The American Dream

New York 2013. 636 Broadway. Frank Ferrante, Covid, a 256-bit cloud… and everything in between.

Actually Making the Jump

Moving to New York isn’t a decision you take lightly. It may look that way from the outside, but it takes a solid dose of recklessness and an even bigger dose of planning — two things that, usually, don’t get along. After months spent running the numbers, studying the market, and talking it over at night with my wife until one of the two heads gave in, we had only one certainty left: the desire was stronger than the fear. And when desire beats fear, usually, you go.

Opening Digital Area LLC in the New York post-production scene was no walk in the park. Work visas, legal paperwork, permits, an office to find in the meanest real estate market in the world — every step a test. The person who pulled us out of trouble more than once, and I’m not saying it just to be polite, was our attorney Frank Ferrante — to whom we owe far more than a fee. In September 2013, at last, Digital Area LLC opened its doors at 636 Broadway, in the heart of Manhattan’s creative district.

The first months were tough, but electric. The Italian clients we brought with us were oxygen in the stretch where New York still had no clue who we were — without that bridge, I’m not sure we’d be here today to tell the story. Then, little by little, we started getting to know the American creative community, building a name, getting into the right circles. Fashion, advertising, editorial. A few stumbles along the way, as expected. But the usual obsession with doing things well, one rung at a time, paid off.

Then Covid Hit

Covid-19 zeroed us out overnight. Let’s call it what it was: it scared the hell out of us. After weeks of total stop, with the phone reduced to a mute piece of plastic, we shook off the fear and got moving again. Everything remote, team scattered halfway across the world, projects to coordinate without being able to look each other in the eye. A proper headache.

What saved us was already having the right tools in place — the private cloud with 256-bit encryption, above all, which let us keep working for our clients without ever dropping an inch on security and confidentiality standards. Covid, and I’m saying it without turning it into a speech, forced us to get better: stronger online presence, new ways to stay close to clients, a leaner and more solid workflow. Things we’d probably have kept putting off indefinitely, without a pandemic breathing down our necks.

And a sincere thank-you to the United States government, for the Covid-19 relief funds. Without that money, we wouldn’t have kept the team together. And in this trade, the team is everything else.

So, What Now?

When I look back at the Milan — New York road, one word comes to mind: luck. The luck of meeting the right people, of making the right calls when it mattered, of having the guts to leave. Not “passion paid off”, not “dreams come true”. Luck, plus stubbornness, plus the work done well. The three of them together, in that order.

Now we keep going. New York cuts nobody any slack — and that’s exactly why you stay.

PS. This post was written by a human.