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It seems like just yesterday I was approached by my business partner about the idea to start our company. It was early 1999 and all I knew about the internet was learned in a couple of classes I took in college. What was supposed to be a weekend-long conversation to discuss his ideas turned into days of planning. The idea? To create an online lifestyle magazine for the city of Philadelphia. 

We quickly started looking for funding, legal consultation, accounting advice and our domain name. It didn’t take long for things to fall into place and, before we knew it, we were interviewing companies to build the website and database that would become crucial for our growth.

On Halloween 1999, we sat there, listening to the AOL dial-up tone, hitting refresh over and over again, waiting for our new site to propagate across the World Wide Web.

Now it was time to hit the streets to find restaurants to review, take photos of the hottest parties, attend art galas, write about the latest trends in fashion and talk to establishment owners about paying to advertise online. Yes, that was the business model–pay to promote your site on the internet.

As we started to meet with owners and discuss our advertising packages, we quickly found out that most of these owners did not even have a website to promote. It was clearly time to adjust our business model and start to offer web design services. We were fortunate enough to find Mike Leary, who is still with us today. Mike is the nucleus that holds the office together. His presence, combined with his knowledge of the web, allows us to change when the trends shift. 

With a full suite of services available, it was time for us to meet with one of the most popular places in Manayunk. That meeting paid off for us and was the stepping stone for building our confidence and belief in the company. Thank you, Manayunk Brewing Company, for giving us that opportunity and staying with us for these past 15 years.

I remember meeting with eight to ten places a day, starting at 7 am and finishing the last meeting at 10 pm. The content on our site was well-written by individuals who were starting their journalism careers. The website traffic was picking up, we were moving into our first office, and we were building websites for some of the top businesses in the city.

As our portfolio grew, so did the requests. "Can you help me with our menu design?" "We need letterhead; do you design business cards?" "How about designing an ad for Philly Mag?" Soon then the requests started to become more brand focused. "We would like to redesign our logo," or "I have a new concept opening in NYC that needs a brand and guidelines, can you help?"

With all the work coming in and other city guides starting to pop up, it was time to make another decision about the direction of the company. Who are we and what do we want to be when we get older? Those questions were difficult but lead us down the path to become focused–AYC Media was only an online digital media agency.

Over the years, we have been fortunate to have amazing members on our team. Some are still with us today and others are as new as this year. We would not be who we are were it not for the past employees and those employees of today. Those who have left have gone on to do amazing things–starting their own companies, becoming editor in chief of a magazine or social media experts, even developers at ebay and students of law.

To all of these people–thank you. And to the team here with us now, I know we are on the path to great things. The ideas coming from these amazing people are paving the way to help AYC Media grow substantially.

I am proud to be a part of this with all of them.