Six Years of Initial Marketing

This was the decision. Before Initial, I was a Creative Director of an agency. I had a good job. I had experience. I liked my team. But deep down, something didn’t sit right.

For years I had been moonlighting – quietly building projects outside of hours, telling myself I was “getting ready.” But readiness is a moving target. And eventually, I realised I was just waiting for a perfect moment that would never come.

So I quit.

No more paycheck on the 15th.

No more comfort.

It was terrifying. At first, all I wanted was to earn what I’d been earning before. TBH, that was the goal. Nothing more, nothing fancy. Just earn what I was earning previously. And to top it off, this was right before COVID. So yes… great timing :).

Luckily, I had graphic design freelancing to fall back on. I was incredibly fortunate to get steady work from agencies, which made the transition a lot easier than it could have been.

But here’s the thing. Quitting was the first time I truly backed myself. And nothing – nothing – that’s happened since would have happened without that leap.

This one was kind of accidental. I landed a big project that needed all the grown-up stuff – insurance, structure, an actual company. So I became a Pty Ltd.

And weirdly, the second I did, people started taking the business (and me) way more seriously. It wasn’t just “me freelancing” from my apartment anymore. Suddenly it was a real thing. With an ACN. Proper T&Cs. A bookeeper. 

That moment taught me something – how you show up matters. Sometimes you need to step into a bigger version of yourself before you feel ready.

This was much harder than I expected.

For the first few years, I said ‘yes’ to everything. Any client, any scope, any price. I was just grateful to be working and still standing. But over time, people began coming to me specifically for branding – not just “anything and everything.”

The shift really happened when I stopped trying to do it all and focused on what I was actually great at: Brand. I began saying no to projects that didn’t align to that. No to clients that drained my energy. No to projects that wasn’t really my thing.

And that is when the business really began to grow.

Saying ‘no’ made space for the right ‘yesses’.

There was a point where I came to a tough realisation: I couldn’t do everything myself. For a long time, I wore all the hats. And for the most part, I was pretty decent at it (well, I think so at least…).

But being good at everything isn’t the same as doing everything well. And the truth is, I was starting to become the bottleneck.

Hiring Shelley wasn’t just about capacity. It was about quality. About protecting the experience our clients get.

Bringing her on was the beginning of us.

Ironically, I spent so long branding other people’s businesses that I forgot to do the same for my own.

The old version of Initial Marketing didn’t reflect who we were becoming. It lacked clarity and personality. The hardest part was asking ourselves: Who do we actually want to attract? How do we want them to feel?

You can read more about the rebrand here:

The rebrand forced us to look inward. It wasn’t just a visual upgrade – it was an identity check.

And now, when people land on our site or engage with our brand, there’s a feeling. There’s voice, tone, presence…. not just pages on pages of portfolio work.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past six years, it’s that you don’t always know what you’re building while you’re building it. It’s messy. It’s unclear. Most of the time it just feels like a mix of small steps and big calls that slowly start to take shape.

I’m not going to pretend it’s been smooth. There were mistakes. Burnout. Plenty of “what am I even doing?” moments.

But we’re still here. Still building. And more aligned than ever.

If you’re in the ‘messy middle’ – starting something, growing something, questioning everything. I hope this is a reminder that the mess is where the good stuff starts.

Here’s to the next six.