantage of doing it the hard way first. And that's what this series is about.

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