Advertising Agency

Steve Randa is Jajo.

Of course, Jajo isn’t an adjective. It’s a company name — Jajo Inc., the advertising, marketing and public relations firm Randa founded five years ago. But Randa, in a roundabout way, describes Jajo as being creative, different and smart.

Randa holds the same attributes.

“I was one of those kids that I knew what I wanted to be my entire life,” Randa says.

He was aware of his creativity early in life, drawing and doodling through his youth. Years later he told his father his plans to go to college and make money being creative. His father didn’t discourage him, but didn’t exactly see the plan panning out.

Randa graduated from Wichita State and accepted a graphic design position at Craghead & Harrold Inc., now the city’s ninth largest advertising firm, according to the Wichita Business Journal’s 2007 Book of Lists.

His creativity was serving him well, but he showed brightest in 2003 when he was laid off, which has been a blessing in disguise.

Diving In

Randa took a chance and leaped into business for himself. With the small list of contacts he had, Randa founded Jajo in his basement.

“I knew what I wanted to do,” he says. “I’ve never been one that’s needed a lot of self-exploration. I felt I had enough experience that it was worth trying on my own. I didn’t enjoy the thought of starting over at another agency. Maybe that was young and naive.”

But the gamble paid off.

The business grew faster than he could keep up. He moved out of the basement and into an office, hired two employees and then talked Shawn Stuckey, a co-worker and friend at Craghead, into joining him in the new endeavor.

“Even when we were (at Craghead), he and I kind of bounced ideas off each other,” says Stuckey, Jajo’s other managing partner. “I think when he was on his own, we kind of missed that. It’s nice to know our philosophies, as far as work ethic and design, are real similar.”

Jajo continued to blossom. Today, with approximately 20 clients and 23 employees, Randa and Stuckey have built Jajo into a highly respected firm in Wichita, a town that boasts its share of nationally known advertising agencies.

“Anytime we’ve been asked to step up and do more than we have in the past, it’s always been welcomed,” he says. “I think people see that we’re genuine and enjoy what we’re doing.”

In no way is “different” a negative connotation, in Randa’s mind. In fact, he enjoys it when a new employee comes into his office and tells him how different the work environment is. Or when clients phone him to say Jajo’s services are different than any they’ve received before.

Looking Forward to Looking Back

Recently, Randa, a native of Derby who went through the school system there, put the finishing touches on a new logo for Derby Public Schools. The logo features a silver ring circling a green arrow pointing up and to the right.

“I really like it,” says Devon Packard, the Derby school district’s director of public information. “When we explain it to people, it’s reaching up and forward, and that’s the main thing. ... Everybody is really enjoying it.”

Randa is too humble to say he’s smart, though he looks the part with a smoothly shaved head, a three-day beard and sharp Oakley specs.

It’s not so much smarts that got him to this point, he hints, but the company’s ability to be creative, while providing something different from the competition.

He took a chance on an advertising business in Wichita, a market he calls saturated. When he takes a minute to look back at what has been accomplished — how quickly Jajo has grown — in the last five years, he still can’t believe it.

“It has been the shortest, but yet feels like the longest amount of time, because it has gone by so quick,” he says. “It’s been hard. It’s been great. It’s been rewarding. It’s almost kind of surreal.”

The Steve Randa file
Age: 41.
Title: Managing partner and founder of Jajo Inc.
Education: Bachelor’s degree from Wichita State University.
Experience: 1990-2003 — Graphic designer at Craghead & Harrold Inc.
2003-Present — Managing partner of Jajo. Inc.
Family: Wife, Gayle. Three children, Jack,10; John 8; and Joely, 4.
Hobbies: Working on cars.