And embracing that community has made it so much more fun to navigate in year one. We now celebrate every win of our small agency brethren both as friends and fellow little guys. We know every win helps continue the rising tide we’re seeing across the industry.

Every time a big client strays away from a more traditional choice and discovers something amazing and unexpected, we win. We all win. Every time someone takes that leap, it makes it that much easier for the next marketer to tell their boss they’re going with that crazy little agency with the weird name and the Squarespace website. And with that positive momentum, some of the advantages of speed, collaboration and cost that come naturally when you’re small can outshine the doubts about whether or not a small shop can pull off big things. We can. We have. We will again.

So, as we move from being incredibly small to just kind of small, we want to extend the same support shown to us to the next generation of founders trying to slog their way through fear, doubt and the reams of legal documents that stand between them and the beaches of Cannes. Unless of course, we see them in the pitch room. Then we’ll return to our corners and prepare to duke it out like mortal enemies until the decision is made and we can return to our roles as friends, colleagues and occasional drinking buddies.

As we near one year of existence, I’m happy to report that the sense of gratitude is slowly overcoming the buzz of anxiety, and we have a lot of people reading this right now to thank for that.

So, thank you.

This article is part of an ongoing Voice series that takes a behind-the-scenes look at new agencies in their first year of business. For more on Bandits & Friends, see previous articles: The Dangers of Texting While Contemplating Your Future. You Might Just Start an Agency and How to Start an Agency, One Letter at a Time. Or HTSAAOLAAT, for Short.