The Power of Narrowing | The Story Behind 25 Years in Business

2026 marks UDig’s 25th year in business. 

When UDig’s Founder & CEO, Andy Frank, looks back on UDig’s first 25 years, he doesn’t point to a single client, project, or milestone. He talks about the decisions to walk away. Again and again, UDig has chosen to narrow its focus, even when narrowing meant giving up revenue or leaving behind a profitable part of the business. Looking back, Andy believes those choices shaped the company more than anything else.

“The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that saying no is just as important as saying yes,” he says. “Every time we got smaller on purpose, we built a better company.”

Andy co-founded UDig in Richmond, VA in August 2001. A few weeks later came September 11th. Overnight, the business climate changed, but like most young companies, UDig pressed ahead by saying yes to nearly every opportunity. It began as a technology staffing firm, placing skilled technologists with organizations that needed them. It was a good business, and it built UDig’s reputation, but even then, Andy wanted something more. The original plan called for nearly 30 different technology services. It was ambitious, and it didn’t take long to see that trying to offer everything made it hard to stand for anything. Long before UDig formally narrowed, the idea had already taken root.

The first real test came in 2008. Andy was in the middle of buying out his original partners when the financing he’d counted on disappeared. Two local businessmen stepped in with a loan that let the deal close, a gesture he still talks about with gratitude. “I’ve never forgotten what they did for me,” he says. “Without them, our story could have been very different.” It’s the kind of thing that happens in a city where relationships outlast any single transaction, and it’s part of why UDig has stayed rooted in Virginia ever since.

A year later, Susan Frank joined the business. By then, UDig had grown into a successful entrepreneurial company, but much of it still ran on instinct and hustle. Susan brought financial discipline, stronger operating practices, and a long-term perspective that balanced Andy’s entrepreneurial drive. Together, they built the foundation that would let UDig take bigger strategic risks in the years ahead. “Andy has always been willing to bet on the future,” Susan says. “My job was to make sure we were financially prepared to make those bets.”

That preparation proved invaluable when UDig reached the defining moment in its history. By 2015, the staffing business was thriving, but Andy no longer believed it was where the company could create the greatest value or build the future he envisioned. Moving from staffing to consulting meant walking away from a large share of revenue to become a different kind of company. An advisor warned that revenue could fall by more than half during the transition. It was hard advice to hear, and it proved accurate. Revenue declined sharply over the next several years, in one of the hardest stretches the company has known.

What gave the leadership team confidence was what happened beneath the top line. As revenue fell, gross profit rose. The company was becoming healthier even as it became smaller, proof that the strategy was working.

“We weren’t building a bigger business,” Andy says. “We were building a better one.”

The pivot changed UDig’s identity. Over time, the company narrowed to four core capabilities: strategy, design, engineering, and data. That clarity made it easier for clients to understand what UDig stood for and let the team build deeper expertise. More importantly, the conversation changed. Instead of leading with what it could build, UDig started with the business problem, on the conviction that the right technology only matters when it solves the right challenge.

That philosophy is still evolving. After years of organizing around capabilities, UDig is making another deliberate shift toward selling solutions. The capabilities remain the foundation, but clients don’t think first about engineering or data. They think about growth, customer experience, operational efficiency, and modernization. Meeting them there is the same move UDig has made at every turn: refining the business to better align with the problems clients are actually trying to solve.

Narrowing also meant getting comfortable saying no. Andy remembers another firm’s owner marveling at how often UDig declined work that didn’t fit. In an industry that chases nearly every opportunity, that discipline became its own advantage. Saying no, he’s careful to note, was never rigidity for its own sake. It was knowing the company well enough to recognize which work belonged to someone else.

For all the focus on the Franks, both are quick to point elsewhere. Every major change required people willing to adapt, learn new skills, and believe in a different future for the business. “This has never been about the two of us,” Andy says. “We’ve been fortunate to have incredible people who embraced every change and helped build the company we’re proud of today.”

Asked what they’re proudest of after 25 years, neither mentions revenue or awards. Andy points to the company UDig has become and to the hard decisions that made it possible. Susan points to something quieter but just as enduring.

“We’ve never accepted the status quo,” she says. “We’re always refining, always trying to be better.”

For Andy, that’s the thread running through every chapter. UDig has grown, but more than that, it has evolved, narrowing its focus each time until the focus itself became the strength, reinventing itself before it had to. The next 25 years, he believes, will be written the same way: by the discipline to keep choosing what matters most, for the clients, the people, and the community that has carried the company this far.