The messy truth about building a studio

Reflections from three years on the road, building Off-Menu

Three years in, and I still can't figure out how to introduce myself at dinner parties.

"I run a brand strategy and design studio" sounds perfectly rehearsed and completely hollow. "I help companies figure out who they are and tell that story" is more accurate, but makes me sound like a therapist for corporations. And saying "I work at the intersection of art & technology" is the self-deprecating cop-out I fall back on after two whiskeys when I'm tired of explaining.

The truth is messier, as it always is. Three years ago, I launched Off-Menu with a vision so clear it was practically a manifesto: create a studio that feels more like a hospitality company than a traditional agency. Build brands that prioritize emotional storytelling over sanitized corporate jargon. I was going to change the way companies talked about themselves.

Cut to now: sitting in my home office at 11 PM on a Sunday, spreadsheet open, wondering if I should lower our rates to compete with the three-day sprint studios that keep stealing our leads.

This is not the romantic entrepreneurial journey they write about in Fast Company.

This Sh*t is Hard

Let's be real about the landscape for a second. The brand and design space has gotten exponentially more crowded since I started Off-Menu. Everyone and their cousin is launching a studio these days.

There are sprint studios promising complete brand identities in three days for what we charge for discovery. Early-stage founders want the magic but often don't understand why storytelling matters—they just want a logo that Design Twitter will fawn over. I've lost count of how many unqualified leads have drained my energy this year alone.

And let's face it: design is so much easier to sell than strategy. You can show a pretty mockup in a portfolio. You can't really showcase the three weeks of interviews and thinking that led to the insight that changed everything.

Plus, clients come to us burned by generic, soulless agency work—skeptical that anyone can actually deliver what they promise. The bar is in hell, but somehow we're still expected to limbo under it.

This is the messy context that shaped everything I've learned over the past three years.

Realization #1: Brand Isn't Something You Sell

You can't convince someone to value brand if they don't already feel the need for it. It's like trying to sell a Peloton to someone who's never considered exercise important. They'll just see an expensive stationary bike, not a lifestyle transformation.

I used to lose my shit trying to convert the unconverted. Brand isn't a logo or a color palette—it's the foundation everything else is built on. And if someone doesn't get that, no sales deck in the world will make them see the light.

So I've shifted my energy toward inspiring and educating. The content strategy I launched last year isn't just marketing—it's filtering. The right people find it and feel seen. The ones who think brand is just pretty window dressing self-select out.

That's why our leads are smaller in number but exponentially higher in quality now. We're not selling…we're broadcasting a signal that the right people can hear.

Realization #2: Running a Studio is like a Fund

Someone said something recently that completely reframed how I think about Off-Menu: running a studio is like running a fund.

You're placing bets on projects and clients. Your portfolio is your proof. And most importantly, your best work gets you your next opportunity.

This has completely changed how I evaluate potential clients. I'm looking at them like a VC would: not just "can we help them?" but "if we knock this out of the park, what doors will it open?"

It means having a clear point of view, not just technical polish. Every project is both a deliverable for the client and a signal to the market about who we are and what matters to us.

The projects we say no to have become as important as the ones we say yes to. Because in the studio-as-fund model, opportunity cost is real, and diluting your portfolio with work that doesn't represent your best thinking is worse than doing less work overall.

Realization #3: Long-Term Games With Long-Term People

When I first launched the studio, I worked mostly on crypto projects.

While I love the promise of bitcoin and decentralized technology, let's be honest: most crypto products are solutions looking for problems. The industry is largely an insider game with bad incentives and short-term thinking. Almost all crypto projects need story more than anything—but the incentives lead founders to play short-term games, pumping tokens rather than building lasting value.

The tl;dr: I'm sick of building for "degens." I'm tired of projects that only speak to the already-converted, that use the same recycled memes and insider language, that never escape the crypto bubble. If this technology is ever going to fulfill its transformative potential, it needs to connect with actual human needs and reach people who don't have cartoon characters in their Twitter profiles.

There are exceptions, of course. Working with founders like Atikh, Brian, Kelley, & Yele was wonderful. The thing they have in common? They're solving real problems and playing long-term games. They're not chasing quick flips or hypergrowth at all costs.

This experience clarified something important: I need to work with founders who want to build something that lasts. Whether it's consumer or B2B doesn't matter as much as the time horizon and emotional resonance of the work.

I find myself drawn to products that touch everyday life in meaningful ways. Especially now, with AI enabling completely new kinds of experiences, there's something magical about helping shape products that people actually touch, use, and feel something about.

What's been interesting, though, is how applying consumer thinking to B2B has created some of our most distinctive work. Too many B2B brands hide behind jargon and feature lists. But the B2B companies winning today are the ones that feel human, that have personality, that understand they're still selling to people—even if those people have procurement departments.

I want to work on things that feel different, not just function differently. Products with texture and personality. Brands that could never be mistaken for anyone else. The kind of work that makes someone stop scrolling and say "wait, what is that?"—whether it's consumer tech or enterprise software.

Realization #4: Aligned Partners, Not Just Clients

The best work comes from the best collaborators. Full stop.

And "best" doesn't mean biggest budget or most prestigious logo. It means alignment—in taste, in strategic ambition, in willingness to stand out.

You know those clients who trust the process, value the weird, and actually want to be distinctive? The ones who push back in all the right ways and go along with you in all the right ways? They're rare, but they're everything.

Our work with Wischoff Ventures, Juniper, and Acctual had that magic. They didn't just want a vendor—they wanted a partner who cared as much as they did. And it showed in the final product.

I've started optimizing for finding more of these aligned partners, even if it means saying no to perfectly good projects that don't have that chemistry. Life's too short to work with people who make you want to check out rather than overdeliver.

Realization #5: Conviction Is Everything

There's a pattern I've noticed in nightmare brand projects—you know the ones, where companies pay big bucks only to have the work get stuck in a PowerPoint, never seeing the light of day? It's not a design problem. It's not a budget problem. It's a conviction problem.

Clients hire us because they want deliverables and outcomes. But what we're really selling is conviction.

The brands that win aren't necessarily the ones with the most polished strategy decks or the prettiest logos. They're the ones where the founders and teams genuinely believe in their story. Where they've internalized it so deeply that it naturally infuses everything they do—from product decisions to hiring to marketing. Where it doesn't feel like "branding" at all, but just who they are.

This is why we spend so much time on story development, on going wide before going deep, on what might look like endless explorations. It's not indecision or perfectionism. It's an exercise in building conviction. We're helping clients find a North Star that resonates so powerfully they can't help but implement it across everything they do.

The best compliment I ever received wasn't about our design work or clever copywriting. It was when a founder told me, "This isn't just our brand now, it's how we think about our entire business." That's when I know we've succeeded.

Because at the end of the day, our job isn't to make pretty slides or clever names. It's to help clients find a story they believe in so deeply they can't imagine being anything else.

Realization #6: You Can Evolve Without Losing Your Soul

Over three years, Off-Menu has changed shape several times. We've:

• Evolved from a storytelling studio to a full-service design studio

• Mixed retainers and project work to create more stability

• Taken on fractional brand marketing roles to up-level storytelling

• Learned to serve both early-stage go-to-market and later-stage transformation

• Leveraged AI to speed up our process and adjust our pricing model

• Expanded beyond "studio-only" work to say yes to great people and ideas

And yet, we're still Off-Menu. Still weird. Still sharp. The core hasn't changed—just how we express it and who we express it for.

Most people only see the 25% of Off-Menu that works. They don't see the pitches that go nowhere, the clients who ghost, the projects that die on the vine, the days staring at a blank Figma file wondering if you've forgotten how to think.

Being a solo founder is hard. The isolation can be crushing sometimes. I get my energy from working with brilliant people—clients, yes, but also peers who challenge and inspire me.

That's why I've started doing more selective freelance work with studios and brands I admire. It's not a fallback or a side hustle; it's a power-up. It keeps me sharp, connected, and learning. Some of my favorite work this year has come from these collaborations, where I can focus purely on narrative and positioning while partnering with incredible designers who bring it to life visually.

Evolution isn't selling out if your North Star stays the same. For us, that North Star is emotional resonance. Everything else is just packaging.

Why I'm Still Doing This

I could build a design subscription model. I could create a templated sprint process. I could probably make more money with less effort doing either of those things.

But that's not why I started Off-Menu. I'm doing this to build relationships. To help people feel understood. To create brands that matter and move people. To make branding less boring, more emotional, more relevant.

Every time a founder tells me "you put into words what I've been trying to say for years," I remember why I love this work. Every time someone says our strategy actually changed how they think about their business—not just how they talk about it—I know we're doing something right.

We're not here to run a factory. We're here to create meaning.

What I'm Still Figuring Out

I'd love to wrap this up with a tidy bow and some LinkedIn-ready wisdom, but the truth is I'm still figuring this out daily. Here are the questions keeping me up at night:

• How do we make a bigger impact?

• How do we become an AI-native studio to complement & accelerate our thinking, not replace it?

• How do we prove that brand moves metrics, not just vibes?

• How do we meet the market where they are…without selling our soul?

• How do we get in front of more marketing and design decision-makers at Series B+ companies?

• What happens if I stop trying to be "legit" and just build Off-Menu exactly how I want?

I don't have answers yet, but I'm learning to be comfortable in the questions. That's the real work of building something that matters, sitting in the messy middle and trusting that clarity will come.

Three years in, Off-Menu isn't exactly what I imagined it would be. It's messier, less polished, more collaborative, and ultimately more human.

Kind of like the brands we help build.

Thanks for being on this journey with us. The best is yet to come.