Billboard Insider is running a series about starting, running and selling an out of home company.  We will profile James Douglas who started Arthur Outdoor with his brother Samuel Douglas after graduating from college. Earlier this month the Douglas brothers sold their out of home assets to Main Street Outdoor. Today James talks about starting in out of home.

How did you get the idea to start Arthur Outdoor

I was a music major in college (at Furman University) and originally wanted to be an Opera singer. During the summer of 2015, I was looking to take a break from the acting/music/pre-med world and learn a bit about business. I was given the opportunity to complete an internship at an Private Equity firm in Omaha, Nebraska. One of their main investments was a  larger privately held billboard company in the Midwest – eventually acquired by Link Media.

At 30,000 feet, the economics of the billboard industry are quite simple – an easy study for a college student.

I carried this idea with me for a few years and after graduating from Furman in May of 2017, my brother and I decided it was time to give it a shot.

Getting up to speed on the industry

I spent a few years researching the OOH business and the nuances between the internship and starting Arthur Outdoor. A few additional resources made learning about the industry a bit easier.

One of them was a podcast you might have heard of called the Billboard Insider Podcast where I was able to hear from entrepreneurs and billboard operators about what it takes to run a billboard plant. This was before you published your books (e.g. In Their Words: out of Home Executives Talk About Out of Home, Billboard Insider’s Guide to Leases and Easements and the Ultimate OOH Sales Guide). Another good read for beginners was Frank Rolfe’s Big Bucks from Big Signs.

Entrepreneurial Beginnings 

I’ve been business partners with my brother Samuel and my little brother William for a long time.  Our first venture was a lemonade stand on our childhood street in Rome, Georgia. Our first value add was when we went from a lemonade stand to a snow cone machine. Talk about a value add in a hot Georgia summer.

On starting in Rome, Georgia

Rome was where we were raised and where I lived after graduating. After deciding to give Arthur Outdoor a shot, we were able to easily drive the market, seek out potential locations, and work with our local contacts and government to make construction possible.

[wpforms id=”9787″]

Paid Advertisement