Some background information about me and this blog.

Just a few blanket statements about me, this blog, and my intent:

I’m Max Brown and I’m the founder of Echelon One Media. I operate primarily under my business name because I feel it’s more legitimate, it makes more sense, and I’m not interested in a lot of personal focus. It’s just not me to want to make myself my brand. However, I have some level of ambition, I need to provide for my family, I don’t want a boss, and I like to create things. Those things demand that I throw myself into the mix in the appropriate places. My long-term desire is to work with other designers to provide my service on a larger scale, but as of the time of this writing, in most cases when you interact with Echelon One Media and our content, it came directly from me.

I spent most of my career as part owner of a real estate brokerage serving Ohio and West Virginia (four years as an independent firm and three years as a Coldwell Banker franchise) handling our company’s marketing, branding, and online presence. I was a photographer, videographer, graphic designer, web designer, social media manager, ad manager, and more. We had a lot of success through the hard work of a lot of different people, we grew quickly, and became the top-producing brokerage in our market. Those 7 years allowed me to gain a ton of first-hand experience that I’ll always be grateful for.

However, that experience came with costs. I was missing my life. I was always accessible. The overlap between my work and my life became increasingly intense. The blessing of learning to do many things became the curse of being the person who could do many things. Couple that with being someone who naturally has a hard time saying “no”, the perfect storm had brewed. Everyone has needs, everyone is trying to make it in a challenging world, I get that, and that’s okay. I had my first child and it quickly became clear that choosing my work over his need for a present father would never be acceptable to me. My wife and I are the leaders of our family, it’s on us to give him the best version of us as possible and figure the rest out. So, I sold my half of the business and decided to make a new beginning with Echelon One Media. I’ve been focused on this since August of 2025, so it’s still relatively new and I would be lying if I said I’m not still figuring everything out. I’ve tried a lot of things that didn’t work, but I’ve had some small successes that I’m moving forward with. That’s business…especially at the beginning. There’s beauty in the struggle. I can’t tell you how many moments I’ve had with my son where the thought has raced through my head “so glad I didn’t miss that.” That’s priceless, and there’s nothing that could be more meaningful to me than that. At the end of the day I will always view myself as just a regular guy. I played college baseball, I love cutting grass, I throw ball with my dog, and I jam out in the car. I’m not here to pretend I’m something I’m not and I’m not here to sell you a dream.

What I really enjoy doing is creating things that make an impact. It doesn’t matter if it’s a social media post, a website, a logo, or something else visual. I just enjoy creating things to the best of my ability and the satisfaction of looking at it after. When I get to work with someone and my contribution is viewed as a positive for them and/or their business, that’s always an added bonus.

My idea with this blog is to create a space where I can share my thoughts, give you insight into my business, provide helpful content, and generate conversation. I’ll never consider myself an expert, but I do have some experience that perhaps could contribute to the greater good. Maybe I can help you or your business out. Maybe you’re a designer or marketing professional and I can be a resource. Maybe you just read random stuff on the internet. Feel free to email me directly at maxwell@echelon1media.com and I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.

Sorry for any typos, mistakes, or imperfect flow. This blog isn’t intended to be super formal and in most cases I’ll be doing this as I can from my phone as an avenue to get out some ideas and generate conversation. Real value is in the real stuff. There’s too much dream-selling going on right now. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d bet most of the posts you see on IG with 6,000 likes aren’t based on any real life success. It’s sensationalized content that dangles hope in exchange for your engagement. What’s real is you’ll probably fail at 18 of the 20 things you try. Keep trying and double down on your wins. Over the long term your consistency and the few successes you find will propel you past those who gave up.