We made the Inc. 5000 list!

Fifteen years ago, Jane and I met randomly on the F train in New York. What began in that noisy car grew into a lifelong friendship, and a business journey that grows deeper every year.

Today, CB/I Digital, the company we founded together, has a solid client base and over a hundred capable staff in our offices in New York and Vietnam. We made the Inc. 5000 list this year, recognizing the fastest growing companies in America and our 156% growth in the last 3 years.

These fifteen years have been an adventure full of hardship and failures, foolishness and arrogance, hard work and commitment, loyalty and joy. We’ve experienced it all.

But most importantly, it’s been a journey full of appreciation and trust that connects us to a wider community.

In our early days, a nice gentleman named Joe Mancuso, founder of CEO Clubs NY, opened the door for us to join his exclusive business club, allowing us to meet with amazing business leaders at a time when we were obviously not qualified.

Ed Giannattasio, founder of Asset Staffing and one of our first clients, completely surprised me when he wrote us a check for a full payment, upfront, for a website project before we’d even written the first line of code.

To Ed, Joe, and many other early mentors and friends, we are overwhelmed by your kindness. You saw something in us when we had nothing to show. Your trust and generosity taught us how business should be done, and provided us the much needed lift and encouragement to survive.

Today, our business is going strong. We have amazing clients and do exciting work across paid advertising, SEO, and enterprise software. We are not only a Google Premier Partner, Facebook Business Partner, and Adobe Solutions Partner, but also develop our own SaaS product, a proprietary cloud platform solution, and other AI technologies.

All of that is fueled by the wonderful relationships we have with our clients and friends. Bryan DeMaranville of Melinda Maria, Ron Kenigsberg and Dan Kenigsberg of Miz-Mooz, Tony Drockton of Hammitt, Jason Tarter, CFP®, ChFC® of First Citizens Bank, Tyler Malinky of LowbrowCustoms, Yen V. of BE Group, and many more, you are all much more than "clients" to us. Your trust and friendship empower us to do the best work we can ever do, and achieve results we can all be proud of.

The credit for the excellent work goes to our teams. Nobile, Jeremy, Rhashiva, Eric, Tazo, Ari, and David Tran, Terry Pham, Derek Le, Mia Vo, Tony Le, and our entire teams at CB/I Digital in the U.S. and Chi Doanh in Vietnam. Some of you have been with Jane and I for over 10 years, and all of you have been working above and beyond with the ultimate care for our clients and our business. Thank you for your great contribution, and for your trust in us.

The world is not always an easy place, but it gets a little easier when you surround yourself with great people.

Thank you, my friends, and all the best in the journey ahead. #thankyou #inc5000