It takes a village.
WHEELIE started in 2009 from one old laptop and a pile of soggy business cards that used to get handed out on chairlifts. It worked, and WHEELIE grew into a substantial creative community of people who love asking questions, solving problems, and making things together.
We're supremely grateful to the 800+ brands we've partnered with for enabling us to spend our days imagining worlds that don't exist yet and then figuring out how to build them with our clients.
16 years deep, we're seasoned pros at hanging off cliffs with cameras, filming out of ATVs, and exposing truth, all in the name of creating work with impact.
Art asks questions. Design solves problems. Creative Thinking Changes the world.
Join us.
Not to get too nerdy on you...
We love psychology & philosophy.
We thrive at the confluence of human behavior, thought, and emotion.
We believe creativity = conflict + curiosity.
We also stand by these other c-words: CRAFT, CONNECTION, & CHANGE.
Craft
Craft First. Always. We bring artistry into every project, work that embodies quality, intention, and what it means to be human.
We are tellers of truth, even in- well, especially in- commercial work, and so are our brand partners and their audiences.
Truth requires craft.
Connection
We believe powerful work is all about connection.
We believe it is as important who's behind the lens as in front of it, and we make it our mission to share inclusive stories so that more people can feel seen, and therefore more people can connect with themselves, each other, and the planet.
Change
It's neurobiological. Great work physically changes your brain.
Only then is it actionable- change in thought changes behavior.
(If you work with us, we will share our creative process that goes deep here with neurobiology at is core.) Change is critical to creative work that actually impacts your audience. And eventually culture as well.
Pretty cool. Pretty nerdy. It's all about balance.
Our sales doubled after the rebrand in only one quarter. Holy shit, it worked. Thank you!
— Brand Manager
Wheelie is by far my favorite agency to work with. They treat creatives right.
— Animator
The history of WHEELIE:
16 YEARS OF MAGIC:
2009
WHEELIE IS BORN.
This is Lisa Slagle. She jokes around a lot, but she's one of the deepest, most thoughtful people you'll ever meet. She started WHEELIE in 2009 at age 22 (with just one old, clapped-out laptop) because she believed in bringing lots of different voices into capitalism.
Armed with a fresh graphic design degree from CSU, she moved to Crested Butte, CO where she used to hand out soggy business cards on chairlifts. Somehow that worked, and she got busy designing brands across the west.
Like, really busy.
2013
WHITEFISH, MONTANA
We got our first office. We hired employees. We hosted campouts on the roof of our office.
We built tons and tons of amazing brands in the awesome community of Whitefish. Thank you for loving us so hard, for starring in our commercials, and for letting us use your homes as our video sets. We love you, Whitefish.
2017
WE ADDED A DENVER OFFICE
This was wild. We started landing massive outdoor brands as clients, producing high-end commercials, and committing deeply to video production as our favorite service. We loved working with people on bigger sets.
2018
WE BOUGHT A BUILDING!
These were outrageously fun years.
We made excellent work, engaged our community in all our projects, donated hundreds of thousands of creative work to non-profits, and continued to make dream projects with marketing teams all over the country. Time FLEW.
We also spent a LOT of time lugging camera gear and laptops full of budgets and employee timecards through airports and Lyfts. We grew a ton... as people, and as a company, and we swear we had the best clients in the world.
2020
...AND THEN, WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD, WE ALL HAD TO START WORKING REMOTELY.
At first, it was tough. We had to create new systems for collaborating with our internal team and our clients. We missed each other and our office dogs. We missed our inside jokes around the office... But then we figured it out. Our culture became more about the work and less about. the office jokes.
We became obsessed with craft. We became obsessed with making work that mattered.
This evolution felt right. It felt good. It felt, well, kind of baller.
2021
WE WENT REMOTE, AND WE WENT NATIONAL.
Suddenly, we had no bounds. Our roster was as big as our imaginations. We started pulling talent from all over the world.
We are HQ'd in Whitefish, MT and Crested Butte, CO, and we work with clients and creative teams globally.
Life is cool like that.
2025
FULL ALIGNMENT
WHEELIE has grown up.
Our team went from being big kids to having kids. Our skills have grown. Our roster has grown. Our budgets, clients, and risks have grown, too.
Yet somehow, through solid systems and processes, and structures, (things we would have formerly deemed as too boring to care about), the world feels smaller.
Maybe that's what it's actually been about this whole time.
This is 2025.
And of course, as always,
Thanks for being here.
The vibe:
We work hard, have fun, and get results for our clients. It's a pretty good life.
