Swash Labs is Not a Dallas Marketing Agency

At Swash Labs, we’re about to begin our tenth year in business. Back when we first opened our doors, we would get asked all kinds of questions that come with the territory of being a new shop: Where did you come from? What makes you different? Why now? And (maybe a bit more often than other questions) why here?

The last question was normally couched inside of an unstated assumption that a shop like ours, offering our level of service, talent, and quality of work, is usually found in bigger cities like Dallas or Austin. It is fair to say that this is normally the case, but we opened in Denton very much on purpose, not to avoid competing with Austin marketing agencies or Dallas advertising firms, which we have indeed done capably since our first day. Rather, we opened in Denton specifically to avoid being another one of those shops, choosing with intentionality to be a Denton digital marketing firm. 

We did this for two reasons. 

First: The whole motivation for starting Swash Labs was to do world-class work with meaningful outcomes for good people and clients we believe in, and very specifically to do this work without having to commute to Dallas or the greater DFW Metroplex in order to do it. A big city is not the only place you can do good work, and big cities do not have a monopoly on worthwhile clients and opportunities. On a personal level, I didn’t think I should be required to drive 90 minutes each way to do work I loved. So I started my own shop in my hometown.

That’s really the bridge to the second reason, which has shaped much of my thinking about running a business and has also come in handy during a global pandemic: I have always believed that people can do great work from anywhere. Modern technology means your clients can be anywhere, too. This is not to say that there’s no value in personal connections borne of meeting with people face to face. I only mean that this is not the only way to do business. Those who insist upon in-person work or communication which may reasonably be done remotely are attached to things and conditions — trappings and traditions — which do not, ultimately, actually matter, or have any effect on outcomes. 

So, ten years ago, Swash opened up in Denton on purpose. We love this city, and through the old fashioned combination of good fortune and good work, this city loves us back. Our physical location in no way prevents us from doing work all over the country, nor does our work for far-flung remote clients diminish the considerable impact of our advertising services for fantastic businesses and institutions right here at home. 

“I have always believed that people can do great work from anywhere.”

We have been fully remote since March. We’ve had remote staff for years, in Austin first and now Chicago and California, too. When I think about the future, I still think of Denton as our home. Being here has never stopped us from doing excellent work anywhere else. And we still aren’t a Dallas marketing agency, because we’ve never had to be one — and never had to pretend to be one — in order to be successful. Good work and the truth prove out, even in the age of automation and algorithms.