Rene Ryan, Chief Operating Officer, and Joe Stella, Chief Executive Officer, launched BackPocket in Chicago with a team of journalists, content strategists and designers who all came up through the same storytelling path. They serve mission-driven organizations, nonprofits and healthcare clients with big-agency expertise wrapped in boutique-shop intimacy. The name came from a chance brewery encounter in Iowa City — Rene’s hometown — during Joe’s son’s basketball tournament. They called the brewery, the brewery said yes, and BackPocket’s Backstory Ale was born. “We’ve got the most heart,” Rene says.
A beer, a basketball tournament and a 20-year handshake
Rene and Joe spent 20 years at four different agencies together — long enough to finish each other’s strategy decks. They watched private equity cycles strip those shops of their soul and decided the next chapter would be theirs. The brewery in Iowa City sealed the name. The two decades of shared experience sealed everything else.
Storytellers first, marketers second
BackPocket is built on journalism-grade storytelling. Every team member came up through content, editorial or design — not traditional advertising. Their clients are nonprofits, mission-driven organizations and healthcare groups who need narratives that move people to act, not just scroll. The work isn’t about impressions. It’s about outcomes.
Three strengths that win the room
First: storytelling and content crafted at the core — helping create narratives that resonate and move the needle. Second: audience insights and data — nothing ships without deep analyzation of what’s working and what’s not. Third: big-agency capabilities in a boutique frame. Chief Strategy Officer Michelle Jackson won Content Marketer of the Year, and the agency won a Maya Culture Award for Best Places to Work from anonymous employee feedback. The receipts are piling up.
What four PE cycles taught them about freedom
Independence wasn’t a dream. It was an inevitability. Rene and Joe watched agencies scale, sell and lose their identity — twice in two years at their last shop. They built BackPocket with an org chart where neither founder reports to the other. They both report to the agency. The team got into AI overviews without paid tools in 30 days because nobody had to ask permission. That’s what freedom looks like.
Brands that stay for 20 years
Some BackPocket clients have been with Rene and Joe across four agencies over two decades. That loyalty isn’t accidental — it comes from treating every engagement like a partnership, not a transaction. No change-order nickel-and-diming. No swapping in junior talent after the pitch. From the kickoff meeting, every resource is on the table and every name has a face. In 16 months, they’ve landed nearly 25 clients by going up against massive agencies and proving heart beats scale.
The oldest startup in Chicago
BackPocket calls itself a startup, but the team has been together for a decade or more. The Monday all-hands runs two hours — complete transparency on every account and every decision. Patty, Joe’s wife, earned the title Chief Positivity Officer. Ryan, Rene’s husband, is the Chief Interrupter Officer. The mentorship program is built around the team members who’ve impressed the founders most. New hires don’t get onboarded by a manual — they get onboarded by the people who set the standard.
Underdogs with 25 clients and counting
Rene puts it plainly: “I’m going to put us squarely in the underdog category.” They’ve been the second team in the room more than once, pitched against agencies with ten times their headcount, and sometimes lost. But 25 clients in 16 months is the kind of trajectory that keeps them hungry and grounded. They’re not the biggest or the fastest. They’re the ones with the most heart — and they know it.
Dear Mindy Henderson: thank you
Rene’s shoutout goes to Mindy Henderson at the Muscular Dystrophy Association — a current BackPocket client and content marketer of the year who blows the team away with her advocacy and passion. In a political climate that’s testing accessibility and mobility, Henderson’s leadership reminds the agency why mission-driven work matters more than ever. These are the clients who make independence worth the risk.
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