Happy 4th Birthday, Candid
Candid is officially four. So before we move on to year five, Founder and CEO Marissa Luznar is taking a look at where we started, how we got here, and what four years of Candid has actually looked like. There’s a lot to look back on, but mostly, there are a lot of people to thank.
Candid is officially four. So before we move on to year five, Founder and CEO Marissa Luznar is taking a look at where we started, how we got here, and what four years of Candid has actually looked like. There’s a lot to look back on, but mostly, there are a lot of people to thank.
Four years feels like one of those strange milestones – long enough that Candid no longer feels “new,” but short enough that I can still remember, very clearly, what it felt like to take the leap and start it.
And as our fourth anniversary approached, I found myself thinking less about the things you’re supposed to measure when you look back on a business – the projects completed, clients served, revenue earned, milestones reached – and much more about the life and career I hoped I was building when I started it.
Because for me, Candid was never just about owning a business. It was about creating the kind of work life I wasn’t sure actually existed.
Four years ago, I set out to build something that, on paper, sounded pretty simple.
- A career built around working with people and organizations I genuinely respected.
- The opportunity to take on work that challenged me and energized me.
- And the freedom to serve my clients in a way I could stand behind.
That was it.
Four years later, I realize how much was wrapped up in those three things – how incredibly lucky I feel to be able to say that, somehow, they have become the foundation of what Candid is today.
The people. The work. The way we do it.
The People
When I talk about the people I feel lucky to work with, I don’t mean the biggest companies, the biggest budgets, or the most recognizable names. I mean people and organizations that inspire me.
People I respect and learn from. People who care deeply about what they are building and those they serve. People who value what my team and I bring to the table and appreciate the thought, effort, and care we put into our work.
I mean clients who become partners. People with whom we can have honest conversations, challenge ideas, solve hard problems, laugh, occasionally commiserate, and ultimately trust one another enough to do really good work together.
That has always mattered to me.
The Work
Then there’s the work itself.
What I hoped for wasn’t a career made up only of glamorous projects or endlessly creative assignments. Some of my favorite projects have started with incredibly messy problems.
I mean work that makes me think. Work that challenges me, motivates me, and requires me to keep growing as a professional while drawing on everything I have learned over nearly 20 years in this field.
In four years, I have had the opportunity to peek behind the curtain of businesses and organizations of different sizes, structures, industries, and business models. I have learned about industries I knew almost nothing about before the phone rang. I have sat with leadership teams working through pivotal moments. I have helped organizations figure out how to explain complicated things simply, communicate through change, strengthen their brands, tell better stories, reach new audiences, support their people, and prepare for whatever comes next.
Consulting, I’ve learned, is a warp-speed masterclass in leadership, business management, operations, human behavior, and about a hundred other subjects I never realized would become part of my job.
I get to learn for a living. How lucky is that?
The Way We Work
And then there’s the third piece – the one that may mean the most to me. The way we work.
More than anything, building Candid gave me the freedom to care. Deeply.
To approach a project as more than hours on a timesheet or a margin on a spreadsheet. To know that when someone trusts us with their company, their reputation, their employees, their customers, or an initiative that matters deeply to them, we treat that trust with the weight it deserves.
From the beginning, I wanted Candid to value the tenure of a client relationship more than extracting the greatest amount of money from it with the least amount of effort.
To be a company where we can tell a client when we think they’re headed in the wrong direction. Where we can say, “You don’t need to spend money on that.” Where we can ask the uncomfortable question, push back when it matters, admit when we don’t know something, and care enough about the outcome that we don’t simply execute what was asked of us when we believe there’s a better way.
I wanted professional relationships that were honest – candid, you might say – and rooted in trust, mutual respect, and a genuine investment in our clients’ success.
This doesn’t mean it’s been an easy four years. Far from it.
Owning a business can be terrifying. It can be exhausting. There are decisions that follow you home, risks that feel enormous, mistakes that hurt, and plenty of days when the weight of being responsible for your employees’ livelihoods feels very heavy.
But even on those days, this has been rewarding in a way I could never have fully understood before I started.
It’s been empowering. It’s given me an indescribable amount of joy and fulfillment. And it’s changed me.
I’m a better professional than I was four years ago. I’m a better leader. A better business owner. I think I’m probably a better human, too.
And so much of that growth has come from the people Candid has brought into my life.
I have had the privilege of working alongside some insanely talented, intelligent, creative, driven, kind, and successful people. Clients who have taught me about their industries and their businesses. Leaders who have made me rethink how I lead. Colleagues who have challenged my perspective. Partners who have trusted me enough to let me into the complicated, imperfect, behind-the-scenes realities of running an organization.
Steph Shoutout
And, of course, none of this story can be told without Stephanie McHale.
Steph’s loyalty, talent, judgment, creativity, and belief in what we’re building have been instrumental in making Candid what it is today. She has an extraordinary ability to take what is swirling around in my head – sometimes coherent, sometimes decidedly not – and make it real. Better than real, actually.
Watching her grow alongside Candid and step into the role of President has been one of the great joys of building this company. Candid may have started as my leap of faith, but I’m endlessly grateful to have a leader like Steph on the team who cares so much about the quality of our work, the clients we serve, and the kind of company we’re becoming.
And then there are all of you. The people who hired us when Candid was brand new. The people who gave us another project after the first one. The clients who have stayed with us year after year. The people who stuck their necks out and told a colleague, friend, neighbor, family member, or business connection, “You should call Candid.”
Every introduction. Every referral. Every opportunity. Every person who trusted my team and me with something that mattered to them. There’s absolutely no version of this story in which I got here alone.
So from the deepest part of my heart: thank you.
I know those are two small and very overused words. But contained inside them is a lifetime of gratitude that I will always feel toward every person who has contributed, in ways big and small, to the success of Candid Communications.
Sometimes I think back to the girl at Ohio University who changed her major from “undecided” to public relations without having the slightest idea where that decision would eventually take her. She had no idea what she was in for.
Two decades later, I can say with complete certainty that I wouldn’t change it.
Not the winding path. Not the jobs that taught me what I wanted – or the ones that taught me what I didn’t. Not the risks. Not the mistakes. Not the moments that pushed me far outside of my comfort zone.
All of it somehow led here. To four years of doing the work I once hoped I might get to do. With people I genuinely want to do it with. In a way that feels like me.
And maybe that is what I’m most proud of.
Four years ago, I took a risk on the idea that work could be different. That I could build a company around the kind of relationships I valued, the kind of work that energized me, and the kind of service I believed clients deserved.
Four years later, I get to live that idea every day.
I have no idea what the next four years will bring.
I don’t know who I’ll get to meet. What clients will call. What problems we’ll be asked to solve. What cities I’ll travel to, what industries I’ll get an unexpected crash course in, what opportunities will appear that I can’t even imagine today, or how Candid itself will continue to evolve.
And I love that.
The unknown used to be the scary part, but now I think it might be the greatest adventure.
Cheers to four years of Candid – and to many, many more.
I’m so incredibly grateful to have all of you on this ride with me.
— Marissa