Next May, Meraki Concept Studio turns ten.
It’s still some way off, but I’ve found myself thinking about what ten years has actually given me. Not a bigger portfolio or a longer client list. Those are by-products. The real asset I’ve accumulated over the last decade is judgement.
I don’t think judgement is something you can manufacture. It isn’t something you decide you have one day. It’s earned slowly, often uncomfortably, through experience.
For almost ten years, my job has been to sit with founders at every stage of business. Some are launching with nothing but an idea. Others have built successful companies but know they’ve outgrown the brand that got them there. Some arrive full of confidence. Others quietly admit they’re completely overwhelmed. They all believe they’re talking about logos, websites or marketing. More often than not, they’re talking about identity, ambition, fear and change.
Those conversations are a privilege. They’ve given me access to moments clients rarely share publicly: the uncertainty before a launch, the pricing decision that keeps them awake at night, the frustration of feeling invisible despite doing exceptional work, the fear that growth might dilute everything they’ve built. Every founder tells a different story, yet every conversation leaves something behind. A question. A perspective. A challenge to something I thought I knew. I often leave those meetings having learned as much as I’ve contributed.
What I’ve realised is that experience compounds. One founder teaches you something. Three hundred founders change the way you think. That’s what clients are really investing in when they work with me.
Yes, they’ll receive a positioning strategy, a visual identity, a website or an advertising campaign. Those are the outputs. The real value is the thinking behind them. It’s the ability to recognise the problem beneath the brief because you’ve encountered versions of it hundreds of times before. It’s knowing which questions to ask before rushing to the obvious answers, which ideas deserve to be challenged and which decisions are likely to matter five years from now rather than simply solving today’s problem.
I’ve had my own thinking challenged thousands of times over the last decade. Clients have disagreed with me. Ideas I’ve felt strongly about have evolved into something better through collaboration, while others have gone on to transform businesses. Every one of those moments has refined the way I think.
That’s why I find it difficult when our industry suggests expertise can be accelerated. That design software can be automated. That AI can generate ideas. None of those things can compress ten years of conversations, decisions and reflection into anything meaningful. The value isn’t in the passing of time itself; it’s in what repeated exposure does to the way you think. You become slower to assume, quicker to recognise patterns and more comfortable having your ideas challenged. Over time, your judgement stops relying on instinct alone and becomes informed by hundreds of conversations, decisions and outcomes.
Looking back, I realise the most valuable thing I’ve accumulated over the last decade isn’t a portfolio. It’s judgement. Every founder who’s trusted me with their business has left me with something I didn’t have before: a different way of looking at a problem, a challenge to an assumption, a reminder that no two businesses are the same, yet very few problems exist in isolation. Every conversation has sharpened the way I think, and every client, knowingly or not, has influenced the advice I give the next.
Perhaps that’s what my clients are really investing in. Not simply a strategy, a visual identity or a website, but access to judgement that’s been shaped over hundreds of businesses, countless conversations and a decade of seeing ideas tested in the real world. Every recommendation I make today is influenced, in some small way, by the businesses that came before it. To me, that’s the quiet advantage of experience. Not certainty, but perspective that’s been earned rather than assumed.