10 Things We’ve Learned After 30 Years of Doing This

Thirty years. That’s a long time to keep doing anything, let alone running a creative agency.

My husband, Gabriel, started Gecko back when people still said “surfing the web.” I joined about ten years later, which is when he realized he needed someone who actually liked spreadsheets. Since then, we’ve grown, stumbled, hired, fired, built, rebuilt, and learned a lot of lessons that don’t show up in business books.

Here are ten of them. None are perfect. All are true.

1. We’re still going to make mistakes.

We’ve made plenty, and we’ll make more. That’s just how it goes.
The only real mistake is pretending you don’t make them. Every bad hire, wrong call, or overconfident idea has taught us something. Sometimes the lesson was expensive. Sometimes it was funny later. Usually both.
We’re not geniuses—just very tired people who care a lot.

2. People come before profit.

Even in years when the numbers were rough, we still shared what we could.
It’s the kind of thing financial advisors love to hate, but I’ve never regretted it. Taking care of people matters more than a perfect spreadsheet. You can’t build loyalty or culture out of percentages.
We’ve had hard years, great years, and everything in between. Mostly, we just keep showing up.

3. Say yes, then figure it out.

One of our clients once asked us to build a custom door system that could receive access codes from a website, let people in, and expire the code automatically.
We said yes.
Then we Googled a lot of things.
Then we figured it out.
And it worked. Some of the best things we’ve done started that exact way—slightly terrified, but excited.

4. The owner should be the least important person in the room.

I’m not the smartest person here. I work really hard to make sure of that.
My job is to hire people who are smarter, faster, and more creative than me, then let them do their thing. At one point, our developers kindly asked me to “fire” Gabriel from the development team. (He’s the founder, but not a developer.) They were right, and I loved that they had the trust and humor to say it out loud.
That’s the kind of culture I want: where people feel ownership, not hierarchy.

5. Be helpful, always.

If my parents’ neighbors’ granddaughter’s best friend’s teacher asks us to Photoshop an old family photo, we say yes. We don’t charge. We just ask for a Google review.
That kind of stuff matters. Being helpful has brought us more goodwill (and actual business) than any marketing campaign ever could. The world runs better when people help each other without expecting something in return.

6. Treat everyone well… except the assholes.

Kindness goes a long way, but it doesn’t mean you have to be a doormat.
Clients who are a pain, employees who are selfish—they’re just being themselves. We don’t need to match their energy. Stay kind, stay professional, and if someone crosses the line, show them the door.
We’ve learned that assholes don’t usually get less assholey with time.

7. Invest in your people.

Trips, gifts, time off, surprise treats—none of that is fluff. It’s fuel.
Without the people around you, you don’t have a business. We show up for each other outside of work too: weddings, kids’ birthday parties, 40th celebrations. One of my co-workers even did my hair for my son’s bar mitzvah. These are my coworkers and my friends.
Even when people move on, we stay in touch. The relationships outlast the job titles.

8. Find your people.

The first time I walked into a room full of other agency owners, I remember thinking, “Where have you been all my life?”
Owning a business can be lonely. You spend your days making decisions that affect everyone else but you. Being in a room with people who understand the weird mix of stress, pride, and chaos that comes with this work was such a relief.
If you run a company, find your people. It’ll make you better, and it’ll make it bearable.

9. Stay close to the work.

I might be the CEO and CFO, but I still work on production. Some days that means directing a video shoot, sometimes managing a client account, and sometimes just restocking the fridge before a big meeting.
You can’t lead a team if you have no idea what their days actually look like. Staying close keeps me grounded and reminds me that no one’s job is too small, including mine.

10. Roots matter.

Gecko was born in Missoula, but we spent years in Chicago. Both places shaped us.
Chicago taught us hustle and resilience. It showed us how to think bigger than our ZIP code. Missoula taught us connection and how to do right by people, not just projects.
Now we’re a mix of both: small-town heart, big-city grit, and grateful every day to still be doing this.

We’ve never been perfect. But we’ve been consistent—showing up, learning, fixing what breaks, and doing work we’re proud of with people we genuinely like.
That’s not the secret to success. It’s just the only way I know how to do this.