Hey gang,

7 years ago (and a day) I announced I was going to spend all of my time trying to make Sharp Guys’ a full time gig.  At the time, my family helped me announce with this picture (aww).  

I think partially due to the awesome might of that picture, a bunch of luck, many critical friends/colleagues/family, and perhaps most importantly, a bunch of Totino’s Pizza Rolls, it worked!

I pushed for the fam to recreate the image this year but my oldest (shown on the left), turns 12 years old this week, and doing her part to be a cliché of a pre-teen, nixed the idea.  Somehow she is embarrassed about everything (except for the embarrassing music she likes).

Over the last 7 years, we added an entire new kid to the family (she is awesome and turns 5 this year) and the company has added 3 additional people beyond myself, none of which are named Sharp or even have Sharp within their middle names (I asked). It has been a whole heckuva (that’s the official spelling according to America’s real dictionary, Urban Dictionary) lot of fun and being able to casually intrude on your email inbox over these years has meant the world to me.  Thank you all for being supportive, thinking of us when you least wanted to, and not unsubscribing even when every part of you being felt the need to.

The Work

If you’ve been a part of this email list for a while, then you know I’ve already broken my rule not to discuss work or work-like things, at least not until later in the email (usually this section) when I’ve already sucked you in by writing about random, dumb things. So since I’ve already broken my own rule, I might as well stay on the road to hell and announce in annoyingly capitalized letters that – SHARP GUYS’ HAS A NEW WEBSITE!  It is the 4th iteration since the beginning of the company (which actually started as a side project 10 years ago), and this one was crafted by our newest web designer AJ Krok and complemented with branding schemes by Sharp Guys’ virtuoso, Jeremy Butcher.  I know I can speak for absolutely everyone when I write, wow – they are way better designers than me!

I do have a surprise for you that hopefully makes all this work talk worthwhile for you to read – I went back to the cobwebbed, bricked off portions of my computer’s hard drive (physically bricked off during my masonry phase) and I found a super early versions of the Sharp Guys’ website branding (from November 2011).  Looking back, I think we can all agree that throwing knives should be used much more often in corporate branding.

But I wimped out years ago and ended up having a logo with glasses – I somehow became every optometrist’s capitalistic dream (people with glasses on their eyes) instead of every optometrist’s nightmare (people having throwing knives in their eyes).  Well I guess that’s growing up…

Current Logo – AKA, Optometrist’s Dream

Other Stuff

Tomorrow I turn 39 and life has been very good to me and I want to thank some people.
Note: you can safely skip this part if you don’t want to read honest reflection and feel good content (no judgement!).

My family growing up gave me more love and support than anyone could ask for – especially for someone with the kind of grades I got, thanks mom and dad!

The Sharp Guys’ small team has allowed this company to flourish in a way that I never expected – thank you for everything you do.  A special shout out to Jeremy Butcher, a colleague and good friend – the company has been made so much better by you, your ideas, and work ethic.

And while my wife Christine may not be an official member of the Sharp Guys’ payroll, without her there would be no company and this newsletter would not have happened (so depending on whether you like it or not, you may want to complain to her).  We have now been together for 20 years and married for 14, I love you Christine – thank you for helping me follow my dreams while keeping me appropriately grounded in reality.

Speaking of being kept grounded, I must mention my kids – Adelaide, Sullivan and Cecilia – life is so much better because of each of you.  And I know that no matter how many websites I create or success the business has, the best job I ever have had or will have is being your dad.

As always, thanks so much for reading.  Please reach out sometime soon.

Cody