Somehow Hughes&Co turned ten years old. I remember starting this agency with around $300 in my personal bank account, I couldn't even afford a laptop computer. I bought an iPad and set to work with this idea that after sitting frustrated on internal marketing teams where big ideas seemed heard best from outside voices, that I could be that outside voice. Super glad I gave it a shot.
After a year in business I spent every single penny of profit the agency had earned on becoming a Hubspot partner agency. I drank the orange Kool-Aid, if you will. We shut things down, we did the training and hitched our wagon to the Hubspot horse. I had some idea what would come of this company but its growth has exceeded my wildest expectations.
I went through the challenging bits that you hear about. The draining of my own bank account to make payroll, the 20 hour days in the early years, day after day after day. I really love this business and I always have. I made a lot of mistakes. Some of them management mistakes, some of them client mistakes. I've persevered through the fall-out and found my way to what we have today: an experienced agency, a seasoned business and all of that with an owner who can handle the heat in a way that I couldn't for a long time. I've really grown with this business.
So what has this little company that could done? Well, we became the digital AOR for a Fortune 500 OEM, we even built a custom software tool for them that we owned, and then we sold that. We invented a consumer product, The Polar Post, and in a month and a half we put our agency chops to the test and sold tens of thousands of them for the 2021 holiday season (I shipped all of them from my dining room, we've set up a shipping solution for this year!) We have built a couple hundred websites, we've earned millions of dollars for our client family. We've been featured as a Hubspot agency to watch as we've cleaned up portals of poor management past and turned them into business machines. We've done a lot.
We've also had a lot of talented people work for us. Some of them have gone on to become Marketing Managers, we have an elected official counted amongst our alumni, and many of them are in corporate marketing roles for brands you (and I) love. It is a very amazing thing to see talent that we had the opportunity to work with move into bigger roles that satisfy their craving for challenge. I didn't think that this would be one of the most rewarding parts of the job, but it is.
So what are we doing now? Well, we are happily back in our office at the Quebec Bank. We also bought this building and completely gut renovated it into the agency of our dreams, twice. You can see we've completed a full rebrand that we believe really captures the kind of agency we are today. We've been back on the work travel schedule, I just got back from Boston and had a blast connecting with clients in the kind of way we used to. I also got to hear Barack Obama speak; magic.
So all of this to say, I wanted to say thanks. It has been a privilege and I promise to continue to do my very best as I always have. On a personal note, over these last few years it has been such a gift for you to continue to work with us. Many of you know, but some of you may not know, while this pandemic roared I also welcomed two babies, Hen and Prew. So this agency team at Hughes&Co not only persevered through a pandemic but kept the train moving at lightning pace while I was getting used to my new role: Mom.
To team Hughes&Co, thank you. I will never forget the gift you gave me that was security in business and time with my kids. To our clients, thank you. For choosing us over and over, for trusting us and for growing with us. To our network of professionals who have held my hand through growth and f*ck-ups and triumphs, thank you. I know my name on caller ID is probably not always met with a smile but I am forever grateful that you pick up anyways. To my family, thank you. I know it is hard to be the architecture of support for an entrepreneur, especially a nutty one like me.
Cheers to ten years, thanks for the ride.
For the love of marketing, Allie