Why I stopped trying to look like an agency
Sometime in 2014, I started Growpress. The name was carefully chosen to sound like we had a bustling office full of developers, a receptionist, and maybe even a ping-pong table. In reality, it was just me, my laptop, and an embarrassing number of browser tabs open at once.
The "we" started to feel ridiculous pretty quickly, especially since most of "our" clients had been "my" clients a few months before.
"We'll get that to you by Friday" really meant "I'll panic-finish it on Thursday night."
"We specialize in WordPress solutions" actually backfired immediately because clients wanted to work with me (It's because I'm a delight to work with, probably).
And every time I typed "our team" in a proposal, a small part of my soul died.
I can't speak for other industries, but in the web design business, people take themselves way too seriously. Everyone's a "digital strategist" or "growth hacker" or "user experience architect." Meanwhile, half of us are just trying to explain to clients why their logo doesn't need to be bigger. It's hard to mock this circus when you're pretending to be the ringmaster.
So I went back to using thinkdave.com for my website, and I'm just Dave on social media. For the most part, clients don't actually care if you're an agency or a person. They just want someone who knows what they're doing and won't disappear when things break.
Plus, it's much easier to be sarcastic about "synergistic digital ecosystems" when you're not pretending you have a Chief Synergy Officer.
Now when I say "I'll work on that for you today", everyone knows exactly who's handling it. There's no Trello boards or daily stand-ups, just a note somewhere on my computer that I said I'd do the thing, and I'd better do it if I want to get paid.