Three Years In: Defining a Business That Doesn’t Exist (Yet)
by Amy Malmstrom, Co-Founder, 39Forward
Why 39Forward isn’t your typical consulting firm—and why that’s precisely the point.
If you know me well, you know I am not about using “all the words”. However, the team says I have to help tell the world who we are, so here I go.
Why 39Forward isn’t easily labeled…which is exactly the point.
When Dom and I started 39Forward, we didn’t set out to build a typical company. We honestly were never intending to build a business. We didn’t have any type of business plan or even a clear category we fit into. We just knew something was missing in how we were living our lives. We also noticed businesses needed help with how they approached their most important investments of place, people, and services. Life needed more, there had to be a better way.
Three years later, we’ve learned a lot about who we are—and maybe more importantly, who we’re not.
We are not project managers, we are leaders.
Our clients don’t consider us owners’ reps.
We think differently.
People like to be around us and work with us.
We excel at design thinking and strategy, grounded in accountability.
We believe in the power of a team and shared success.
We live and excel in the space between. The gray area.
The gray area. Where curiosity, vision, and strategic foresight meet hands-on leadership.
Where bold ideas are matched with rolling up our sleeves and bringing the challenging to life.
We See What Others Miss
Most companies come to us because they’re trying to execute something, typically some sort of design and construction project - a new exhibit, a new experience, a new workplace, an update to their school, a transformation initiative, a complex multi-stakeholder project. Usually, we seem to come in midstream. They’ve scoped the project, possibly established a budget, may have team members … they are set and ready to go. Yet something is always missing, which allows us to get engaged.
On paper, every project can be boiled down to looking like a task. We however look at it as an opportunity, it’s a chance to rethink something about how their business and buildings work—an opportunity to explore what’s possible. This is where 39Forward shines. We bring a different perspective. One that doesn’t just ask “how do we deliver this project,” but “how do we make your business better as a result of it?”
Clients Often Say: “You Do More Than I Expected.”
We started an exercise a year ago asking our clients who we are and what we do. We learned that our clients often are surprised by our way of thinking, support, and how we help them achieve their best outcome. We don’t show up with a fixed playbook built around a fee. We show up with curiosity, creativity, and commitment.
We want our clients to be wildly successful.
We challenge and inquire respectfully.
We build trust.
We see the big picture and dive into the details.
We act like owners because we care like owners.
We’ve helped clients catch blind spots, avoid costly decisions, rethink their space, reimagine their processes, imagine ideal futures, reframe problems, and unlock opportunities they hadn’t considered. We don’t stop at ideas and suggestions. We like to stay on the ride with them and bring it all to life.
It’s not about a project, it’s a relationship.
When we look back at our most successful work, it’s not the size of the budget or the complexity of the challenge that stands out. It’s the relationships. The tough conversations. The laughs. The stories. It’s when we’re able to help our clients discover a better version of themselves—organizationally, operationally, and culturally. We enjoy helping our clients experience large amazing impactful steps and helping them realize that they can happen constantly as opposed to only at predetermined milestones. It never stops feeling amazing when our curiosity and reframes allow people to see something different and special in their own world.
We don’t believe in treating projects like checklists or just another engagement, even though we have them (and I do love a good checklist), and are continuing to develop better versions of them constantly. We look at projects as a shared opportunity to make something better. We believe that when we help great businesses thrive, we help shape a better world—for our client’s business, their people, their customers, our team, and all the people connected in between - our community.
For Cincinnati. We want to Strengthen Businesses to Strengthen Cincy!
We continue to evolve.
We’ve learned that our biggest strength isn’t just our expertise in design, construction, strategy, creative thinking, facilitation, human experience, fundraising, or marketing – uh…so many words! It is in how we blend it all together, and how we show up.
We’re humble.
We’re hardworking.
We’re thankful.
We’re bold.
We’re critical of ourselves to an almost ridiculous standard of excellence.
We’re a team that is better together, pushing each other, because we know we can always do better—for our clients, ourselves, and Cincinnati.
We recognize we can’t do it all. There are more ideas (Dom is endless here), more opportunities, more ways to help than there are hours in the day. There are so many amazing companies and partners that can help and bring so much excellence to each other. We continue to strive to collaborate to do more and be better. Our endless focus on better is often our biggest frustration—and maybe our biggest fuel.
So how do we define our business?
We are still figuring that out. Some call us strategic consultants. Some call us design and construction experts. Some call us fractional leaders. Some say we’re a whole new category. At this point though, with the help of our clients, we are confident we are not just Owner’s Reps, but something special and more. No one, including ourselves, has been able to coin a good term for what we do. We are working on it, and for now, we are okay with that.
We’re 39Forward.
We unlock potential.
We make the invisible visible.
We live in the gray.
We bring momentum.
We build the bridge from vision to reality.
And we’re just getting started.
The 39Forward Team
Top left: Erin Heekin, Kevin Mire, Amy Malmstrom; Bottom left: Dominic Iacobucci, Brandon Amann