Augmental officially launched on this day one decade ago: October 16, 2008.
It’s hard to express in words what 10 years in business means to me. Then again, expressing meaning with words is my job, my bailiwick, and, in the best of times, my great pleasure. So, challenge accepted.
Back in 2008, I had just finished grad school programs at Harvard and Tulane and was sharing an apartment with my girlfriend and a clingy terrier. Writing had always been a personal passion and one of my favorite parts of previous jobs, but other than a few one-off projects, I had not pursued it as a profession.
There were a lot of reasons not to begin my own company at that time. The financial requirements. The learning curve. The lack of a clear path forward.
Really, though, there didn’t need to be a lot of reasons to go for it.
There just had to be a few good reasons, and there were.
I wanted to spend my time doing what I enjoyed. To collaborate with good people. To support companies and projects in which I was personally interested. To do work in the way I believed it should be done.
Today, Augmental has grown to provide content creation services to clients throughout the country. It’s served companies in industries as far-ranging as consumer products, entertainment, education, medicine, and tech. I’ve had the chance to work with great businesses and professionals, and I’ve got the support of excellent writing, design, and development partners.
On the personal side, my girlfriend is now my wife of eight years. Two wonderful children have joined our family. The terrier is still clingy.
Getting here has been hard.
It’s still hard. I’m writing a draft of this post late at night because the baby was home sick and needed some extra TLC. Then, I was catching up on client projects. Then, I needed to follow up on internal marketing initiatives.
Then… Then…
Regardless of the hard times, there have been shiny moments like this one. The moments where it’s okay to lift your eyes up from the road you’ve been walking, look around, and smile at where you are. To peer forward and feel good about what’s to come, even if you can’t make out the details in the distance.
I’ll tell you how I’m going to celebrate 10 years.
First, I’m going to reach out to thank individually the people who have been influential in getting to this point. I want them to know that I appreciate them and their part in Augmental’s achievement.
Second, I’ll be taking my family out for a nice dinner as soon as the baby is feeling better. Augmental absolutely would not be in existence if it weren’t for the love, strength, and support of my wife. Our two kids make everything I do better and put even the most challenging day in perspective. They all deserve a night out and a whole lot more.
Third, I’m going to try and keep this milestone in mind moving forward. There will be other choices and challenges ahead, and some will work out wonderfully, and some won’t. There’s no way to know what the next decade will bring, but I’m ready to see what’s down the road.
