We’re in that nebulous period between Christmas and New Years, and apart from Hanukkah hitting at the same time this year, it’s often a twiddling thumbs season with many of us having some downtime.
For those of us not using this time to upgrade our studios, or are too exhausted from the buildup to the holidays to use our studios, it’s a great time to reflect back on 2024 before we tackle 2025. Aside, it’s absolutely baking my noodle that we’re a quarter of the way through the 2000s. I very much remember preparing for Y2K and being slightly disappointed that nothing happened. That said, no one is here to read about me being old and tying an onion around my belt (I’m doubling down on old references.), but take my word that it was the style of the time.
For De-Fi, 2024 represented our first full year as an outward facing functioning business since spinning out of Output, allowing us to focus on hardware while Output grows its focus on software. It was a year of re-establishing a supply chain that had been rocked by a host of geopolitical events since 2020, and learning how to be flexible and overcome challenges because it kind of seems like volatility is just the new normal. New challenges arise, and new challenges will be overcome. The upside is that it is rarely boring, and while it kind of feels like we’re on sand, we’ve learned and are continuing to learn to navigate it.
This supply chain uncertainty, an uncertainty that we share with everyone else who builds things, will follow us into 2025, but we have a flexible foundation where we will be able, barring serious catastrophe, to continue to provide our customers with gear that lives up to the quality we established when we launched Platform in 2017. We’re getting to a place where we can come up for air, and look to a future of growth.
We’re also thankful for the community of creators who brought us into their world over this past year. While we’re very aware that community is often just a corporate cliche, because who really needs community in a transactional relationship, we believe our little corner of the world is different, because we’re a small market, and our customers have a very specific good intent. The world is a better place when energy is channeled into art. Our own research is beginning to indicate that word of mouth is overtaking paid advertising as a reason for purchase, and not only does that indicate to us that we’re doing something right, but also that we’re being accepted into a community of talented folks that are talking to each other.
To conclude this short blog, and what felt like a really long year, we want to thank all of our customers for allowing us to do what we do. This is a very niche market that we all love, and we are very thankful that our day jobs consist of designing and building products that improve the sound, workflow, and look of creative spaces. This is not something we take for granted, and we realize that folks are paying a premium for this upgrade, and we are thankful for that. Making music is cathartic, and making gear to help people in that endeavor is cathartic, without you, that wouldn’t happen. Thank you.
Here’s to 2024, we look forward to 2025. Cheers!
