The Company I Should Have Built Years Ago: Building Malone Media + Marketing

September 10, 2026

For years, I treated independent work like a collection of separate opportunities.

A company needed video, so I produced video. A client needed help with SEO, so I helped with SEO. Someone needed a website, a content strategy, a podcast, an edit, a campaign, or a way to connect all of those things, and I found a way to make it happen. I kept solving the problem in front of me, then moved on to the next one.

What I did not do was put a clear structure around the work.

Malone Media + Marketing, or M³, is my attempt to finally correct that. It is not an official launch announcement. The company is not yet an LLC, the dedicated website is still planned, and I am not pretending the infrastructure is finished. My target is to launch it properly in January 2027. Right now, I am documenting the beginning: the point where years of independent client work, production experience, marketing strategy, and self-created brands finally start becoming one coherent business.

This is less about inventing something new than admitting that I should have built it years ago.

The Work Already Existed

I have spent much of my career moving between disciplines that businesses often separate into different departments. I have worked in corporate marketing and broadcast media. I have produced and edited video, managed SEO, built websites, developed campaigns, created social content, worked with analytics, produced podcasts, and helped people turn an idea into something that could actually be published.

Outside my full-time roles, I also took on independent projects. Companies such as Havis and Associated Packaging trusted me with real work. Those relationships taught me how different consulting feels from being part of an internal department. A contractor does not have the luxury of hiding behind a title or a process. You have to understand the problem quickly, communicate clearly, and produce something useful.

Still, I thought of those projects as side work. I had a career, and then I had the other things I did. That distinction made sense until it did not.

The market changed. My career changed. Clients began approaching me for combinations of skills rather than a single service. A podcast project might require studio planning, cameras, audio, lighting, editing, distribution, social clips, thumbnails, a website, and an audience strategy. A marketing project might need strong creative production before there was anything worth optimizing. The boundaries I had used to organize my professional identity became less useful with every project.

The work had already become an integrated media and marketing practice. It simply did not have a name.

The Projects That Made the Gap Obvious

One of the clearest reasons I am building Malone Media + Marketing came through roughly five months of on-and-off conversations with a Jacksonville Jaguars player and his wife. What began as a podcast-studio build quickly became something much larger. They first wanted me to design the room and recommend the cameras, audio, lighting, sound treatment, recording workflow, storage, and other equipment required to operate it. Then the concept expanded into an entire media network. I was being asked to develop the branding, help shape the operation, assist with the production process, and create a structure that could eventually hold multiple brands under one umbrella.

One of those projects was a documentary that I would have produced entirely myself. That meant far more than showing up with a camera. It meant development, pre-production, production, interviews, sound, editing, graphics, revisions, delivery, and responsibility for turning an idea into a finished film. They trusted my technical recommendations enough to purchase more than $12,000 worth of equipment and place it in my hands. By that point, this was no longer a casual conversation about microphones. It was the foundation of a media business, and I was being positioned as the person expected to help build and operate it.

Then the contract negotiations arrived. My proposed fee was effectively divided in half: only half would be paid at the beginning, with the remainder held until the documentary was delivered. That would have required me to carry a substantial amount of labor, production risk, and opportunity cost for an extended period while financing the work with my own time. The proposed agreement also contained liabilities that, in my judgment, exceeded the value of the entire contract. The scope had grown rapidly, the payment structure had weakened, and the downside had become larger than the deal itself.

I wanted the opportunity, but wanting a deal cannot be the same thing as accepting any deal. I returned every piece of equipment and closed the door. I will not describe the studio, media network, or documentary as completed client work because no final contract was executed. Still, the experience involved real strategy, real planning, real equipment decisions, and months of real professional effort. It taught me that expertise alone does not protect the person providing it. Scope, deposits, milestones, ownership, cancellation terms, and reasonable limits on liability have to exist before enthusiasm turns into unpaid risk.

A second opportunity made the same lesson impossible to ignore. I went through three or four online meetings, built pitch decks, completed a complimentary technical and SEO audit, researched the business and its competitors, and developed a plan that initially received full approval. I believed we had a solid direction. Then the company restructured and a new decision-maker entered the process. Suddenly, the work I had done was reduced to “putting makeup on the site.” After more than two months of planning, he wanted a different approach centered on automated, scalable SEO (often called programmatic SEO) and wanted to reopen the negotiations around a fundamentally changed scope.

Automation can be valuable, and I use AI and automation in my own work. But programmatic SEO is not a substitute for understanding a business, fixing its technical foundation, studying its competitors, defining the right search opportunities, and building something people can trust. It is a production method, not a magic strategy. More importantly, changing the method after months of discovery does not erase the value of the research, audit, decks, meetings, and thinking that came before it.

There was also the situation I discussed in my article about AI, outsourcing, and the labor market: the promise of employment, the sudden urgency when another hire left, and then the ghosting and decision to hire elsewhere. That experience belongs to my employment story, but it connects directly to this business story. I kept finding myself close enough to major opportunities to prove I could solve the problem, yet structurally positioned as the person whose time, strategy, and preparation could be reconsidered without consequence.

None of these doors closed because I lacked the ability to do the work. They closed because the terms changed, the risk stopped making sense, leadership changed direction, or the organization found a cheaper path. That distinction is part of why I am starting M³. I need a business that defines the offer before discovery becomes free consulting, separates an initial audit from implementation, prices strategy as real work, requires deposits and milestone payments, sets rational liability limits, and makes it clear when a change in direction is a new scope rather than a continuation of the old one.

These projects exposed the weakness in how I had been presenting myself. I could see the complete system rather than only the equipment list, edit, website, or keyword report. Yet I was still approaching business-level opportunities as an individual with a long résumé and a collection of capabilities. I had expertise, but I had not created the business container that made the expertise easy to understand, properly valued, and safer for everyone involved.

A company needs more than a talented person. It needs a defined offer, a repeatable process, clear scope, professional documentation, pricing logic, payment protections, ownership terms, and a brand that can hold the relationship. I spent years developing the hard part… the ability to do the work… while postponing the structure that could make that work sustainable. The failed contracts were disappointing. They were also clarifying. M³ is not simply a new name for freelancing. It is the system I should have built before the next opportunity arrived.

The Clients Who Made It Real

Other projects continued to arrive.

Editing work for Matt Mitchell reinforced the value of being dependable inside someone else’s creative process. Editing is not just cutting footage. It is understanding pace, voice, audience, expectations, and the invisible decisions that make a finished piece feel like it belongs to the creator rather than the editor.

My current work with Melissa Dionne has involved an even wider combination of responsibilities: content strategy, podcast production, video, social media support, studio workflow, editing, and the systems required to keep the work moving. It is exactly the kind of relationship that makes a narrow job title feel inadequate. The value is not one isolated deliverable. It is the ability to connect the message, production, platform, and audience.

These experiences have made the same point repeatedly: people rarely approach me because they need one button pushed. They approach me because they have an idea, a problem, or an opportunity that crosses several specialties. They need someone who can understand the whole thing and still execute the details.

That is the foundation of M³.

Why Media and Marketing Belong Together

I have never believed media and marketing should live in separate worlds.

Marketing without strong media often becomes a distribution plan for material nobody cares about. Media without marketing can become beautiful work that never reaches the people it was made for. A polished video does not automatically have a strategy. An optimized page does not automatically have a compelling story. A podcast is not a business plan simply because someone bought microphones.

The useful work happens where those disciplines meet.

That can mean defining the audience before the camera turns on. It can mean building a shoot around the clips, pages, emails, and campaigns the client will eventually need. It can mean recognizing that SEO is not merely keywords, that a website is not merely design, and that a content calendar is not a strategy unless it supports a real goal.

M³ is intended to bring those decisions into one process. The eventual company will not try to be everything for everyone. Its advantage should be that I can move between strategy and execution without losing the thread. I can discuss positioning in one meeting, build the production plan in the next, operate the camera, edit the material, prepare it for multiple platforms, and examine what happened after publication.

That range can look scattered on a traditional résumé. Inside the right company, it becomes the operating model.

An Umbrella, Not a Replacement

Malone Media + Marketing is also a way to organize the brands I have already built.

Upside Down Creative Media began as a creative outlet and grew through comedy videos, podcasts, livestreams, production experiments, and years of figuring things out in public. It has its own identity and history. Dad Does Video Games is a different kind of project with a different audience and energy. Unplugged Tools comes from another part of my brain entirely: the part that wants to build useful products to help people have a better relationship with their digital devices and it’s also a sandbox to test AI workflows. I generated sales in the first week, with that project.

I do not want to erase those identities or force them into one generic brand. The longer-term plan is for M³ to become the umbrella above them… a professional structure that can support commercial client services while giving each owned project room to remain distinct.

That structure matters financially, creatively, and strategically. It creates a clearer difference between client work and owned media. It makes it easier to decide which project deserves time, how resources can be shared, and where new ideas belong. It also creates the possibility that one part of the ecosystem can support another without confusing the audience.

Upside Down Creative Media can continue developing its entertainment and production identity. Dad Does Video Games can be playful and personal. Unplugged Tools can focus on the practical products and building more passive income for myself. M³ can be the place where businesses hire me to solve media and marketing problems.

Different doors, one house.

Why January 2027

I could put up a landing page tomorrow, register an LLC, make a launch post, and call it finished. That would be easy. It would also repeat the habit I am trying to break: producing the visible thing before building the system underneath it.

The January 2027 target gives me time to do this deliberately. I need to define the services, decide what I will not offer, develop pricing and proposal systems, organize contracts and accounting, build the dedicated website, refine the portfolio, create the operating process, and determine how the owned brands fit into the larger structure.

I also need to continue doing the work already in front of me. A business cannot be built entirely through branding exercises. Client delivery is the proof. Every current project is an opportunity to improve the process M³ will eventually use.

Calling this an in-progress business is not false modesty. It is an important promise to myself and to anyone reading: I am not going to pretend the plan is more mature than it is. M³ is the direction. January 2027 is the target. The legal entity, permanent site, offers, and systems are still being developed.

I am building in public because finished stories are often misleading. They remove the negotiations that go nowhere, the proposals that have to be rewritten, the uncertainty about pricing, the uncomfortable decisions about focus, and the evenings spent doing administrative work when you would rather create something.

The Difference Between Freelancing and Building a Company

Freelancing asks, “Can I complete this project?” Building a company asks a longer list of questions.

Can the right client understand what I do? Can I identify whether an opportunity is a good fit before spending months pursuing it? Can the proposal communicate value without requiring a biography? Can I deliver consistently without rebuilding the workflow every time? Can I protect the client and myself with clear expectations? Can the business survive a quiet month, a failed negotiation, or a project that changes direction?

Those questions are less exciting than cameras, creative concepts, or a new logo. They are also the difference between staying busy and building something durable.

I have spent years proving I can make things. The next stage is proving I can create the structure that lets the work compound.

That means turning experience into process. It means documenting how I handle discovery, strategy, production, editing, revisions, delivery, and reporting. It means being more selective about the problems I solve and more precise about the outcomes I can responsibly promise. It means treating my own company with the same seriousness I bring to a client’s project.

What I Want M³ to Become

I want Malone Media + Marketing to become the company businesses call when their creative and marketing problems cannot be separated neatly.

Some clients will need video production connected to a real distribution strategy. Some will need a podcast system rather than a single recording. Some will need help turning years of expertise into useful content. Others will need a website, search strategy, or brand direction that reflects what the business actually does.

I want the company to remain practical. I am not interested in selling mystery, bloated retainers, or fashionable terminology that hides ordinary work. The value should be visible in the thinking, the execution, the communication, and the finished result.

I also want it to be honest about scale. M³ is not beginning as a giant agency. It is beginning with me, the network I have built, the collaborators I trust, and the ability to assemble the right support when a project requires it. Growth should follow demand and operational maturity, not ego.

Eventually, I can imagine a small, flexible company producing campaigns, video, podcasts, websites, and content systems for businesses in Jacksonville and beyond. I can imagine the return of my livestream podcast studio, Studio 604 and future production spaces serving as practical resources inside that system. I can imagine the owned brands becoming laboratories where new formats, tools, and ideas can be tested before they are ever recommended to a client.

But the point of writing this now is not to announce that all of that already exists.

It is to establish the direction and make myself accountable to it.

The Company I Should Have Built Years Ago

Looking back, the clues were everywhere.

They were in the corporate projects and independent contracts. They were in the nights spent editing after a full workday, the websites built because an idea needed somewhere to live, the podcasts produced because a conversation deserved an audience, and the businesses I helped even when I had not yet built my own.

They were in the Havis and Associated Packaging projects. They were in five months of serious negotiations that did not become a Smoot contract. They were in Matt Mitchell’s edits and Melissa Dionne’s growing content system. They were in Upside Down Creative Media, Dad Does Video Games, Unplugged Tools, and every other time I created the solution before creating the company.

Malone Media + Marketing is the decision to stop treating that history as a pile of unrelated work.

It is the company I should have built years ago and the one I am choosing to build correctly now.

There is a great deal left to do before January 2027. That is not a disclaimer. It is the story.

M³ is under construction.