Mistaking a pattern for a rule

As operators, we spend a lot of time trying to make our businesses predictable.

Every year, we sit down and build a forecast. Some months get modeled aggressively. Others, more conservatively. July has always fallen into that second bucket. Not because business stops, but because we've seen the same pattern enough times: people are away, approvals slow down, marketing teams are planning Q4, and projects naturally drift into September. So that's what we planned for.

This year, July had other ideas. What caught my attention wasn't that it became one of our strongest months since we started the company. It was why. Instead of the usual mix of small and medium projects trickling through the month, we saw a broader group of clients, across multiple industries, make larger, more strategic commitments during the exact period we'd historically expected to be quieter.

Will that happen again next July? I have no idea. But I'll probably build next year's forecast a little differently because of it.

One thing I've learned over the years is that it's easy to mistake a pattern for a rule. Sometimes the market reminds you they're not the same thing.

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