Jeff Pedowitz

Hi, I'm Jeff Pedowitz, founder and CEO of The Pedowitz Group. In 2007, my wife Sherry and I had just built our dream home. Six months in, I decided to leave a stable job and start a company. Our neighbors thought we were crazy. Who walks away from a steady paycheck with a brand new mortgage on the line? Apparently, we did.

There were years we lost money before we made any. Years we borrowed against ourselves to make payroll. We won contracts that changed everything and lost others we were certain we'd win. We reinvented parts of the business and came back stronger. Over 19 years, we've helped generate more than $25 billion in marketing-sourced revenue for our clients, have had the privilege of sitting down with thousands of chief marketing officers to learn how some of the best marketing leaders in the world think.

None of those milestones were inevitable. It happened because every setback was followed by another chance to keep building. That's what running a small business in America really means. It's not a straight climb. It's taking a risk when the outcome is uncertain. It's getting knocked down and finding a way back. You don't just build a business. You build resilience. You build trust. You build people.

Maybe our neighbors were right. It was a crazy decision. But in America, crazy ideas become businesses every single day. Today, AI is changing nearly every industry. Some people see disruption. I see another chance to build. Not because the future is guaranteed, but because builders don't wait for certainty. They adapt. They imagine what comes next, and then they get to work.

For 250 years, America hasn't been perfect. But generation after generation, we believed tomorrow could be better than today, and we've gone to work making it so. America's never been defined by the tools we use. It's been defined by the people willing to build with them. For 250 years, the builders keep building.

Happy 250th, America.