After wrapping up a successful day of fishing in 2007, friends Damon Smith and Mike Calder founded BIGEYE DIRECT in Damon’s kitchen. Damon’s wife, Julie, suggested the name after Damon had just caught his first Bigeye Tuna, an elusive fish he had been trying to catch for years as well as their newborn daughter having big beautiful eyes. The following year, Damon and Jake met for lunch after being introduced through a mutual baseball buddy. BIGEYE was starting to grow, and Damon was in search of new energy on the sales side. Like Damon’s story, Jake had recently wrapped up his baseball career, earning a marketing degree in college and searching for his first “real” job. Knowing how difficult the learning curve is in Direct Mail, Damon asked Jake to promise to give him 2 full years to fully learn the business. Jake agreed and the two finished lunch exchanging baseball stories and laughing about the character you gain from failing in the difficult sport. Damon recalled the old baseball saying relating it to sales: “You’re going to strike out a lot, but if you ONLY fail 7 out of 10 times, you could end up in the hall of fame!” Embracing the challenge, Jake persevered and built a solid book of business. Fast forward to 2020, Mark Karl, the majority partner of BIGEYE at the time, and Mike Calder, Damon’s original partner, were ready to retire. Wanting to continue the BIGEYE story, Damon and Jake purchased the rest of BIGEYE from Mark & Mike. The transaction took place in December of 2020, and the new partners set out with a dual mission to only work with great partners and to make BIGEYE a premiere place for their employees to work.
While our name or founding may not be what you would expect from a direct mail marketing partner, we think it fits perfectly. It speaks to our:
Skill, Dedication & Tenacity When Pursuing Our Goals
The Big Problems We Solve, the Big Ideas We Create & the Big Opportunities We Offer Our Partners
The Importance of Celebrating the Good Things & Good Times in Life
