Four.

Not four likes. Four views.

We liked the post. We thought the design worked. But apparently, the internet had other plans.

So we took it down, added a small amount of animation, and posted it again.

A few hours later, it had 116 views.

Same idea. Same message. Mostly the same design.

It just moved.

And honestly? We couldn’t even be mad.

Because it worked.

When you’re creating for social media, getting someone’s attention is part of the job. If everyone scrolls right past what you made, it doesn’t particularly matter how much thought went into it.

So we’ve adapted.

We’ve gotten better at communicating an idea quickly. We’ve experimented more with motion. We’ve learned that showing our portfolio isn’t necessarily the same thing as showing people who we are.

Some of that pressure has actually made us better.

But the algorithm can also be a very loud coworker.

It has plenty of opinions about how we should say something.

Make it move. Get to the point faster. Give people a reason to stop scrolling.

And sometimes, it’s worth listening to.

Where we get a little more hesitant is when those suggestions start influencing what we create in the first place.

Should we make more of this just because it performed well? Should we follow a trend because everyone else is?

Should we narrow ourselves into one type of content because that’s what we’re “supposed” to do?

That’s when we have to remind ourselves:

We can just be Grid Owl.

The algorithm can help us figure out how to get an idea in front of people. It doesn’t have to decide what that idea is.

We can learn what gets people’s attention without letting it decide everything we make.

There’s a difference between letting the algorithm influence how we communicate and letting it decide what we communicate.

We don’t want to make things for an algorithm.

We want to make things for people.

Sometimes reaching those people just means playing the algorithm’s game a little.

So we’re curious:

If the likes, views, saves and shares disappeared tomorrow, would you still be putting the same things out into the world?

A logo project might include packaging.

A website.

A photo of a restaurant menu.

Typography.

Maybe something that has absolutely nothing to do with the industry we’re designing for.

At first glance, it doesn’t make much sense.

When most people think about gathering inspiration, the obvious place to start is by looking at businesses doing the exact same thing.

And we do that too.

But over time, we’ve found ourselves wandering further and further away from the obvious.

Sometimes the thing that catches our attention isn’t another business in the same industry.

It’s the way a completely different industry solved a completely different problem.

Maybe it’s the feeling you get when you open a package.

Maybe it’s the way information is organized.

Maybe it’s a type setting that makes you stop scrolling for just a second.

We’ve started realizing that the interesting part isn’t what we’re looking at.

It’s why it caught our attention in the first place.

That question has become much more valuable than the reference itself.

Because once you understand why something made you pause, you stop looking at it as a restaurant menu…or a package…or a website.

You start seeing an idea.

And ideas have a funny way of showing up where you least expect them.

That’s probably why our reference folders never make much sense.

They’re not really organized by industry.

They’re organized by curiosity.

So now we’re curious…

Have you ever found inspiration somewhere you weren’t expecting?

Maybe it was a conversation.

A place you visited.

A hobby.

A book.

Or something completely unrelated to what you were trying to do.

We’d love to hear about it.

We imagined spending our days designing logos, building brand identities, creating marketing materials, and helping businesses bring their ideas to life.

And to be fair… we have.

But over the last few weeks, we’ve realized that design has only been a small part of what we’ve actually been doing.

Instead, we’ve spent hours researching organizations to introduce ourselves to. We’ve met with mentors who challenged us to think differently. We’ve rewritten sections of our website more times than we’d like to admit. We’ve gone back and forth over social media ideas, questioned our messaging, and tried to figure out the best way to tell people who we are and what we do.

None of those things end up in our portfolio.

Most of them don’t make for exciting social media posts either.

From the outside, it might even look like we haven’t accomplished much.

But when we stopped to think about it, we realized something.

We’ve been building the business just as much as we’ve been building the brand.

That was a shift we didn’t expect.

When you’re just starting out, it’s easy to think progress only counts when you finish something. A new logo. A new client. A new project. Something tangible that you can point to and say, “Look what we made.”

What we’ve learned is that a lot of progress happens long before anyone else can see it.

It happens in conversations.

It happens when someone asks a question that makes you rethink your approach.

It happens when you realize your website isn’t saying what you thought it was saying.

It happens when you send one more email, revise one more paragraph, or finally ask for help instead of trying to figure everything out on your own.

Those moments don’t feel productive in the moment.

Sometimes they even feel frustrating.

But they’re quietly changing the way you think.

Looking back, we’ve realized that nearly every improvement we’ve made recently started with someone else’s perspective. Advice from mentors. Honest feedback. Conversations that challenged our assumptions. Questions we hadn’t thought to ask.

None of those conversations gave us a magic answer.

What they did give us was a different way of looking at the same problem.

And sometimes, that’s all you need to take the next step.

It’s funny.

If someone asked us what we’ve been working on lately, we’d probably struggle to answer in one sentence.

We haven’t been creating one big thing.

We’ve been making dozens of small improvements that, on their own, don’t seem very significant.

But together, they’re shaping the kind of business we want to build.

Maybe that’s what growth looks like more often than we realize.

Not one big breakthrough.

Just a collection of small decisions that slowly change the way you work, the way you think, and the way you move forward.

If there’s one thing we’ll take away from the past few weeks, it’s this:

Don’t underestimate the work that nobody sees.

The conversations.

The revisions.

The research.

The questions.

They may not feel as rewarding as finishing a project, but they’re often the reason the next project turns out better than the last.

Six months ago, there were a lot of things that made us hesitate.

Sending cold emails was one of them. We spent way too much time rereading them, wondering if they sounded professional enough, friendly enough, or if we were bothering people. Hitting “send” felt like the hardest part.

Publishing our first newsletter was another. We weren’t sure if anyone would read it, if it was interesting enough, or if we were just talking into the void.

Even putting our work out there felt different. Every portfolio piece, every social media post, every update to our website came with the little voice asking, “Is this good enough?”

None of those feelings have completely disappeared.

But they’re quieter now.

We’ve realized that confidence doesn’t usually come first. Most of the time, it shows up after you’ve done the thing a few times.

We still second-guess ourselves. We still tweak an email one more time than we probably need to. We still wonder if a post is worth sharing.

The difference is that we don’t let those thoughts stop us anymore.

Looking back, that’s probably been the biggest change. Not that we’ve become fearless, but that we’ve gotten more comfortable being uncomfortable.

It makes us wonder what the things we’re nervous about today will feel like six months from now.

If you’re building something of your own, maybe you’ve had that experience too. Sometimes growth isn’t one big milestone. Sometimes it’s realizing that the thing that used to make your stomach turn has quietly become just another part of your day.

Somewhere in between, apparently, is “the right price.”

Every price point you could imagine, all claiming to do the same thing.

So we tried to find the “right” number.

We have degrees. Two decades of doing this work.

But we’re also a new business.

No long client list yet. No years of local reviews. Just the work, and the belief that it’s good.

So which one matters more when it comes to price? The experience or the newness?

We kept going back and forth.

Charge based on our skill and it might look too high for a business people don’t know yet.

Charge based on our size and it might undervalue everything we’ve spent all these years learning.

We’re not just pricing our time. Or a file. Or a deliverable.

We’re pricing judgment. Instinct. The kind of decision-making that only comes from doing this work for a very long time.

So maybe the real question isn’t “are we charging the right amount.”

Maybe it’s “does our price reflect what we’re actually bringing to the table.”

Honestly…

We’re still not sure.

“Who are your competitors?”

At first, the answers came easily.

Other designers.

Branding professionals.

Marketing agencies.

Freelance platforms.

DIY tools.

The list kept growing.

But the more we thought about it, the less it felt like a question about competition.

Because the truth is, those options aren’t really the same thing.

Someone using a DIY platform isn’t necessarily looking for the same experience as someone hiring a designer. A business working with an agency may have very different needs than someone hiring a freelancer.

Yet somehow, all of these options end up in the same conversation.

That got us thinking.

Maybe people aren’t always looking for the same thing.

Imagine two business owners who both need a logo.

One wants the fastest solution possible. They have a hundred other things on their plate and just need something they can start using.

Another wants a creative partner who can help them explore ideas and shape how their business is presented to the world.

They’re trying to solve the same problem, but they’re looking for completely different experiences.

The more we thought about it, the more we realized that what people value can vary just as much as the services themselves.

Some people value speed. Some value affordability. Some value collaboration. Some value expertise. Some value having complete control over the process.

None of those priorities are wrong.

They’re simply different.

As designers, it’s easy to think about the work itself. The logo. The website. The social media graphics.

But behind every project is a person making decisions based on what matters most to them.

Maybe that’s why the competition question was harder to answer than we expected.

It wasn’t because there were so many options.

It was because those options revealed something bigger.

People aren’t always searching for the same solution.

They’re searching for the solution that feels right for them.

And that’s a much more interesting question than who our competitors are.

Our story started years ago in high school art class, where a shared love of creativity quickly turned into a close friendship. Later, we attended art school together for graphic design, took classes side by side, and eventually earned our degrees together.

Graphic design has been a passion for both of us for most of our lives. But what inspired us to actually start our business wasn’t just our background in design. It was the realization that we shared the same dream.

We wanted to create work that felt personal and genuinely meaningful to the businesses we work with.

Like many small businesses, though, we quickly learned that building a business involves much more than doing the work you love.

One of the biggest challenges we’ve faced hasn’t been design itself. It’s been learning how to establish a strong online presence, gain visibility, market ourselves effectively, and build a portfolio and brand that truly stand out.

Learning how to put ourselves out there has been its own creative challenge.

Throughout this stage of growth, guidance from organizations like NJSBDC has been incredibly valuable for us. Having experienced professionals help us evaluate our branding, online presence, and business direction has given us a clearer understanding of how we want to present ourselves, not just as designers, but as business owners.

It’s also reminded us that growth doesn’t happen all at once. Sometimes it looks like refining your website. Sometimes it looks like learning how to talk about your work more confidently. Sometimes it looks like simply continuing to show up, create, learn, and improve.

Looking ahead, our goals are simple:

We want to continue growing Grid Owl Graphics, build a stronger and more consistent flow of opportunities, and create recognizable work that reflects our creativity, style, and attention to detail.

We also wanted to create this newsletter as a space to share more of that journey.

Here, you can expect branding observations, creative thoughts, business lessons, behind-the-scenes moments, and the things we’re learning as we continue building our company.

Thanks for being here at the beginning. We’re excited to see where this goes.