20 Years. Dang. That Went By Fast.

How We Got Here

It was on Palm Lane when the anxiety really got elevated. I often took the side streets, like Palm, to get to the agency’s new office location on Central Avenue in the Phoenix midtown business district. One might think it was to avoid the traffic. A more honest introspection would reveal it was to delay the agony.

It was the summer of 2005. I was 28 and, as laughable as it might sound, I was officially burned out on big ad agency life. With a really fun stint at Cold Stone Creamery HQ along the way, I had already worked at two of the state’s biggest firms, which was my career dream only a few years earlier. Turns out that old expression, “Be careful what you wish for,” had never been more appropriate.

I pondered my next move. Having spent some time in strategy, I decided to conduct a study. I did ten in-depth interviews with people I respected, including former clients and colleagues. These interviews usually involved sitting down over breakfast, beers or ice cream (not all at the same time).

I came to realize a couple of things.

First, I was burned out on my job but NOT by the field. I was—and still am—fascinated by the field of marketing and that powerful function within marketing that is advertising. I loved the process of unlocking a brand’s magnetism and giving a company a voice to let potential customers know about that product or service. I was energized by the idea of taking data and turning it into action. As advertising icon Bill Bernbach once said, “We are so busy measuring public opinion that we forget we can mold it.”

The second thing I realized is that it was time to go. I had toyed with the idea of my own venture previously. In fact, there had been two different iterations and combinations of potential partners. I just never had the chutzpah to do it. The inspiration I got from the interviews gave me the necessary cojones. It was time to exit, stage left.

Those who know me well might know that “Learning To Fly” by Tom Petty is one of my all-time favorite songs. Now that song very well may be about a different type of life struggle than the one I was facing, but nonetheless it felt a little bit like I was starting out for God knows where.

I took a full-time faculty position (and a 60 percent pay cut) as a bridge. It gave me time, it gave me health insurance and, more importantly, it gave me a chance to shape some young minds who were interested in the business, and it turned out to be an interesting catalyst to get something new going.

So It was around this time in 2005 that Nucleus Marketing Lab was conceived. One of the ten individuals from the interview slate became the company’s first client. I got some IKEA furniture, and an absurdly ginormous laptop (external monitors were not yet in vogue). I was off to the races.

I got married, moved, had kids, had dogs, and oddly have had four office addresses, including our current digs. I blinked and 20 years passed.

As I look back over the two decades, I feel extremely fortunate. We’ve been lucky to work with some great people, both within our team and with our clients and vendors. We’ve worked in more business categories than I ever would have imagined and I really like to think we’ve made a whole bunch of organizations better off than they were before we got there, which, when you really simplify things, is the ultimate goal.

If you’ve been a part of the ride at some point over these 20 years, I thank you immensely.