Behind The Business
3 August 2026
9 min read
A Business Hat Trick, Ten Years Later
I started my business in 2016. One year later, I thought I’d had my breakthrough. A decade on, here’s what building Launch Digital has taught me about success.
In this article
Quick answer
In June 2017, I wrote a blog post called A Business Hat Trick.
I was about a year into running my own business, which was then called WP Launch Me.
I'd won an award, been invited onto a podcast and been asked to appear on the cover of a business magazine.
All in one day.
I was thrilled.
And I genuinely believed I was watching my business take off.
A decade after starting that business in 2016, I read the article and barely recognise the business owner who wrote it.
Not because she was wrong.
Because she was at the beginning.
She thought success looked like recognition.
Today, I think it looks much more like building something that reflects who you are, works with how you're wired, creates genuine value for other people and doesn't require you to become someone else to sustain it.
The awards were lovely.
The lessons that came afterwards were considerably more valuable.
I almost didn't republish this article
When I found the original post, my first reaction was:
"Oh God."
There's something slightly horrifying about reading your own writing from nearly a decade ago.
It's the business equivalent of Facebook reminding you what you wore in 2009.
You know it was you. There is photographic evidence. You'd just rather everyone moved on.
The original article was enthusiastic. Very enthusiastic.
There were multiple woo hoos.
I talked about my "100% success rate" designing websites clients loved on the first go.
I proudly explained that our team was already expanding.
And I finished by talking about how hard work, good branding and smart networking could open doors for your business.
None of it was dishonest.
But I know so much more now.
So rather than quietly deleting the article and pretending 2017 Tina never existed, I decided to do something more useful.
Let her tell her story.
And then tell you what happened next.
February 22, 2017
I was roughly one year into business.
I'd started WP Launch Me after more than a decade working as a graphic and web designer.
The decision to start the business hadn't come from some grand entrepreneurial masterplan.
I'd been made redundant while on maternity leave.
At the time, it hurt. A lot.
But eventually it forced a decision.
I could return to the traditional 9-to-5 structure, organise daycare, before-school care and after-school care, rush from one responsibility to another and squeeze family life into whatever space was left.
Or I could try building something of my own.
I chose the second option.
Initially, the goal was simple.
Create good work. Make an income. Have more flexibility around my family.
I wanted to have breakfast with my kids.
I wanted to do school drop-off and pick-up.
I wanted them to grow up knowing employment wasn't the only option available to them.
And I wanted to find out whether I could actually make this business thing work.
Then February 22 happened.
Hat Trick #1: I won a business award
I opened Facebook that morning and discovered I'd been named the Women's Business Society's Business Woman of the Month.
I'd never really won anything before.
So this felt enormous.
Someone outside my immediate circle had looked at what I was building and thought:
You're doing something worth recognising.
When you're in the early stages of business, external validation can feel incredibly powerful.
Because most of the time you have absolutely no idea whether you're doing any of it correctly.
There's no boss giving you a performance review.
No established career ladder.
No handbook entitled: "Congratulations on Starting a Business. Here Is Exactly What You Should Do Next."
You're making decisions, trying things, getting things wrong, getting some things right and hoping there's a business somewhere at the end of it.
That award felt like confirmation.
Maybe I can actually do this.
What I know now: recognition isn't the business
Recognition is lovely.
But recognition isn't the business.
I've had to learn the difference between looking successful and building something successful.
They aren't always the same thing.
Awards don't create a sustainable business model.
Followers don't necessarily create revenue.
Being busy doesn't automatically mean you're growing.
And being visible isn't particularly useful if people don't understand what you stand for.
Today, I'm much more interested in what happens underneath the recognition.
Are we solving meaningful problems?
Are our clients getting results?
Are we developing intellectual property rather than simply selling hours?
Are we building authority?
Are our systems sustainable?
Are we creating something distinctive enough that people understand why Launch Digital exists?
Visibility matters. But substance has to sit underneath it.
That took me longer than a year to understand.
Hat Trick #2: I was invited onto a podcast
Later that same day, I was approached to appear on a podcast.
The topic was:
5 Small Changes to Increase Leads to Your Website.
Which, looking back, is actually rather fitting.
Because nearly a decade later, I'm still obsessed with essentially the same question.
How do we remove the things getting between a business and the person trying to buy from it?
The language has changed.
The technology has changed.
Google has changed.
Websites have changed.
AI has changed search again.
And I've changed enormously.
But that underlying question has stayed surprisingly consistent.
Back then, I talked about websites that generated revenue.
Today, I understand that challenge much more deeply.
A website doesn't perform because it looks good.
Marketing doesn't work because you're doing more of it.
And complicated doesn't mean strategic.
Often the biggest opportunity is identifying the friction.
What is making this harder than it needs to be?
For the customer. For Google. For AI. And for the business owner trying to manage the whole thing.
That's become a central idea behind Launch Digital.
Don't make the brain work harder than it needs to.
Clearer websites. Clearer messaging. Clearer search strategies. Clearer next steps. Less unnecessary complexity.
Because when people can find you, understand you and trust you, taking action becomes considerably easier.
What I know now: the website was the output
Back then, I thought my value was being good at designing websites.
And I was.
But I was looking at the skill rather than the pattern underneath it.
What I was actually good at was taking a lot of information, seeing what mattered, simplifying the complexity and turning it into something another person could understand and act on.
The website was the output.
The deeper skill was clarity.
That's a distinction I wouldn't have been able to articulate in 2017.
Today, it's shaping the company we're becoming.
Hat Trick #3: I was asked to be on a magazine cover
Then came the third surprise.
I was asked to appear on the cover of the first issue of the Women's Business Society magazine, along with a feature about my business.
Award. Podcast. Magazine cover. All in one day.
For someone approximately twelve months into business, it felt like I'd cracked some secret code.
And in the original article, I attributed much of that momentum to something we'd recently started doing.
Showing up.
We'd stopped hiding behind our computer screens.
We started networking.
We built relationships.
Opportunities followed.
I still believe that lesson.
But my understanding of showing up has changed.
What I know now: showing up doesn't mean being everywhere
For a long time, online marketing taught business owners that showing up meant being constantly visible.
Post more. Create more. Email more. Film more. Be everywhere. Stay consistent. Feed the algorithm. Never disappear.
For an ADHD business owner, that can become exhausting very quickly.
I've become much more interested in building visibility that doesn't disappear the moment you stop feeding it.
That's one reason I'm so passionate about SEO and AI search now.
A strong body of expertise can keep working.
A useful article can keep being discovered.
A well-optimised service page can keep generating enquiries.
A case study can keep building trust.
Authority compounds.
You shouldn't have to perform online every day for your business to remain visible.
That is a very different definition of showing up from the one I had in 2017.
The part of the original article that makes me smile now
There's a sentence in the original that says: "At WP Launch Me we're known for our passion and energy."
I don't disagree with 2017 Tina.
There was certainly energy.
Possibly an alarming amount.
But today I'd describe what we're building very differently.
WP Launch Me eventually became Launch Digital.
And somewhere along the way, this stopped being simply a web design business.
We became a digital marketing agency.
Then the work became broader again.
Web design. SEO. Strategy. Content. Conversion. Search. AI visibility.
But even those services don't fully explain where we're heading.
Because the biggest shift over the past decade hasn't been adding services.
It's understanding the problem we're uniquely equipped to solve.
I've spent years watching smart business owners struggle with marketing systems built around constant execution, endless content, too many decisions and an expectation that consistency should come naturally if you just want success badly enough.
I don't believe that anymore.
Especially for ADHD and neurodivergent founders.
The answer isn't necessarily more discipline. More content. More platforms. More complexity.
Sometimes we need to redesign the system.
Marketing should work with the brain running the business, not constantly fight against it.
That's the company I'm interested in building now.
I also don't talk about my "gift" the same way anymore
In the original article, I proudly wrote about having a "100% success rate" creating website designs clients loved on the first attempt.
Every. Single. Time.
I had concluded this was my gift.
Would I write that on the website today?
Probably not.
But underneath the youthful confidence was something worth paying attention to.
Why were clients responding so strongly?
Why could I often see what their business needed visually before they could articulate it themselves?
Why was I able to take something complicated and turn it into something that suddenly felt obvious?
Over the years, I've realised this isn't really about having some magical ability to choose fonts and colours.
It's pattern recognition.
I see connections.
I see where things don't make sense.
I see unnecessary complexity.
I see what's missing.
And I have a fairly low tolerance for systems that exist purely because: "That's how everyone does it."
That has shaped everything from how we design websites to how I now think about ADHD-friendly marketing.
Don't blindly optimise the person to fit the system.
Sometimes the system is the thing that needs redesigning.
That lesson has become considerably more valuable than getting a homepage approved on the first attempt.
The business I started and the business I'm building are not the same thing
And I'm glad.
I think sometimes founders become so attached to the business they originally created that they don't give themselves permission to outgrow it.
But you're supposed to outgrow things.
Your thinking should change.
Your standards should change.
Your expertise should deepen.
Your customers should teach you things.
Your mistakes should teach you even more.
And occasionally you should look at something you wrote almost a decade ago and think: "Oh, sweetheart. You have absolutely no idea what's coming."
That's growth.
WP Launch Me was the business I needed to start in 2016.
Launch Digital is the business a decade of experience has taught me to build.
And I'm increasingly interested in what comes next.
Not simply making Launch Digital a bigger agency.
Building better systems.
Developing our methodology.
Creating intellectual property.
Researching how neurodivergent people actually experience websites, content and marketing.
Questioning conventions that create unnecessary cognitive load.
Connecting SEO, AI search, human behaviour and digital experience.
And demonstrating that ADHD-friendly doesn't mean simplified, basic or less sophisticated.
It means intelligently designed.
So, would I still call February 22, 2017 a business hat trick?
Absolutely.
I'd just define the win differently now.
The award wasn't the win.
The podcast wasn't the win.
The magazine cover wasn't the win.
The win was that they gave a very new business owner enough belief to keep going.
I needed that at the time.
I needed evidence that stepping away from the expected path hadn't been a ridiculous decision.
I needed people to say: "We see what you're building."
Because I couldn't see where it would lead yet.
I couldn't see Launch Digital.
I couldn't see the clients we'd work with.
The team we'd build.
The results we'd create.
The things I'd get wrong.
The things I'd completely rethink.
Or who I'd become after a decade of building a business.
I was just trying to create something that allowed me to do work I loved and still pick my kids up from school.
And maybe that's the part of the original article I don't want to rewrite at all.
Because underneath all the woo hoos, that mattered.
It still does.
A decade later, here's what I'd tell her
I wouldn't tell her to work harder.
She's going to do plenty of that.
I wouldn't tell her to network more.
Or post more.
Or add another service.
I'd tell her:
Pay attention to what comes naturally to you that other people find difficult.
Don't assume the accepted way is the best way.
Build around your strengths instead of spending your life trying to correct your weaknesses.
Your ability to simplify complexity is more valuable than you realise.
Don't confuse being busy with building something.
Create assets, systems and authority that compound.
You don't need to be everywhere. You need to become known for something.
And perhaps most importantly:
The business is allowed to change because you are going to change.
A lot.
Thank goodness.
Where Launch Digital is now
Today, a decade after I first took the leap, Launch Digital is a Melbourne-based digital marketing agency working with businesses across Australia.
We're building ADHD-friendly websites, SEO strategies and AI search visibility systems designed to reduce friction, create clarity and help businesses become easier to find, understand and choose.
And the more this business evolves, the more I realise something.
I didn't actually leave employment in 2016 because I desperately wanted to own a digital marketing agency.
I wanted to build work around life rather than continually forcing life around work.
A decade later, that idea has become much bigger.
Because now I'm asking:
What if we did the same thing with marketing?
What if we stopped forcing different brains into systems that weren't designed for them?
What if instead of telling people to try harder, be more consistent and keep up with more platforms, we built smarter systems around how they actually think and work?
That's the next version of the business.
And something tells me 2017 Tina would be pretty excited about it.
Probably with a:
Woo hoo!
Some things don't need to change.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did WP Launch Me become Launch Digital?
WP Launch Me began primarily as a web design business. As the business grew, our work expanded into SEO, digital marketing, content, conversion strategy and, more recently, AI search visibility. Launch Digital better reflects the broader strategic work we now do and the business we've become.
What does ADHD-friendly digital marketing mean?
ADHD-friendly digital marketing is about reducing unnecessary cognitive load and building marketing systems around how people actually think, process information and work. That can influence website structure, content, navigation, calls to action, SEO strategy and the systems business owners use to maintain their visibility. It isn't about making marketing less sophisticated. It's about making it more intelligently designed.
Does Launch Digital only work with ADHD business owners?
No. ADHD-friendly principles such as clarity, reduced cognitive load, better hierarchy, fewer unnecessary decisions and more sustainable systems can improve digital experiences for everyone. Our approach is particularly relevant to ADHD and neurodivergent founders, but the principles have much broader benefits.
What services does Launch Digital offer today?
Launch Digital works across web design, SEO and AI search visibility, including AEO and GEO. Rather than treating these as isolated tactics, we look at how a business can become easier to find, understand, trust and choose across its wider digital ecosystem.
Want a business (and a website) that works with how you're wired?
Let’s talk about a website, SEO strategy or AI search plan built around your business, not someone else’s template.
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