You’d be surprised, really, at just how much we pay attention to numbers. Or maybe you wouldn’t. We are, after all, a shop full of nerds of varying degrees. But maybe it’s the kind of numbers we pay attention to that you’d find the most fascinating (besides all the important ones that lead to our clients’ ROI)—like, the number of times the automated bot our developers built takes coffee orders during one day (too many?), or the number of burger phones in the studio (more than 0…enough said), or the exact mileage from Luke’s house to our office front door (so close, he should never drive or get a parking ticket, but that’s a post for another day).
Our newest numeric obsession? 17. Today, in fact, is the day that we pay the most attention to 17.
17 years ago today, our fearless leader Luke and our Hall of Famer momma Kristen Briner officially opened the doors of this shop we now call home, thanks in large part to Luke’s Dad—the one and only original, Mr Moonhead. We’ve heard wild tales of all kinds about the youthful entrepreneurs, but all signs point to a universally aligned confluence of young smarts and potentially hippy tendencies. Oh, and there was that dial-up noise too—go ahead, play it in your head, I’ll wait. The road to the interwebs was paved with tiny divs and big dreams, stories about how “Luke” was a dog’s name, and hard, hard work. There were 5 offices in 4 different towns and lots of late nights. Lucky for all of us, those two kids stuck it out like pros—long enough for Flash to come and go, the iPhone to arrive, and video conferencing to become a thing.
Over all those years, our shop has grown and evolved tremendously, and we’ve been incredibly fortunate to have some amazing clients, major opportunities for creativity, and a remarkably talented team. And every March 1, we pause and celebrate our history with all the right kinds of revels for a now teen-aged agency (ok, so strictly speaking, we’re not “legal”, but that’s never stopped us before).
This year is no different, except that it is. We’re finally settled into our freshly outfitted 4th floor digs in Bridgeport, Luke’s concert ticket collection finally has a wall of its own, and our venerable statesman Michael Barnes (who’s been here longer than anyone besides Luke – 10 years this year!) has a 2 block commute. We still have exceptionally kick-ass clients who give us the latitude to do unbelievably exciting work, and are even willing to pay us for it. If we’re honest, we’ll admit that we’re geeking out, and feeling insanely lucky. This rocketship is leaving orbit, and man, the view is pretty stellar from up here.
And so, to our fearless Captain, Luke, on this extraordinarily out-of-the-ordinary Tuesday (of course it’s a Tuesday), we wish you and our little agency a very happy birthday.
17 never felt so good.