You get reminded of things in the strangest of places.

Something happened recently that reminded me of how I met my co-founder, Bob Brodie. It’s been an amazing ride since that introduction over five years ago.

This week attended the annual Owner Summit in Atlanta run by the fine folks at Bureau of Digital. Hands down it’s the best conference I attend all year. Owner Summit is a gathering of agency owners where we openly talk about all the things that make our small companies run. And we really do open up. About everything. From day to day operations to pricing to firing clients and employees. It’s an amazing and inspiring event, and a great way to kick off the year.

My favorite panel was with Wil Reynolds of SEER Interactive and Greg Hoy of Happy Cog/Bureau of Digital talking about how Wil expanded his company. It wasn’t the actual story about the company that was intriguing (I’ve known Wil for a number of years so I know the origins), but how real Wil was in telling his story. Everything from growing past 10 people to a bad company breakup. It was a refreshing story in the era of rah-rah pretend ‘hustle’.

What really struck me was bumping into Wil and remembering that he is the person responsible for introducing me to my business partner Bob Brodie and giving me the tools to build a great company.

Thank you, Wil.