Seven years ago, Hot Dog Solutions didn’t have a name. It had a dog.
Meghan, to be precise. Our Husky. She trotted into the office one afternoon, panting away like she’d just finished a marathon rather than had just lay out in the sun during a heatwave, tongue out, tail going like a metronome. I looked at her and thought, “hot dog.” And that, dear reader, is the highly sophisticated, boardroom-approved origin of our company name. No brand agency. No focus groups. Just a very warm dog and a decent pun.
Seven years later, here we are. And honestly? I couldn’t be prouder.
So this one isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a thank you. To the team who built this thing with me, and to the clients and partners who trusted us to deliver. Let me introduce you properly.
Me – the ginger one
I’ll start with myself, because it’s only fair the weakest link goes first. I’m the ginger one. I burn in British weather that other people describe as “overcast.” I’ve been told I “look intelligent wearing glasses.” I came from retail, I’ve hired agencies, I’ve fired more, and somewhere in that mess of frustration I decided to build the kind of agency I always wished I could hire.
The idea was simple: results over spend, honesty over jargon, and treating clients the way I’d want to be treated. Turns out that’s a decent business model. Who knew.
But none of it works without the people. So let’s talk about them.
Laurence – my right-hand woman (and Meghan’s mummy)
Laurence started with us as a Marketing Manager and has since risen through the ranks to become my right-hand woman. She’s French, though I have to report she grows more English by the day – a slow, quiet defeat that I find deeply satisfying.
A word of warning if you ever meet her: feed her. Laurence hangry is a force of nature, and no strategy session survives contact with an empty stomach. Keep the snacks flowing and she is, quite simply, brilliant.
She’s also known to Meghan as “mummy,” which tells you everything about the softness underneath the sharp marketing brain. The business runs better because she’s in it. Fact.
Finley – Math Boy, Gen Z, and the Father Ted revelation
Finley joined us as an Affiliate Coordinator and is now our Head of Commercial. I call him Math Boy, because the numbers simply behave for him in a way they never did for me.
He’s our Gen Z representative, keeping the rest of us vaguely aware of what’s cool. But here’s the kicker. For six years I would wander into the room doing my finest Mrs Doyle impression – “Cup of tea, Father?” – and Finley would just… stare. Politely. Confused. It took six whole years to discover the lad had never seen a single episode of Father Ted. Six years of me thinking I was hilarious to an audience of one very baffled young man. Genuinely humbling.
James – and the cat
James will, given even the slightest opportunity, get his cat on screen in a meeting. Every meeting. She is, to be fair, an extremely cute cat, so nobody actually complains.
What we do quietly question is when James starts stroking her off-screen without announcing it. You just see the arm moving. The gentle, rhythmic motion. No cat in shot. No explanation. It looks, frankly, deeply wrong, and I will not be elaborating further. James, if you’re reading this: show us the cat or stop the arm. There is no middle ground.
Anitha and Jayasri – the development dream team
Anitha and Jayasri joined our development team a year or so ago and quickly became indispensable. They build the clever, reliable, behind-the-scenes work that keeps our clients’ sites humming along.
They’ve also both got married since joining us, which either says something lovely about the happy environment here or means we simply don’t give them enough to do. I’m choosing to believe it’s the former. Congratulations to you both – genuinely.
Sowgandh – keeper of the documentation (and our honesty)
Sowgandh documents everything. And I mean everything. If it happened, Sowgandh has a record of it. A process, a note, a neatly filed trail leading right back to the source.
In a world where plenty of agencies would rather things stayed a little foggy, Sowgandh keeps us honest. That level of transparency is exactly what clients deserve, and I sleep better knowing it’s all written down somewhere sensible.
Sophia and Kingsley – the customer experience heroes
Sophia and Kingsley look after the customer experience for the retail businesses we maintain on behalf of clients. When your customers get looked after properly, they come back – and these two make sure that happens.
What’s brilliant is watching them stretch into other corners of the business. They started in one lane and have steadily proven they belong everywhere. Exactly the kind of growth I love to see.
Seun – making us look good
And Seun. Every polished graphic, every crisp bit of design that makes us look far more put-together than we have any right to be – that’s Seun. Making a company named after a panting Husky look genuinely professional is no small achievement.
Seven years of thank yous
So there it is. A ginger founder, a French right-hand woman who answers to “mummy,” a Gen Z who’s never seen Father Ted, a man and his suspiciously off-screen cat, a development duo, a documentation legend, two customer experience stars, and the person who makes us all look good on paper.
That’s the team. That’s the family. And they are the reason Hot Dog Solutions is still here, still growing, and still delivering real results seven years on.
To our clients – thank you for trusting us. Every single one of you found us through word of mouth, not adverts, and that trust is the greatest compliment we could ever receive. To our partners – thank you for growing alongside us. And to my team, past and present – thank you for the graft, the loyalty, and the laughs. You are the business.
Here’s to the next seven years. Bigger, bolder, and hopefully with someone finally sitting Finley down to watch Father Ted.
Cup of tea, Father?
by Malachi Simons, Founder of Hot Dog Solutions.
