Prologue's birthday: Looking back at a great first year + what's next

By Brad Luttrell / Founder, Prologue 

Prologue turned one this month. I've never started a business that was so hot out of the gate, but it wasn't all roses. I quickly learned some of my early preconceptions were just outright wrong. 

Here's a look at some fun milestones, lessons learned and teases for what's coming. 

12 companies helped with strategic storytelling

Prologue worked with 12 companies since inception. 10 of those were B2B, two were B2C. I pulled away from one of the B2C brands, and am still working with another. I have industry expertise for the one B2C client I'm still working with, plus I just like the client.

I bought a butt ton of mini cupcakes to celebrate Prologue's birthday with my family. Celebrate your wins. 

But overall, I'm hyper focused on B2B brands. Or even more specifically, in 2026, I'll be focused on brands that fit this profile:

Industrial, trade skill, or otherwise "boring" brands 

Boring leaves me a bit more open but I like industries others don't find interesting—they usually need the most help because they haven't attracted the kind of talent a sexy B2C brand does.

$25M to $250M in revenue

This isn't a hard rule, but I find the brands who understand the value in what we do at Prologue + are willing to pay for it fall in this range. I'm also finding that many brands are suffering from the same problems. They're generating millions in revenue but struggling to grow. Often when I come in, I find that the positioning is a mess, which is where my job starts .

0 to 6 marketers on the team

This is just an observation, but when these size boring businesses are within this range on marketers, none of them are creative marketers. They're product marketers, or analytical digital marketers. They struggle with the story, which again, is where I come in.  

Are hungry for change

This is the most critical part. I am not interested in trying to convince CEOs this is important. I like working with brands who have already realized it (and several of these new clients have realized this through seeing my personal LinkedIn content—so I can educate them, but it's done at scale not through individual conversations). 

On set for the recording of Season 1 of The Songwriter Podcast for Jammnation. Prologue created the brand and concept of the show and produced the entire first season with the help of Tucker Creative. 

16 1:1 Coaching Clients 

Some of these were repeats, too. I didn't focus on this part of my business this year. All leads were organic, with many starting in a LinkedIn DM. One of these turned into a full-blown retainer client for Prologue. This was a lot of startups and individuals. I've enjoyed the work, but am raising my rate in January to better balance the value of these meetings for me. If I'm distracted from recurring work, I want it to be worth it. 

 45+ People Taught Social Selling

I have a 3 session Content Creation System that I teach, and I did some group education this year, too. This was fun, but I will be scaling back the Content Creation System approach to focus on some new endeavors for Prologue next year. 

Courses and content weren't a fit for Prologue

My original plan for the business was to combine consulting and courses. I was going to build courses to help B2B brands with a self-guided process to fix their own story. But as I worked with the brands that fit the target I wanted to pursue, I realized none of them needed or wanted a self-guided process. They wanted a guide to do it for them. In December, I'll be rewriting all of the Prologue web copy to remove any mention of education and courses, and dialing it in to focus on a new product launch (coming in Q1). 

What's next

This year was huge for Prologue for many reasons, but one of my favorites is that I had time with a few clients to start seeing our work really have impact. With one client, I've led much of the charge in creating an entirely new approach to marketing, and it's starting to really click for them—I'm talking deal generating impact, not just feel-good pretty branding and nice words. With other clients, I've seen our work in attacking issues with organic reach take hold through AI SEO. Things we thought would take 18 months to happen are happening now for that client because of copy and landing pages crafted by our team. 

All of this has taught me that while projects can have value, the real value for our clients is helping them for a longer term. So many branding agencies help with execution but after the unveil, brands don't know how to execute, so they don't. I am not building an agency, but in our first year, we've had to battle that definition because we do some agency-like work. 2026 will start to separate Prologue from agencies, but 2025 taught me our value is that in the long-term execution for brands, because storytelling is ongoing, not a one-time logo project. 

I've hired up a small team that is working on a product that will help our brands with the ever-present problem of applying their own story. Having spent 7 years in agencies in a past life, 8 years running a tech brand, and now, a year running Prologue, I know how hard it is to consistently tell a story not only across a brand, but across even the same marketing team. That's the premise of our new product: Consistent messaging, every time. More soon. 

Thank yous

While it would be really easy for me to sit here and say the success is all me, it's not true. I'm truly grateful to many people who have helped me in that journey. I'm not going to say why on these, because it'd turn into a whole new blog post in itself, but I just want these people to know I appreciate their friendship, mentorship and/or collaboration over the last year.

Without these people, I don't see near the success I've seen in year one of this new journey. I hate to even attempt this for fear of not mentioning someone, but here we go, in no particular order. 

Thank you to:

Mary Margaret Luttrell (my wonderful wife)

Scott Lurding

Linda Lucchese

Jack Danehy

Dan Wacker

Mark Aretha

Garrett Shackelford

Chris Gleim

Donovan Sears

John Brooks

Stephen McCrocklin 

Caio Tomazoni 

Jacqueline Muffet

Brayden Ware

Logan Meaux

Joel Moreau

Russ Carroll

Rob Hillier

Mendel Bochner

Luke Ivers

Dan Kanabroski 

Mike Harian

Tony Dawson

Kristina Cruz

Lucas Liu 

Matt Hinson

Wesley Fairman

Jacob Bozarth

Savannah Stenlund

Brian Eichenberger

Nate Littles

Brannon Lacey

Dave Pedersen

Jay Vasse

Adam Greene

Carol Cavedagne

Sean Breslin

Kate Stinson

Matthew Pawlikowski

Paije Madison 

Logan Jones

Sam Tucker

John Williamson

Demetrius Gray

Brendan Gahan

Darren McKee 

To anyone who's helped me in the slightest and didn't make this list, just know I appreciate you even if I am distracted from your kindness at the moment. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude and also guilty of recency bias (many of these folks have actively helped me over the last few months). 

If you want to see what we're up to and talk about making an impact on your brand, connect with me on LinkedIn or shoot me an email.