Three years ago, Moxie Creative was running on grit, caffeine, good ideas, and a whole lot of “we’ll figure it out.”
There was no slow, graceful transition into business ownership. There was a brand to build, a website to launch, clients to support, and a new agency to bring to life in just two months. At the time, year three felt far away. Not impossible, but hard to picture when the team was focused on getting through the next deadline, the next decision, and the next unknown.
Now, Moxie Creative is officially three years old.
In this episode of Behind the Brand, Taylor and Kelly sat down with Moxie Creative Director Michael Nelson to reflect on year three, including the wins worth celebrating, the challenges that stretched the team, and what comes next as Moxie heads into year four.
Like most honest business conversations, it was part celebration, part therapy session, and part “how has it already been three years?” Because building a business is exciting, but it is not always glamorous. Growth brings opportunity, but it also brings pressure, process changes, hard lessons, and a few reminders of why you started in the first place.
Growth Is Not Always a Straight Line
One of the biggest lessons from year three is that business growth does not always move in a clean, upward line.
Year one was about getting started. Moxie was building momentum, establishing its brand, and making the transition into something new. Year two brought a major wave of work, growth, and opportunity. The team was busy, the projects kept coming, and there was not always much time to stop and think about what was next.
Year three felt different.
It was still full of great clients, exciting projects, and major wins, but it also came with more growing pains. Some seasons required more business development. Some months required more strategy. Some moments forced the team to come up for air and ask, “How can we do this better?”
That is not failure. That is business.
For service-based businesses, especially marketing agencies, growth can be seasonal. One year may be packed with big projects and fast-moving deadlines. Another may require more outreach, more refining, and more intentional conversations. The goal is not to avoid those changes. The goal is to learn from them.
For Moxie, year three became a reminder that sustainable growth requires more than doing good work. It also requires strong systems, clear positioning, and the willingness to keep evolving.
The Team Behind the Brand
A huge part of Moxie Creative’s growth has been the team behind the work.
Over the past three years, roles have shifted, responsibilities have expanded, and the team has continued to grow into the agency Moxie is today. Michael stepped further into the Creative Director role, helping guide the creative team, support designers, strengthen concepts, and bring a trusted eye to the work before it reaches clients.
But Moxie’s creative process is not built around one person handing down ideas while everyone else executes. It is collaborative by design.
The team works best when everyone has room to bring their strengths forward, including:
- Creative direction that helps sharpen ideas
- Account management that keeps projects moving
- Designers who understand both visuals and strategy
- Video, photography, and animation that help clients tell stronger stories
- Website development that balances design, content, SEO, and user experience
- Writing and content strategy that make the message clear
That mix matters.
Strong marketing is rarely the result of one person working alone. A great brand, website, video, campaign, or social media strategy takes different perspectives, honest feedback, and people who care enough to push the work further.
Creative Wins Worth Celebrating
Year three also brought plenty of creative wins.
Moxie Creative had a strong year at the ADDY Awards, with recognition across multiple industries, project types, and creative styles. That variety says a lot about the team’s range. Moxie is not tied to one specific look, one kind of client, or one type of marketing project.
The agency’s work continues to span branding, website design, photography, video, social media, digital marketing, print, packaging, and more. Video has become an especially exciting area of growth, opening the door for more storytelling, more motion, and more ways to help clients connect with their audience.
Still, the real win is not just receiving awards. It is creating work that helps businesses show up better.
Good creative should do more than look nice. It should help people understand who you are, what you do, why you matter, and why they should trust you. A beautiful website matters, but only if it is clear. A bold campaign matters, but only if it connects. A strong brand matters, but only if it reflects the business behind it.
That balance between creativity and strategy has always been central to Moxie’s approach.
Refining the Process
As Moxie has grown, so has the need for stronger processes.
When an agency is small, it can be tempting to run on instinct, urgency, and everyone’s ability to jump in wherever needed. That can work for a while. It can even be part of what makes a team scrappy and strong. But as projects get bigger and the workload increases, process becomes essential.
Over the past year, Moxie has been refining how work moves from idea to execution. The website process has become more structured. Branding projects have become more defined. Internal communication and project handoffs continue to improve.
That behind-the-scenes work may not be flashy, but it makes a major difference.
Better processes help projects move more smoothly, set clearer expectations for clients, reduce confusion, and give the creative team more room to do strong work. Process should not make creative work feel stiff. It should create enough structure that the team can think clearly, solve better problems, and spend more energy on the work that matters most.
More Than a Deliverable
One of Moxie’s biggest goals moving into year four is to better explain the value behind the work.
Many businesses compare marketing proposals by looking only at the deliverable. A website is compared to another website. A logo is compared to another logo. A campaign is compared to another campaign.
But that does not tell the whole story.
The real value of an experienced marketing agency is not just the final file, design, or launch. It is the thinking that happens before the work is created. It is the strategy, leadership, judgment, and experience that guide the entire process.
That matters even more in a world full of DIY tools, templates, AI platforms, and quick-fix marketing promises. Those tools can be useful, but they do not replace strategy. They do not automatically understand your audience, your positioning, your goals, or the nuance that makes your business different.
Moxie’s goal is to keep bringing that senior-level strategy to the forefront, especially through more consulting and strategic marketing support for businesses that may already have internal marketing help but need experienced guidance on what to do, why to do it, and how to do it well.
Consistency Is Hard, Even When Marketing Is Your Job
Another honest takeaway from the episode is that marketing consistently is hard, even for a marketing agency.
Moxie has now been producing Behind the Brand for more than a year, and that consistency is something the team is proud of. But like every small business, Moxie knows how easy it is for internal marketing to fall behind when client work comes first.
That is exactly why the team understands what clients are up against.
Most business owners know marketing matters. They know they should post more consistently, update their website, write blogs, send emails, share stories, ask for reviews, and stay visible. The hard part is keeping up with all of it while also serving customers, managing staff, answering emails, and running the actual business.
Moxie gets it because Moxie lives it too.
What Comes Next for Moxie Creative
As Moxie Creative heads into year four, the focus is not on becoming something completely different. It is about becoming more intentional about what has already made the agency strong.
That means continuing to create bold, strategic, high-quality work. It means strengthening client relationships, refining internal systems, and making sure the team has the space and support to do their best work.
Three years in, Moxie Creative has learned that growth is not always clean or easy. It comes with busy seasons, hard conversations, unexpected wins, internal shifts, and moments where you realize the thing you built is still becoming what it is meant to be.
But the heart of Moxie has stayed the same.
This agency was built on relationships, creativity, strategy, and the belief that businesses deserve marketing that feels thoughtful, bold, and true to who they are.
Tune In and Get Inspired
Year three was a chance to look back, take a breath, and recognize how far the team has come.
Now, year four is a chance to keep building with more clarity, more confidence, and, of course, a little more Moxie.
