In an industry full of agencies that overpromise and underdeliver, Round4 built its reputation on something simple: showing up, answering emails, and being honest. For co-founder David Doherty, that was just the right way to do business.
What started as an act of necessity has grown into a trusted agency serving nonprofits, construction companies, and educational organizations. Round4 grows quietly, steadily, and almost entirely through word of mouth — proof that reputation travels further than any advertisement.
From Setbacks to Round4
David Doherty did not plan to start an agency. It happened because he had no other choice.
David began his career at a local video production company alongside his future business partner, Jason. The company taught them both the basics of their craft — graphics and animation for Jason, web design for David. Then the company was bought out. A larger one took over, and with it came bigger website projects. That was when David joined Jason’s team. As David recalls, “We found out pretty quickly that our skill sets complemented each other perfectly for website development.”
– Jason Ritchey and David Doherty, co-founders of Round4, have built their agency on trust, responsiveness, and a refusal to give up. (Source: Round4)
Then that company was bought out, too. And then it happened again. The third acquisition ended differently. The new owners decided they no longer needed videographers or web designers. Both David and Jason were let go.
But walking away was never an option. David and Jason saw the layoff not as a defeat but as a signal. They had the skills. They had the clients. They had each other. So they launched something of their own. David says the name tells the whole story: “Round 1… Round 2… Round 3… we weren’t done. We were just getting started.” That is how Round4 was born — a company built on resilience, named after the fight that finally went their way.
Building a Business Together
Starting Round4 was exciting. It was also terrifying.
David does not shy away from that truth. When the agency launched, the unknowns were everywhere. Would they find enough work? Could they make a living? Were they ready to do this on their own? David recalls the weight of those early questions: “Will we be able to do this by ourselves? Will we be able to make a living from this? Where will we find the work? And, to be frank, it was terrifying.”
– What began as two developers keeping a client base afloat quickly grew into a full-service agency built on word-of-mouth referrals. (Source: Round4)
But they kept moving. One of their priorities was keeping the lights on for existing clients — nonprofit organizations, construction companies, and educational groups — who would have scrambled to find new hosting if David and Jason had not stepped in. That early loyalty paid off. Word spread. Referrals followed. A client base grew, not through advertising, but through trust.
Running a business, however, meant more than doing great work. It meant taxes, legal structures, payroll, invoicing, and the daily juggle of administration and client projects. David and Jason had no roadmap. They leaned on people who had done it before, found good resources, and kept moving forward one step at a time.
For David, simply starting the business remains the agency’s greatest personal achievement. “It all worked out in the end,” he says, “and is a leap that we’re both glad we took.”
The Work That Shaped Them
No single project defines Round4. But one came close to breaking them — and made them better for it.
It was their first membership-based website. The project was large. The budget was significant. And there were no ready-made solutions to rely on. David and the team had to build their way through it. The experience was uncomfortable, but the lessons were lasting.
David says the project taught them three things. First, how to ask better questions — to fully understand the scope of a project before a single line of code is written. Second, a deep knowledge of the tools they use, including where those tools fall short and how to work around their limits. Third, and perhaps most importantly: simplify. As David puts it, “Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest ones.”
– A snapshot of Round4’s portfolio — spanning nonprofits, construction, education, and commercial clients, each built with simplicity and the client in mind. (Source: Round4)
That philosophy now runs through everything Round4 builds. Clients are often surprised to discover that their finished website is simple enough for them to manage on their own. David and Jason designed it that way on purpose. “There have been many instances where clients have come to us afterward, both surprised and excited that their website is simple enough that they can make many of the changes themselves,” David says. That simplicity has been a deciding factor on more than a few projects.
Round4’s approach has always been the same: build it so the client can manage it, and stay available when they cannot.
Tools, Trust, and Growth
Behind every well-run agency is a set of tools that keep things moving. For Round4, a few stand out.
On the development side, David relies on Sublime Text as his code editor of choice. “From a development standpoint, this has been my go-to for years,” he says. “It’s clean, it runs well, it has multiple plugins to add extra functionality.” For forms — a critical part of membership website builds — Gravity Forms and Gravity Perks have become essential. David describes the two plugins together as “absolute workhorses.” And for time tracking across multiple projects, Clockify keeps the team honest. “Over time, those forgotten 15 minutes add up,” David notes. Clockify solves that problem simply and for free.
But tools only go so far. Round4’s real growth has come from relationships.
David is direct about what sets the agency apart: responsiveness and honesty. He has seen too many clients come to Round4 after being left behind by development companies that stopped communicating. “It’s amazing how many times we’ve been told that the fact we respond quickly — both to emails and to tasks — is one of the main reasons we’re highly recommended by one client to another,” he says.
Honesty matters just as much. David’s advice to anyone starting an agency is simple: “If you don’t know, say you don’t know, but you’ll find out. It’s better to learn the answer and come back with an educated response than it is to bluster your way into a project you’re not able to handle.”
That straightforwardness is not just a strategy. It is the agency’s identity. Round4’s motto says it plainly: “Built on trust.”
The Road Ahead
Round4 has no plans to slow down. For David, growth means staying uncomfortable on purpose.
The agency’s goal for the next five years is simple in concept but demanding in practice: keep taking on projects that stretch their current skillset. David and Jason have never been content to repeat what they already know. That restlessness — the constant push to improve — is what David considers Round4’s greatest ongoing achievement.
Hosting has played a quiet but important role in that growth. After cycling through several big-name providers, David started looking for something better. The problems were always the same: technical issues, slow support, and scaling headaches that affected both the team and their clients’ website performance. Cloud hosting seemed promising, but fully managing it in-house was not realistic for a small team.
– Cloudways gave Round4 the flexibility to scale, test, and consolidate clients onto a single platform — without the maintenance headaches.
Cloudways changed that. David found it through research on Google and YouTube, and it quickly answered questions that other providers could not. “We wanted something secure, stable, and fast that we could scale at any point as needed, and easy to use,” he says. “Cloudways really fit that description.” The flexibility to spin up new sites, move applications between servers for testing, and scale without calling support has allowed David to experiment, consolidate clients, and find what works — all without getting buried in maintenance.
For David, that kind of reliability is not a luxury. It is a necessity for a team that is always building toward something bigger. Round4 started in the aftermath of a layoff. It grew through hard work, honest relationships, and a refusal to give up. And it continues to move forward, one round at a time.
Interested in working with Round4? You can connect with David Doherty on LinkedIn or through their website. We recently interviewed him as part of our Agency Spotlight series.
Mansoor Ahmed Khan
Been in content marketing since 2014, and I still get a kick out of creating stories that resonate with the target audience and drive results. At Cloudways by DigitalOcean (a leading cloud hosting company, btw!), I lead a dream team of content creators. Together, we brainstorm, write, and churn out awesome content across all the channels: blogs, social media, emails, you name it! You can reach out to me at [email protected].
