My last meeting of the year is a few hours away, and it feels great! We added 23 new clients and brought on 5 new team members, which is exciting on its own. But what really stood out was the validation of my long-standing (albeit self-serving) belief that the longer we partner with clients, the more value we are able to deliver per hour of work. Many of our clients really felt this compounding effect in 2025.‍

Highlights
We built a custom OpenPlay integration for a large indie label that has finally allowed them to operate efficiently on top of a single source of truth. For a music law firm, we automated producer and side-artist agreement drafting down to a single click saving them infinity hours of mind numbing copy/paste work. A major label now uses an automated playlist reporting tool that saves their team a dozen hours every Friday. And a vinyl pressing business that's been a refreshing departure into manufacturing systems work.

Regrets
Another music law firm decided post-delivery to revert to a simpler design. I wish I'd caught that mismatch earlier and saved them the time and expense. A touring logistics agency found our budget builder too complex and decided to stick with their spreadsheet, ugh. We caught several data-standardization snags when migrating a major label creative department from Notion. And we built a private label email service provider for a major label commercial team that really tested my patience with HTML design.These projects reminded me that complexity isn't always the answer, and that sometimes the best solution is the simplest one. A lesson that I will be carrying into 2026.‍

An observation
Two of our smoothest and most transformative projects of the year came out of Nashville. Coincidence, or is there something about the collaborative culture there that fits how we work? I'm headed down January 12th to lean into this trend. Let me know if you're around and want to meet up.‍

W of the year
Leading the Airtable Media & Entertainment User Group has been a genuine highlight. The conversations are substantive, and people are clearly getting value. It's been exactly what I hoped it would be. Our December 11th session on establishing Centers of Excellence was a particularly good one.‍

L of the year
Thanks for all your nominations, but we lost our bid for back-to-back Airtable Vertical Partner of the Year awards. Heres to making another run at it for 2026!‍

Taking a risk

We launched the Sound Systems Podcast as a platform for industry leaders to share unique insights, and it has turned into an enjoyable way to build the Relationl brand. It's still early, but the conversations alone have been worth the investment. If you know someone who'd make a great guest, you can anonymously nominate them here.

Cheers to a relaxing year-end holiday and a wealth of new productivity in 2026! - Max

p.s. speaking of the podcast please see links to our December episodes below:

• 04: "Why music sucks" with music publishing executive Benjamin Groff
• 03: "Starting a live event networking business during a global pandemic" with Trusted Advisor founder Matthew Hoffman