Begun in 1989 in Davis' brother's garage/guest house; the original assets were a phone with a cord that would reach from one end of the building to the other, a drawing table, a couple of Exacto knives and an Olivetti typewriter for which the ribbon had to be ordered from a medieval village in Italy. Davis was living in the garage, and Denny was moving from Montgomery with one baby in tow and another on the way. Times were heady and money was scarce. Fear was the prevalent motivation, and there was plenty of that for all of us.
Make no mistake: DavisDenny is no Horatio Alger "pull 'em up by their bootstraps" kind of operation. Wasn't then, isn't now. Didn't know what was going to happen. Whatever it was, it was more likely to happen in spite of some kind of strategy than as a result of one.
Somebody decided there should be some rules, some philosophy, you know, some vision. But things got pretty busy pretty fast and that meeting never happened. The rules wrote themselves. Good clients began showing up with a pocket of trust and a hand of coins, and DavisDenny worked hard to do the right thing for a fair price and avoid the mistakes to which the boys had borne witness.
So this thing started working, sort of, and there was a move to some office space, phones with buttons, a fax machine, more great clients, more great folks who wanted to join our little circus.
You know how it goes: keep working hard, keep your eye on the ball, etc. Still didn't have a plan, though. Having good, often exceptional ideas; paying the bills on time; paying all the employees' health insurance; finding clients you like that like you back; but, still no plan.
Burford came on as a partner. Didn't plan it but sure glad it happened. Mighty glad. The happy people are still happy and the others have gone on.
So here sits DavisDenny at twenty. We've made a living out here, all of us. Put children through school, bought new tires, grilled a few steaks.
All without a plan.
