Landon Thurman – Chief Creative Officer
I recently made one of the biggest decisions of my life:
I decided to leave my 9-5 and jump headfirst into starting my own Branding & Marketing Agency. As I acquired several years of firsthand agency experience, I refined my abilities to learn and adapt to fast-paced environments with the added stress of deadlines and quick client turnarounds. Over the years, I saw so many people struggle and fail in this environment and few make it through. As I climbed the corporate Design ladder, I reached a point where I felt that I was ready to take it to the next step, so I took this interim time to continue learning and observing while I began building my own business – I was working from 9-5 and then hustling from 5-12 in order to build what we have today.
This past year was tough both physically and mentally as I challenged myself to juggle both workloads, but I know it had to be done to make a jump once I was ready. I took the risk and decided to go all-in with my business, so I teamed up with two seasoned veterans in the industry, one from the business side and the other from Marketing, to form and officially create Fifty Elevn – a full-service Branding & Marketing agency. Once we established ourselves in a specific market, we began expanding further into other markets where we knew we would be successful. From CPG to Lifestyle, Healthcare, and Finance, we learned the narrative of each industry and adapted our abilities in order to produce optimal results, no matter the brand we were working with. As our reputation grew, so did our portfolio, and we thankfully did it with some amazing brands. Some of our clients had come from previous relationships while others came about through random opportunities and white-labeling our services through other agencies. As we continued to see success, we decided it was time to take the next steps. Both partners decided to move our headquarters to Dallas, TX, at the start of February this year, and it only made sense for me to follow my team. Despite the pandemic and other external situations out of our control, we successfully made the transition despite the possibility of risk.
It’s been tough navigating through new territory while trying to make a name for ourselves in a new location with limited reputation. We have a solid portfolio and a large breadth of experience across industries, but we’re looking to reposition our focus on changing the world of corporate Design by ridding the ideals and preconceived notions of traditional Marketing and Design practices. We felt that it was time we shake this up while everything else in the world was being shaken up; we wanted to start with a fresh, new direction and not just reinvent the wheel, but completely change the approach to how things have typically been done. We’re looking to make bold moves together with industry leaders in order to design against the dull, the bland, and the boring “same old-same old”. We’re ready to figure out the new way of corporate Branding and Marketing.
