About
Built the way we run it.
The Smithy is a Glass Umbrella Inc company, founded and run from Virginia, USA. Before we operated anyone else's business, we built the workshop to run our own: same coworkers, same operating loop, same weekly numbers, this site included. What we sell is what we use.
Why "The Smithy"
A smithy is a working shop: heat, iron, and a smith who takes responsibility for what leaves the anvil. That's the standard here.
What this is, in plain words
The Smithy is an operated digital-presence service — fractional general management for small businesses. We run the website, the marketing, and the numbers; you run the business. The company started sideways: we went out asking Virginia businesses to sponsor a kids' reading game, and they kept asking us to run their digital shops instead. The full origin story is on LinkedIn.
It's not only the hammer, but the anvil, that shapes steel.
The founders
Will Watkins and Molly Bruckman are the cofounders — both former management consultants to Fortune 500 companies. The Smithy takes the same lessons to small business, operated to done instead of advised from a deck.
The discovery call, the approval on every change that ships, the response when something matters — always a founder. The roster is deliberately small.