Our Beginnings

The Chair

In the early days of Solve, we didn’t sit in cushy Herman Miller swivel chairs rolled up to fancy workstations. Our space was the advertising equivalent of crashing on a friend’s couch. We sat in camping chairs around a folding table in a vacant space donated by our first client.

We didn’t think much about it at the time, but those camping chairs embodied the vision we started Solve with.

Like the best ideas, they were simple. They taught us that if we focused on the work and stayed true to our clients’ business challenges, everything else would take care of itself.

They were the antithesis of fancy. They showed us we could live without the frills and inefficiencies of the big agencies we had come from. And still go toe-to-toe with them.

They were uncomfortable. A reminder that the best work happens when you force yourself to go beyond the safe and familiar.

We started Solve with the belief that the collective might of a small group of passionate people could achieve remarkable things. That the power of ideas could overcome any limitation of size and scale. Since then, we’ve grown. Our furniture is a little nicer. But what those camping chairs came to stand for will always be part of who we are.