The Story of Us (And Our First Year)
One year in, and the Vigilante Era is still in full shimmer. What started as a response to right the wrongs of traditional PR agencies became proof that keeping it 100 in everything you do equals success. For those of you who have followed and supported our journey, you know that one thing has been a major driving force behind our success: transparency. We knew that if we were true to ourselves and our clients, we would succeed. And did we ever!
What an amazing feeling it was to realize we’d made it through our first year. Even more exciting is that we’ve been so busy, we didn’t even notice at first (shoutout to LinkedIn for reminding us of our “birthday”). It’s not lost on us how blessed we are to be able to show up to work every day doing something we love and truly making a difference for our clients and in the world. In honor of our birthday, we thought we’d share our key takeaways from our breakout year.
SHAKE IT OFF
Over the past year, we’ve still felt the ripple effects of where we came from. Long after we moved on, we found ourselves dealing with unnecessary distractions, like mountains of paperwork and legal threats simply for telling the truth about our past career experiences.
It was a stark reminder of what happens when ego gets in the way of growth. You can’t build real success on recycled ideas (or logos), surface-level rebrands or a refusal to take accountability. And you definitely can’t move PR forward by repackaging foundational thinking as if it’s some new industry breakthrough. Frankly, this is where a lot of legacy thinking shows itself: continuing to circle the same tired ideas with different…prolixity.
But enough about outdated thinking, recycled takes and what happens when you put a sales mindset in a PR seat. That chapter actually clarified a lot for us, showed us exactly what we didn’t want to build and reinforced why we started Vigilante PR in the first place.
opalite
We grew the best way we know how: by doing work that made people want to talk about us. We built Vigilante entirely through referrals, which honestly feels like the strongest proof point there is. Good work has a way of creating its own momentum.
When you deliver at a killer level, stay transparent and treat clients like partners instead of prospects, people remember it. And more importantly, they tell other people. That kind of trust can’t be manufactured in a sales call.
Every single client we’ve worked with has referred us to at least one other client, proving that the work is strong enough and the experience is solid enough that people want others to know about it.
THE ARCHER
This first year taught us a lot, and not just about running great PR campaigns. Building Vigilante meant building the whole machine behind it, too. We picked up a lot of new skills fast, from learning how to design and build a website (and getting way more fluent in Canva), to creating custom AI GPTs, navigating QuickBooks, drafting contracts and figuring out all the other behind-the-scenes pieces that keep a business moving.
Some of it was creative, some of it was operational, and a lot of it was the kind of thing no one really glamorizes…but all of it mattered. It reminded us that building something of our own means constantly learning, adapting and getting comfortable doing things you’ve never had to do before.
KARMA
One year in, what stands out most isn’t just the wins. It’s that we built this business the way we said we would: through strong work, honest relationships and a commitment to doing things differently. We’ve learned a lot, grown fast and proven to ourselves that there is another way to build an agency — one that’s transparent, effective and actually enjoyable to run.
Year one was about proving this could work. Year two is about building on it without losing what made it work in the first place. Stay tuned, the Vigilante Era has only just begun.
🎵 Blog Soundtrack: “Look What You Made Me Do” by Taylor Swift
