We had the good fortune of connecting with Evan Russack and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Evan, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
After working in the advertising industry for other people for 15 years, my partners and I had a vision for the company that we wanted to create. A company that has a culture that is not just obsessed with the work but equally obsessed with the people at the agency. On top of that was career preservation. My tenure, pay, and age made me a liability, and I didn’t want to fall prey to organizational optimizations. Eight years later, one of the most fulfilling aspects of building WorkInProgress has been bringing our mission and vision to life and having close to 60 people who we respect and value.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I have been fortunate to have had multiple careers. I started off in the beer industry as a brewer, which led to becoming the director of sales and marketing, exposing me to the world of advertising. I found my calling. That took me to a massive global agency. On my first day, I felt like I had made a grave mistake. I now had email, voicemail, and a cubicle. The environment was so foreign to me. In looking back at this time, what I value the most was the opportunity to learn an entirely new set of skills. And when I say entirely new, I mean it was starting all over again after being in my previous career for 10 years. While l learned so much during this time and had incredible mentors, I made so many mistakes. I learned to fail. And I learned it was okay. Beyond becoming a functioning adult in a proper work environment, I took away the desire to always want to learn and evolve. Or better stated, I learned the value of having a beginner’s mindset.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would start in Boulder with hikes around the area. January Coffee for coffee and their egg sandwich. OAK at Fourteenth for dinner. Avanti for drinks. And hopefully a show at Red Rocks or Mission Ballroom. Then I would hit Denver museums—Clyfford Still and the Museum of Contemporay Art. For food, Tavernetta, Hop Alley, and Uchi. Crema for coffee. And hopefully an Avs game.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are so many people who took time to teach me throughout my career that without their interest in wanting to make me better, I would not be who I am today. So thanks to all of you. My four partners who I started WorkInProgress with. We started working together in 2010 at ad agency CP+B—first as teammates, then as friends, and now business partners. It’s incredible to have this much history together, and it makes running the agency so much more fun and special. But with starting a company comes a lot of sacrifice, and without the support of my wife and family, it would not have happened. Lastly, my mom for being such an inspiration and my dad for encouraging me to take the risk.

Website: https://www.wipbdr.com

Instagram: @wip_bdr

Linkedin: @WorkInProgress

Tiktok: @wip_bdr 

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