2025 is officially in the books

Before you rush into the next year, it is worth stopping for a moment and asking an uncomfortable question.

How did you do in 2025?

For us, the headline looks great. We grew from 44 employees to 63. Revenue climbed from a $5.9M run rate to $8.1M, a 37% increase. We are finishing the year strong.

But that is not the whole story.

The first half of the year was bad. Very bad.

Our original agency, Array Digital, was quietly slipping backward. I had known for nearly a year that leadership was the problem. I saw it. I felt it. And I avoided it. I told myself the timing was not right. That maybe it would fix itself.

Time did not heal that wound.

There is a moment every leader has when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change. For me, that moment came in July, and I finally acted. I fired the president and two senior team members. We simplified everything. We began rebuilding trust internally.

The relief was immediate. Employees felt it. Clients felt it. Energy returned from negative to positive. It reminded me that decisive leadership, even when it hurts, is often a gift to everyone involved.

Around that same time, I faced another hard truth. Two years earlier, we launched an experimental marketing agency in a new niche. It struggled from the start. The leader was wrong for the role. The values did not align. Every month required more effort just to stand still, and we kept sliding backward. A few weeks after the change at Array, I permanently shut down operations at Crush Digital.

I was not thrilled about making either change, but dragging something along that is clearly broken is far more damaging than admitting it is time to move on.

We also did something that felt long overdue. For the first time in many years, we brought the entire team together in person. We flew everyone to Orlando for a full-day all-hands meeting, followed by a Christmas party. The laughter, the conversations, the shared experience reminded me why this work matters. You are not just building a company. You are building people. You are building a team.

As I look ahead to 2026, I feel both calm and excited.

On a personal level, after spending my entire adult life in Virginia, we bought a second home in the Free State of Florida. But I am not retiring. I am way too young and still full of piss and vinegar. We will return to Virginia in the early summer to get that house ready to go on the market. Then the plan is to move to Florida full time.

On the business side, we are continuing the work of becoming one agency internally, not fragmented fiefdoms competing for resources and power. We are strengthening our leadership bench, hiring a Director of Finance, promoting someone into a dedicated Talent Manager role, and investing heavily in our brands and culture.

We will cross $10M in revenue in 2026. That is a significant milestone, moving from a seven-figure agency to one of the rare eight-figure agencies. That milestone matters less than what it represents. Maturity. Discipline. Intentional leadership.

And while the industry races toward AI and automation, our focus remains human. Clients do not hire us for technology. They hire us to help build trust within their community, to gain attention, and to serve more customers. In 2026, we are expanding our public relations and social capabilities to meet that need and consolidating several specialists into a new business unit. Maybe, just maybe, by the end of the year we will spin it off into its own agency.

This year has reinforced that avoiding hard decisions does not make them disappear. It only makes them more expensive along the way.

As you step into 2026, do not just set goals. Write them down. Revisit them often. Treat them seriously. Most people do not fail because they lack ambition. They fail because they stop paying attention.

I hope 2026 brings you clarity, courage, and momentum.

~ Erik