Reigniting a Passion 25 Years Later

That’s me just before the start of the 6th marathon of the World Marathon Challenge in Cartagena, Colombia last year, where I completed 7 marathons in 7 days on all 7 continents. I was deeply reflective, and exhausted, but doing something I was truly passionate about at the time (and still am); running ridiculously challenging races. Today, I’m doing another thing I’m extremely passionate about, but it took me 25 years to return to that passion. Here’s a peek into reigniting that passion.

Over 11 years ago, I bought a company named Image Communications. It was a local traditional marketing agency that I sought to transform into a national digital agency. More than that, it would become the agency that I never had, yet always wanted to work with. Within a year, we changed the name to Pyxl, reoriented the entire suite of services and hired a new president. For the next 10 years, I would own and advise the company while Josh Phillips was the President and ran the day-to-day operations. During that time, Pyxl Inc., made the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies list for three straight years, won numerous agency awards for design and digital, and saw a 55% CAGR over that time. Along the way, we’ve had the privilege of partnering some amazing clients, to name a few:

In mid-2018, after an incredible 10-year run, it was time for a change. Josh and I agreed that it was time to bring in a CEO and for him to transition out of the business. I hired a nationally recognized executive recruitment firm and set out to make the most important hire at Pyxl in the last 10 years. After three months, we successfully recruited a highly sought after CEO that I thought would lead the next 10 years of Pyxl’s growth. To support the new CEO, I hired a 20-year agency veteran as COO. On paper, they were the perfect hire. I got it wrong. Really wrong. In fact, it was the single biggest mistake of my entire career. Six months into the new leadership change, it wasn’t going well. I did some serious soul searching. No one was to blame but me. I made a bad decision. So, after much discussion with family, friends and trusted advisors, I received a piece of advice that would change the course of the company, and my career. It was a simple and straightforward response to an obvious problem. It was suggested that “no one will ever care about Pyxl more than you, so why don’t you lead it yourself?” It felt very Occam’s Razor in simplicity and truth and in many ways explained why my hiring strategy had failed. So I made the decision to make the change, admit I made a mistake, and come back to the company 11 years later as CEO. It was a place of uncertainty and yet I found myself with a reinvigorated passion for the craft I had been introduced to 25 years ago.

Six months later, I’ve experienced the hardest, yet most fulfilling, period of my 25-year professional career. With a new Leadership Team, and in deep partnership with our employees, we’ve reshaped the entire direction of the company, our services, our clients and our culture. We’ve worked hard, asked the tough questions and made a lot of difficult decisions, but collectively accomplished a lot. Our work is not done, but the platform is in place. We have partnered with incredible new clients across the US who are creators and leaders in their respective businesses and industries. We’re back to doing what we’ve done best over the last 11 years:  

• We’re developing and shaping brands
• We’re building immersive website experiences
• We’re creating meaningful content and marketing programs
• We’re connecting our clients with their users in uniquely impactful ways

So after 25 years of being directly or indirectly involved in digital marketing, I feel so fortunate to have rediscovered the deep passion I’ve always had for the web. It started with building crude, ugly, informational websites running on Mosaic in 1994. Today, we’re building award-winning highly-interactive websites for global companies that reach millions of users every year in dozens of languages. We’re partnering with truly incredible companies to bring their products into the market. If you haven’t had the opportunity to learn more about what we’re doing, please reach out. I would love to hear from you and share my passion with you. 

Updated: Jul 18, 2024