I started The Complete Studio on July 19, 2021. Five years ago today. By then, I had already been freelancing for about a year.
My first paying work came through Fiverr. It was a website design project for an open protocol platform built around trustworthy information. It paid me $900, and we kept working together until 2023. The work went from small Fiverr jobs to projects for small and medium-sized businesses.
I have always been into tech. When I was seven, I knew how to wipe a PC and reinstall Windows. I was a curious kid. I still am. Give me a new CRM, and I’ll build a whole fake company inside it before I decide whether I like it.
That curiosity eventually became a business. I had no formal background in tech or business, so I taught myself. And YouTube helped.
In 2018, during my second year of college, I learned to design and build websites on YouTube. Soon after, I was running paid ad campaigns and managing social media accounts. Internships in PR, marketing and communications taught me the part YouTube could not: how companies make decisions.
Before I started the company, I spent a lot of time asking what would make it worth starting. I did not want to build one more agency selling the same work in the same way. I loved the work. I still do.
I wanted to care about the business behind the project rather than finish my part and disappear. Over time, I began hearing the same complaint from clients: capable vendors were easy to find. Ownership was harder.
Money matters, yes. But clients notice care most when the easy part of the project is over.
The second reason was freedom. Running the business gave me control over my time. But the freedom I valued more was being able to follow a problem across the whole company. I wanted to see what happened before my part of the work began and after it ended. I could test an idea without waiting for it to fit a job title.
In our first year, our clients were in the US and UK. Five years later, they are also spread across India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Europe. As clients brought us larger problems, the work moved beyond branding and websites into their systems and software.
By July 2026, we had completed more than 90 projects for 53 companies and 33 founders or startups. A surprising number of clients contact us after being let down by another agency. The complaint I hear most often is about trust and follow-through.
The tools changed far more than the reason I started. AI has been the biggest change in how we work. It has made parts of the work faster. I also think it has made average ideas easier to produce.
More people now reach for a prompt before they have sat with the problem. The first answer comes faster now. That does not make it a better answer.
We use AI to remove repetitive work and speed up early drafts. After a client meeting, it helps turn scattered notes into a clear summary, a list of tasks and a first draft of the follow-up email. The work is important, but copying the same information from one place to another is not where human attention is most useful. We save that attention for the decisions and details that affect the client.
I do not think AI will take my job. At least, not the part that depends on understanding a client.
AI can make a logo or draft a website. But someone still has to decide what is right for the business. AI cannot be responsible for whether the work solves the client’s problem.
I think work with a visible human point of view will become more valuable. It carries emotion and a human connection, which I do not think AI can create yet. So we will keep using it while taking responsibility for the result ourselves.
In February 2025, I emailed Justin Ishbia, the founding partner of Shore Capital. I did not know whether he would read it. He replied.
One part of his reply has stayed with me: “keep your head up and keep grinding. And you can only control what you can control and can’t change the past. Always think about just putting one foot in front of the other and keep going.” I still return to that email some days.
Some people shape the way you think without ever knowing your name. I have learned from books, essays and newsletters written by people I may never meet: Paul Graham, Benedict Evans, Maria Popova, Ben Thompson, Neil Patel and many others whose work reached me at the right time. They have shaped how I think about business, technology and the kind of company I want to build. I am grateful to them.
And I am grateful to everyone who trusted me while I was still learning. Some of the projects ended years ago. The relationships did not.
The company grew, but most of the growth happened in the things I learned to notice: the questions clients were really asking, the small details that changed the result and the difference between finishing the work and caring about it.
I do not know what the next five years will bring. That is why I am excited about them. The company and the tools will change. I hope the reason behind the work does not.