Turning It Up to Eleven Since Year One

It’s been effectively eleven years since we launched FoxFuel, and honestly, I’ve never struggled with the vision. Yes, I probably should have done this at the ten-year mark, but doing this on 11 is a nice homage to Spinal Tap.

From day one, FoxFuel wasn’t a happy accident or a “let’s see what happens” experiment. We knew what kind of work we wanted to make and what kind of creative culture we believed in. The struggle was never where we were going. It was who was coming with us and what it would actually take to make it real.

Building a creative company isn’t like following a roadmap. It’s more like assembling IKEA furniture with a group of smart, talented adults who are all convinced they read the instructions. Spoiler alert: Nobody did. All we had was our experiences, both bad and good, to guide us.

Belief vs. Participation

I’ve learned something important and slightly painful. Some people believe in your vision completely. Others believe in it just enough to nod along while the work is good and the paycheck clears. Neither is wrong. But confusing the two will absolutely mess you up.

You can’t force belief. You can invite it. You can talk about it passionately. You can model it. But you can’t make someone care about the thing the way you do, and you shouldn’t try. Founders who try usually end up tired, frustrated, and having long internal debates with themselves after Zoom calls.

The Years That Tested Everything

Then came the stuff no vision deck prepares you for. Economic swings. Shrinking budgets. COVID, which showed up uninvited and immediately asked us all to question our life choices.

There were real moments where I wondered if this whole thing was worth it. Not dramatically. More in a quiet, exhausted, “what if I just owned a coffee shop” way. The kind of questioning that happens when the world feels unstable and the future refuses to cooperate.

But those seasons stripped everything down to what mattered. The work. The people who stayed. And the realization that resilience isn’t flashy. It’s just consistent.

The Great Resignation (and the Myth of Greener Pastures)

When people left during the Great Resignation, it hurt. Some found genuinely better situations. Some found things that looked greener from a distance but turned out to be aggressively average. And that’s okay.

People should leave when they need to. Sometimes FoxFuel was the place to grow. Sometimes it was the place to realize what wasn’t next. Both can be true, even if one of them stings at the time.

What I learned is this. People don’t owe you belief forever. They owe you honesty while they’re with you. And you owe them the truth about what this thing actually is, not the polished version that lives on social media.

Eleven Years, No Regerts* (Okay, Maybe a Few)

Eleven years in, I’m proud of what we’ve built. Not because it’s perfect, or flashy, or award-winning every day. But because it’s real. We’ve built a team, a culture, and a body of work that reflects exactly who we are, messy, curious, stubborn, and relentlessly committed to doing things that matter.

The next eleven years are wide open. We want to keep pushing, experimenting, and shaking things up with people who are ready to do the same. The work will get harder. The challenges will keep coming. But the payoff, the chance to create something meaningful together, is bigger than ever.

So here’s to the next eleven years. To the work we haven’t imagined yet. To the people who will join us to make it happen. And to building something that, years from now, we’ll look back on and say we actually made it worth doing.

Michael is the Creative Director and co-founder of FoxFuel Creative. He loves British music, vintage German cars, and American history, and his sarcasm knows no bounds. #DreamBig