Five years: How’d we get here?!

Monday, June 1, 2015

The most recent statistic I could find was that half of all small businesses fail within the first five years. I’m sitting here at my desk in our office on June 1, much the way I did five years ago on June 1 – also a Monday. But at that time, I was in my make-shift office in my home. Today, I cannot help but ponder what we did right to beat the odds.

I started with about 13 years of experience, a laptop, a cell phone and three clients at a desk in our living room. Now, we have three amazing employees, two fabulous interns, the best bookkeeper in the world (my dad!) and a crazy fun office space – not to mention a bunch of other business partners who help us get the job done every day. On any given day, we have somewhere around 50 clients – and – knock on wood – we continue to grow week by week.

I wish I could say I had some master plan with objectives and goals that we planned to and measured along the way. But I didn’t. I had the support of a spouse and family who believed in me, I had some really solid experience and I had a couple of really loyal clients who were willing to take a risk with me. My business plan was to go into as little debt as possible while working hard, being creative, having fun and laughing, working with people I enjoyed working with, and being kind.

And along the way, I was lucky enough to find people who appreciated those qualities – both as clients and as members of our team. Hard work, creativity, kindness and laughter – put those all in a blender and I think that particular blend is our cocktail of choice around here. It’s served us well to this point – and it’s what we plan to continue to serve up moving forward.

I don’t know where we’ll be in another five years – that’s up to God, our clients and our team – but if the ride is as fun and rewarding as it has been since 2010, I’m certainly up for it! Those of you who have been part of the journey know who you are, and I hope I’ve done a good job of expressing my gratitude over the years, but I’ll say it one more time … THANK YOU.

Here’s to another five years of hard work, creativity, kindness and laughter!