Rocky Dohmen: Tech, Startups and the Possibilities of Paperless

Rocky Dohmen started a Twitter account so long ago that he scored the handle @Rocky, a coup that was recently recognized by staff writer Tommy Rowan at Philly.com, the online arm of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Why Stallone’s handlers didn’t jump on this is handle is baffling, and we won’t even go into how many people think Balboa is a real person. Either way, Dohmen beat everyone to the punch.

Originally from Hilliard, Ohio, he moved to the Grand Strand in 1994.

“My grandfather was sick back then, and he wanted to move my grandma to a warmer climate before he died,” he said, adding that he [Dohmen] followed soon afterward with his mother and brother.

A graduate of Socastee High School, he lived in Charleston for a few years and worked as a trainer for TGI Friday’s Inc. before returning to the beach.

Dohmen, 35, was a longtime managing partner at The Digitel Myrtle Beach, a hyperlocal news aggregation site.

“We didn’t try to re-report the news, since everyone else had that covered,” he said. “We tried to add commentary and context to what was being said, and brought in a bunch of new media tactics locally that I think helped pull local media into the 21^st Century.”

He later became involved with a project, along with partners Andre Pope and Paul Reynolds, called Cowork MYR – a spot where developers, freelancers and solopreneurs of all stripes could gather for interaction with other like-minded folks.

“There was some incubation going on there too, and hack-a-thons and group meetings – and you realized that there were more people here than just the one lone developer sitting in his house.”

Dohmen recalls that, before the advent of the Digitel and Cowork MYR, Twitter meetups were becoming regular occurrences here in local bars. But ultimately, he said Cowork MYR was ahead of its time here.

The genesis for all of his tech-related activity was a site called MBscene, which he started in 2010 – covering Grand Strand happenings and local businesses – and it seems like everything Dohmen has done created a pathway for related opportunities.

“I prefer it that way – to see something I want to do and go from there. If an opportunity comes up that I know about, I get into it – and doing that leads to other things.”

In January, he signed on as a customer success team member with an outfit called PandaDoc [www.pandadoc.com], which he said is an all-in-one cloud based software solution for creating, delivering and electronically signing quotes, proposals, contracts and other sales needs.

“The company headquarters is located in San Francisco, and I work in a satellite office with six other people,” he said, adding that the company just went through its first round of venture funding – or Series A funding – to the tune of $5 million on July 8, 2015.

His current role with PandaDoc centers around helping customers solve problems and use the software correctly – online or by telephone.

“If need be, we will do screen sharing so I can see what’s happening on your screen,” he said. “PandaDoc is a secure way to create and edit documents and have them signed online. We try to push paperless as much as we can.”

After talking to a friend who posted the job listing, he got a bit discouraged because of the stated college degree requirement. He attended Horry-Georgetown Technical College for a time, but did not come away with a degree.

“After a day of thinking about it, I decided to go for it. I mentioned a couple of things I knew, such as Software as a Service [SaaS], meaning cloud-based subscription software. They were also interested in my past work with Cowork and other listed computer skills.”

He said that The SaaS knowledge was important to PandaDoc, but they also stressed that skill level and personality were equally put in to play.

After a phone interview, he was called in the next day for an in-person meeting because it so happened that one of PandaDoc’s people were in town from San Francisco. He was offered the job just before Christmas.

“I’d like to call PandaDoc home for the foreseeable future and beyond. It’s a really great organization and they are basically just starting out. The startup culture has always been fascinating to me. Hopefully this will bring me into other things in the organization, and I can move up from there,” he said.

Dohmen lives in North Myrtle Beach with his wife and young sons Liam, 9, and Henry, 3. Another son is due any day now.

This story was originally published March 7, 2016 at 7:18 AM with the headline "Rocky Dohmen: Tech, Startups and the Possibilities of Paperless."