We started our journey with one simple question - if we were seated at this table ten years from now, what would make us proud? Our initial thoughts drifted to monetary returns and recognition. Yet when we probed deeper into what fulfills us, it’s when we feel useful. Equally, we observed that while our backgrounds and experiences are quite different, every major transition - be it personal or professional - resulted from not feeling useful. Our mission ‘be useful’ originates from this insight.

Usefulness is an emotion more than an absolute. An awareness rather than an acumen. We may use different words to describe the feeling - valued, helpful, effective - and being useful can sound simple, but it’s quite hard in practice. That’s because being truly useful often pits self interest against collective interest. It requires us to navigate a never-ending set of competing demands. It tests our humility.

When applied to our partnership we find we are most useful to each other when we:

Ask questions rather than force an answer.
Agree without having to compromise.
Build trust in the small moments, not just the big ones.
Surround ourselves with a proven circle of advisors to help us break a tie.

This is the same approach we intend to apply to our practice.

We’re honored to already have met some great collaborators in this early stage of our journey. A sincere thank you to Terry Marks for our logo and website design, Jessica Chou for her photography, and Bruce Whitley for his legal guidance. You have helped breathe life into Frame.