The Faces Behind Honest Oak: A Closer Look at Co-Founders Ryan Forney and Nick Stone

Spend any time researching small business SEO agencies and a pattern emerges quickly: most look and sound roughly the same. What tends to distinguish the ones worth paying attention to isn't the pitch — it's the people. In the case of Honest Oak SEO, the two names to know are Ryan Forney and Nick Stone, co-founders whose backgrounds are unusual enough, and complementary enough, to warrant a closer look.

Ryan Forney: From National Security to Search Strategy

Ryan Forney didn't set out to build a career in SEO. For years, his professional life revolved around something considerably higher-stakes: senior leadership roles within the U.S. Department of Defense, where he directed teams working on complex national security matters. It's the kind of environment that rewards precision, calm under pressure, and the ability to translate strategy into execution — traits that, as it turns out, transfer surprisingly well to digital marketing.

His story reaches further back than that. A U.S. Army combat veteran, Ryan came into his civilian career with the kind of resilience and discipline that tends to shape everything a person does afterward. Colleagues and clients often notice it in small ways — a tendency to plan carefully, to follow through without reminders, to treat commitments as commitments.

The pivot into digital marketing came in 2020, when Ryan launched a web-based business of his own. What began as a new venture quickly became an immersion. He dove into SEO the way people with analytical minds tend to: reading, testing, tracking, refining. Over time, that hands-on experimentation matured into a full-fledged practice built around data, technical fundamentals, and a willingness to think creatively when a problem doesn't have a textbook answer.

His academic background reinforces that blend. Ryan holds a B.A. in Financial Economics and Management Information Systems, along with an M.S. in International Relations — a combination that hints at how he approaches client work: numerically grounded, systems-oriented, and always attentive to the bigger picture.

Nick Stone: A Builder Since the Early Days of the Web

If Ryan represents the strategist half of the partnership, Nick Stone represents the builder. His relationship with technology stretches back to the 1980s, when he first began working in software development — a starting point that, by today's standards, feels less like a résumé line and more like a piece of internet history. Decades later, that early foundation is still evident in how comfortably he moves between the technical guts of a website and the strategic conversations happening a few floors up.

Nick eventually paired that technical fluency with formal business training, earning an M.B.A. in Finance. In 2006, he took the leap that many technologists talk about but never actually make: he started his own agency. Charlottesville SEO Web Development grew into a respected boutique shop serving around 40 clients a month, built on a reputation for careful work and steady results rather than flashy promises.

What tends to stand out about Nick, though, isn't the credentials — it's the perspective. He has lived the small business experience from the inside: managing payroll, wearing multiple hats, weighing every marketing dollar against every other priority. That firsthand context shows up in how he talks to clients. He isn't explaining small business challenges from the outside looking in; he's speaking from experience.

Today, much of Nick's focus is on the parts of the business that clients don't always see: building strong internal teams, overseeing projects end-to-end, and making sure Honest Oak's work translates into measurable, durable outcomes. It's quiet, foundational work — the kind that tends to define companies that last.

A Partnership That Adds Up to More Than the Sum of Its Parts

On paper, Ryan and Nick's backgrounds could hardly look more different — a defense strategist and combat veteran on one side, a longtime software developer and small business veteran on the other. In practice, that contrast is exactly what makes the partnership work. Ryan brings the analytical framing and disciplined execution of someone trained in high-stakes environments; Nick brings the deep technical instincts and lived empathy of someone who has spent nearly two decades building web businesses of his own.

The result is a company that behaves less like a typical marketing agency and more like a small, thoughtful firm — one that treats its clients' businesses with the same seriousness it applies to its own. That ethos shows up in the details: in the tailored SEO plans, in the carefully managed small business websites, and in offerings like the Google Business Profile optimization service, where the emphasis is squarely on helping local businesses make a strong first impression online.

For anyone weighing SEO partners, the founders' stories offer a useful shortcut. Honest Oak isn't the product of a marketing playbook; it's the product of two people who spent years learning what real accountability looks like — and then decided to build a company around it.

Uneeb Khan is the founder of Techager and has over 6 years of experience in tech writing and troubleshooting. He loves converting complex technical topics into guides that everyone can understand.