hudson-valley
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The Agency That Moved Into the Client's Office
23 Marketing Group sells the usual agency tools - strategy, creative, media and measurement. Its revealing move is less usual: get close enough to the client's work that the agency begins to behave like part of the company.
The Small Agency That Learned to Be Everywhere
Filomena Fanelli meant to build a one-woman consultancy. Demand had other ideas. Twelve years later, Impact PR is a case study in how a local firm can grow nationwide without pretending to be a giant.
The Small-Town Agency That Thinks Like Election Day Is Always Eight Months Away
From a Goshen office, Focus Media turns tourism campaigns, planning approvals and car-dealer ads into the same kind of contest: know the audience, seize the calendar and repeat one clear message until it moves.
The 80-Year-Old Appliance Shop That Never Tried to Be the Cheapest
For three generations the Formisano family has sold refrigerators in the Hudson Valley on a stubborn premise: be the most helpful store, not the cheapest one. Here is how that bet held up over 80 years.
Zain Qayyum
Zain Qayyum is the co-founder and co-CEO of Medsender, a New York based healthcare automation company that uses AI to turn faxes, emails and phone calls into structured data that flows straight into patient records. A pre-med student who walked away from medicine after watching hospitals shuttle paper and CDs between systems, he built a platform now used by thousands of practices across all 50 states. In early 2025 Medsender raised a $5M Series A led by Ballast Point Ventures while already cash-positive, and the company debuted on the 2025 Inc. 5000 at #550.
Castle
Castle is a New York-based fintech building payments infrastructure for the roughly $3 trillion Americans spend on their homes each year. Its consumer app turns the chaotic paperwork of homeownership - utility bills, property and school taxes, insurance, renovations and maintenance - into a single digital filing cabinet with automated bill pay, transaction monitoring that surfaces tax credits, rebates and overcharges, and fraud protection. Founded by Madeline Hung after a gut-renovation of a historic Hudson Valley photo studio revealed how little data homeowners have on their biggest asset, Castle says its average customer saves over $10,000.
Madeline Hung
Madeline Hung is the co-founder and CEO of Castle, a Hudson, New York fintech building payments infrastructure for the home - software that helps homeowners automate, consolidate, and reduce the cost of their biggest asset. She arrived at the idea the hard way, converting a derelict Hudson Valley photography studio into a livable house during the pandemic and discovering that tracking home spend felt like writing paper checks into a black hole. Before Castle she co-founded The Good Country with nation-branding strategist Simon Anholt and worked across human-rights research and citizen-engagement ventures, a path that runs from Oxfam and Health Leads to a seed-funded home finance app.