Ben Walker.
Ben Walker, Founder & CEO, Those That DO
Those That DO just turned four.
Which, in business terms, still feels young. But in human terms, four-year-olds are fascinating creatures. They have huge imaginations. They’re big personalities in small bodies.
They’re imaginative, emotional, surprisingly insightful and occasionally exhausting.
They ask “why?” about everything. They’re learning how feelings work, theirs and everyone else’s. They’re growing independent and they thrive when they feel capable.
They’re also confident but insecure. Independent but needy. Logical but wildly imaginative, often all in the same afternoon.
The more I think about it, the more I realise that sounds a lot like us.
We started in a former coffee shop with belief and not much else. No grand infrastructure. No safety net. Just ambition and a point to prove. Like most four-year-olds, we had a big personality in a relatively small body. Big ideas. Big energy. Big ambition.
In those early years, we didn’t think in neat service lines or carefully packaged offerings.
We just saw possibilities. Our imagination shaped the business. Brand positioning projects turned into campaigns. Campaigns turned into experiences. At one end of the spectrum, we were defining brands; at the other, we were bringing them to life in the real world through experiential and activation work. Without fully realising it, we were building an end-to-end, brand-centric agency.
Four-year-olds don’t overcomplicate things. They just ask, “why?”
Why does it work like that?
Why can’t we do it differently?
Why not?
That curiosity became part of our DNA. Why should brand strategy sit in a deck and never live in culture? Why can’t an independent agency compete with the big networks? Why can’t we build something properly, without layers and politics?
That questioning has helped us grow. Our new business track record is something we’re genuinely proud of. We’ve proven we can show up, compete and deliver.
But asking “why?” also means turning it inward. Why did we lose that? Why did that hire not work? Why does this feel harder than it should?
Here’s the less glamorous parallel: four-year-olds are still learning how feelings work. Their emotional regulation is very much under construction.
Building an independent agency is emotional. You feel every win. You feel every loss. You feel every client departure, every budget shift, every change in direction. It can sometimes feel like a leaky bucket, as business comes in, some inevitably drops out through leadership changes, performance pressures or evolving priorities. You can’t take momentum for granted.
Over time, you learn resilience. You learn not to ride every high too high or every low too low. You learn to steady yourself.
Four-year-olds also have strong opinions. So do we.
We believe independents are the right model for clients. Closer relationships. More accountability. Fewer layers. More doing. But belief alone isn’t enough. We have to help clients see it. We have to unlock it. There needs to be more of a “throw them into the mix” mentality , more bravery to back independent agencies not just as support acts, but as true partners.
We’re confident in what we offer. But like any four-year-old, there are moments of insecurity too. It’s easy to look sideways. To compare, to wonder if others have it more figured out.
The truth? I think everyone is figuring it out in real time.
The difference is whether you build something you genuinely believe in.
As four-year-olds grow, they thrive when they feel capable. That’s been the journey of the last couple of years for us, moving from pure hustle to foundations, from energy to structure, from saying yes to everything to being clearer about what we’re great at.
We’ve focused on efficiencies, processes and systems, not words that used to come naturally to me, but they matter. Talent without structure burns out. Ambition without process leaks value. We’ve been learning how to become a fit business: fit for scale, fit for consistency, fit for resilience. And resilience feels particularly important right now.
Four-year-olds live very much in the present moment. There’s something healthy in that.
In an industry obsessed with what’s next, what’s bigger, what’s scaling faster, sometimes it’s important to acknowledge where you are.
We’re four. Not fully formed, not finished, but definitely capable. Confident but occasionally insecure. Independent but still learning. Logical, yet wildly imaginative, sometimes all in the same afternoon.
Four years in, we’ve chased, won, lost and learned, but one thing hasn’t changed. Those that do, believe. And at four years old, we’re only just getting started.