How to Scale Your Agency from 0 to 50 | Brink’s Co-founder Shares Everything You Need to Know

In this engaging conversation, Talia Cotton shares her journey from working at Pentagram to starting her design studio — Cotton Design. She talks about the challenges of the first year of being an agency founder, the main leadership lessons she learned and insights on building and managing a team. Watch the full interview to find out: 👉 Three things you must do when starting an agency 👉 How and who to hire during the first year 👉 How to build your network and find new clients 👉 What Talia will never ever do with her team 👉 Where she goes for inspiration 00:00 Hello Hello Hello 01:16 Leaving Pentagram and starting a design studio 03:30 What you need to do before starting an agency 05:58 Winning creative work or how to find clients as a creative agency founder 08:06 How to pitch yourself in the creative industry 09:25 Hiring and Building a Team 12:23 Teaching and how it helps to hire design talent 13:10 How to hire talent during the first year 15:30 Two key lessons on hiring from Michael Bierut, partner at Pentagram 17:35 Inside look into how Pentagram works 22:53 The most important thing in the first year of running an agency 25:53 What you need to consider before you take a project 27:04 Things you need to do to get more clients 28:45 Working from Office VS Remote team 29:15 Where to look for inspiration when you are an agency founder 33:49 If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be? For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme. Learn more and Apply 👉 https://bit.ly/3wXJox1

This month we had an inspiring conversation with Martin Raymond, Co-Founder of Future Laboratory. He shared his insights into the future and how we can prepare for what awaits us in the coming years. We discussed the skills leaders will need in the future, the role of impact metrics in business and how creatives can succeed in the boardroom.

How do you succeed as a start-up? How do you grow your agency from 20 to 100 people? How can you carve your niche in the market?  In our last episode of Agency Growth Stories, Emily Heyward, co-founder of Red Antler – the leading creative agency for startups and new ventures, including Hinge, Prose and AllTrails – shares her insights on these questions and more.  Emily was named among the Most Important Entrepreneurs of the Decade, a Top Female Founder and one of the Most Powerful Women of 2019 by Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine.🔥 Here is what we covered in our chat with this creative legend:  00:00:00 - Intro: Who is Emily Heyward?  00:01:15 - Rapid Fire Questions 00:03:30 - Red Antler: How It All Started 00:14:25 - Defining Your Clients & Revenue as a Start-Up 00:18:53 - Growing Beyond 2 People: InHouse vs. Freelance 00:21:50 - Bringing In Clients in the Early Days 00:26:30 - Hiring & Establishing and Effective Team Structure  00:35:34 - Pricing Projects as an Agency  00:40:15 - What You Need to Change as a Leader to Grow 00:44: 22 - Where is Red Antler now? 00:46:05 - The Future of Small & Mid Agencies  00:47:15 - Opportunities in the Current Market 00:50:27 - Transparency within the Agency 00:52:15 - What Keeps You Going as a Founder? 00:56:24 - How a Project-Based Business Works: Hiring vs. Freelancing 00:59:03 - Helping Clients Understand the Importance of Brand  01:04:28 - Marketing and Community as Part of Your Brand Strategy 01:08:08 - AI in the Creative Industry: Uses and Shortcomings  01:12:00 - Key Things to Define for a Client’s Strategy  01:14:02 - How Do You Keep Key People Without Giving Equity Away? 01:17:50 - Can You Growth Without Expanding Your Services?  01:20:10 - Final Thoughts For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme: https://fla.wiki/3TBeTLq Get more inspiration from us on other channels:  ➤ Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/futurelondonacademy ➤ Twitter:  https://twitter.com/FLondonAcademy ➤  LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/school/future-london-academy/

What is the key to rapid growth? When is it time to expand your team? How should you approach a global expansion?  In this episode of Agency Growth Stories, Natalie Graeme, Co-Founder of Uncommon – Europe’s fastest-growing start-up in advertising history, answers these questions and more, as she shares her experience of growing Uncommon from 0 to over 200 employees, working with global brand partners – including ITV, WWF, British Airways and SiriusXM –  and creating a memorable brand identity through ingenious PR strategies.  Here is what we covered:  00:00:00 - Intro: Who is Natalie Graeme?  00:01:11 - Rapid Fire Question 00:06:11 - Early Days: The Formative Years of Uncommon  00:09:55 - Uncommon’s Studio Model 00:14:35 - Uncommon’s Rapid Growth & Secret to Success 00:23:40 - Uncommon’s Global Expansion &The Strategy Behind It 00:32:23 - Growing Beyond 30 People: When to Hire and How to Structure Your Team 00:44:45 - From 70 to 240 People and How Your Role as a Founder Changes Questions from the Audience:  00:52:20 - What are the Most Common Mistakes of Agency Start-ups in The Early Days? 00:53:50 - How do you Control Quality and Production during Growth in a Joint Venture? 00:54:53 - How do you Manage Client-Side Delays and Keep Things Running?  00:56:20 - How do you Balance Hiring Full-Time Vs. Freelance? 00:58:39 - How did you Secure Funds at the Start? 01:01:53 - How do you Select Clients?  01:03:33 - Do you work with Retainers or on a One-off Project Basis? 01:04:29 - What was Uncommon’s PR Strategy at the Beginning?  01:05:34 - What is the difference between your Studio Model and an Advertising Agency? 01:08:28 - How do you Get New Clients without Word of Mouth?  01:12:13 - How Important is the Agency’s Brand? Final Advice  01:15:08 - What Can You Do to Look After Yourself as a Founder?  01:16:50 - If You Could Change One Thing in the World, What Would It Be? For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme: https://fla.wiki/435hkc4 Get more inspiration from us on other channels:  ➤ https://www.instagram.com/futurelondonacademy ➤ https://twitter.com/FLondonAcademy ➤ https://www.linkedin.com/school/future-london-academy/

How do you grow from 6 to 1000 people? From £0 to £232 in revenue? When is it time to step down as CEO? Steve Bell, former Iris Co-Founder, and now CEO at Team17 Group managed over 1000 employees in 14 offices around the world and oversaw Iris' work with some of the biggest, most creatively driven and technologically advanced global brands.  Here is what we covered in the second episode of Agency Growth Stories with Steve:  00:00:00 - Intro: Who is Steve Bell?  00:02:56 - Fire Round Questions 00:11:50 - Iris’ Early Days and Fast Growth 00:16:14 - Culture over Money: Creating Meaningful Equity & Working with the Right Clients at Iris  00:21:35 - Multiple Founder Dynamic and Hierarchies   00:24:50 - Scaling Iris Globally & Tough Wake Up Calls 00:34:00 - Maturing Iris, Outside Investments, Mergers & Acquisitions 00:59:00 - Stepping Down as Founder and Becoming a CEO at Team17 01:04:50 - How Should You Start an Agency in 2024? 01:09:00 - The Future of Creative Consulting Services in the Age of AI 01:11:24 - Determining Who to Work With in the Early Days 01:13:45 - How to Keep & Grow Clients  01:18:25 - Pitching & Winning Business 01:22:18 - Last Words For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme:https://fla.wiki/4byNd0p Find us on: https://www.instagram.com/futurelondonacademy/  https://www.linkedin.com/school/future-london-academy/  https://twitter.com/FLondonAcademy 

How do you design a fail-proof hiring process? How do you balance purpose and profit in the early days? And how do you find your first clients? Get your answer in our first episode of Agency Growth Stories – a series where we talk to the founders of the world's leading agencies about what's on every founder's mind. Our first guest was the wonderful Abi Freeman — Co-Founder of Brink — an international consulting agency which uses Behavioural Innovation to advise on new ways of working to change the world. Here is what we covered: 00:00:00 - Intro: Who is Abi Freeman? 00:02:52 - Fire Round Questions 00:04:54 - Why Abi Co-Founded her Company Brink 00:08:01 - How to Find Your First Clients 00:12:17 - How and When to Grow Your Team 00:20:20 - Services to Keep External Rather than In-House 00:22:05 - How to Hire and Manage an International Distributed Team 00:29:12 - Brink’s Failproof Hiring Process: Hiring for Ways of Being Not Just Doing 00:34:21 - How to Build Intimacy with Your Team 00:39:00 - Purpose Vs. Profit, Finding Balance in the Early Days 00:48:18 - How to Measure the Impact of Your Projects 00:56:32 - Common Blinspots in Founders 00:58:01 - How to Get Clients through Networking 01:04:04 - How to Take the First Step to Start Your Agency 01:06:35 - How to Navigate Procurement Processes 01:14:05 - Behavioural Change and Climate Change 01:17:01 - Last Words For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme: https://fla.wiki/4byNd0p Get more inspiration from us on other channels: https://www.instagram.com/futurelondonacademy/ https://twitter.com/FLondonAcademy https://www.linkedin.com/school/future-london-academy/

Without any computers or a bank loan, Stuart Trevor launched his first collection at the age of 28, reaping £1.5M. Today, the founder and former CEO of AllSaints has three successful brands under his wing, loved by the likes of Beyonce, Gwen Stefani, and Justin Timberlake.Join us for our third episode of Creative Legends to hear all about how Stuart made it and what fashion was like before Zara. Join us for our third episode of Creative Legends, the series where we talk to creative industry icons, and get inspired to continue growing as a design expert. For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme: ⁠https://fla.wiki/47PS6j8

Maria Giudice founded the iconic design agency Hot Studio and sold it to Facebook after an unexpected chat with Mark Zuckerberg. Now, Maria shares the top lessons from her time at the media giant, running her own agency and teaching leaders to embrace creativity for maximum success. Join us for our second episode of Creative Legends, the series where we talk to creative industry icons, and get inspired to continue growing as a design expert. For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme: https://fla.wiki/47PS6j8

How can creative leaders thrive? And how does AI come into play? John Maeda is here to answer your pressing questions. In our first episode of Creative Legends, the series where we talk to creative industry icons, we interviewed Microsoft’s VP of Design and AI. He shared his lessons on how to be a great leader, become an excellent communicator and navigate design in the age of AI.  𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗝𝗢𝗛𝗡 John Maeda is a world-renowned artist, computer scientist, educator and investor currently serving as VP of Design and Artificial Intelligence at Microsoft. John is a TED speaker, industry influencer and author of books The Laws of Simplicity, Creative Code, and Redesigning Leadership. He was called the “Steve Jobs of academia” by Forbes and named one of the "75 most influential people of the 21st century" by Esquire. For more than a decade, John has worked to integrate technology, education and the arts into a 21st-century synthesis of creativity and innovation. He taught media arts and sciences at MIT for 12 years and served as the Associate Director of Research at MIT Media Lab. He is the first-ever recipient of the White House’s National Design Award for algorithmically-generated visualisations informed by data and AI. For more leadership insights check our Executive Programme For Design Leaders. Learn more: https://fla.wiki/3R7M8Dr

In our last episode of this Design Leadership series, we talked to Tiffany Rolfe, Mom & Global Chief Creative Officer at R/GA. Tiffany shared insights on how to stay relevant in an ever-changing industry, fight imposter syndrome, step out of your comfort zone, get to a C-level position as a Creative and the skills you need to become a successful Chief Creative Officer while also being a parent. Tiffany leads a team of over 200 cross-disciplinary designers, thinkers and makers that create work at the intersection of storytelling and technology. R/GA’s clients include Nike, Verizon, Samsung, Airbnb, Slack, ESPN, and Instagram.   For more leadership insights check our Executive Programme For Design Leaders.  Learn more 👉 https://bit.ly/3wXJox1