Ever formed a micro agency?
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- inteliboy0
If you need to meet talented people with different skills as your own - go to a few of those weekend startup workshops. There's heaps of them. They are normally filled with both mediocre and great people, so very quickly you can pick out in the crowd who actually walks the talk.
A while back I went to one called Launch 48 and the amount of useful contacts and work that sprang up from that was huge -- and a lot of talk of forming to start our own studio/agency.
- hektor9110
Not sure about micro really means in this case. But, these guys are doing great. Started really small not about now.
- ideaist0
1. Power is always found in numbers.
2. Fortune favours the bold.
Excellent words, wisdom and thoughts in this thread gang!
- duckseason0
Know a couple people that did this.
http://un-scene.com/
- dMullins0
Browsing around for threads related to this topic. Good read, thanks for everyone who contributed. I'm a partner now in someone else's start-up agency, and thinking about doing the same from scratch here soon. Trying to get the kick in the pants I need to pull the ripcord.
- SteveJobs0
^ again, this isn't two people just taking a few jobs together. It would likely be an S or C corp business structure - whichever provided the best protection for the Corp to Corp type work we would do. Not even there yet though. Plus we'd have an attorney on retainer.
- popovich0
also think about your target clients. if you are going for the same big names which normally work with full-service agencies be aware, that they care less about how clean your code is or how beautiful the design is – they need to be sure that you exist tomorrow, that you can handle their job on time and on budget and that they can sue you, if something goes wrong. it makes no sense to sue a person - corporations don't need your used car or hi-fi audio. they need cash, which means that they will probably want you to be incorporated or something.
at some level it is not about how good your skills are, but how good you are at bargaining and politics... (all this referring to big names; small to mid-size businesses are less restrictive in this respect)
- popovich0
and here: http://www.jessicahische.is/obse…
- popovich0
a mature full-service shop might charge here, in Germany, somewhere between 150 to 250 euros/hour or 1200 to 2000 euros/day. however, they don't do this shit with numbers and just say: "this will cost you xx.xxx." 'cause they are mature and full-service. and small shops normally try to figure it out with per hour/per day thing...
also here: http://www.alistapart.com/articl…
- SteveJobs0
@popovich, my interest is more as a full-service shop. I know a lot of agencies primarily do heavy front-end with them or the client outsourcing the backend work to another 3rd party (correct me if that's not true).
Since the talent for my group would be more dense, we'd be able to undercut other agencies on bids for contracts - which among other benefits would include higher salaries than most agencies pay out. I mean, that's the idea anyway - pie in the sky.
- spendogg0
I had a similar experience as dijitaq had. Partnered with the wrong people, was lied to for nearly 8 mos. ended up holding all the baggage. I thought i had aligned with people who had the same passion and drive for excellence - i guess on the surface it was true, but greed and bullshit trumped being human.
- how would you have approached it differently with that experience behind you?SteveJobs
- I would have had a much more detailed partnership contract and an exit strategy.spendogg
- oh and have a private investigator do background checks on everybodyspendogg
- and no matter how much $$ you have - get an accountantspendogg
- SteveJobs0
@toodee/pango
she's open to both. she's very aggressive, and self-motivated and i have faith in her abilities just going on how much effort she puts into her current job.
still curious what kind of rates full-service shops charge out (range or on average). would be nice to attract talent with some non-arbitrary figures. anyone have any data on this? I know a lot of these agencies make a killing
- popovich0
As I see it, acquisition is the most important part of this business. As I understand it, you want to get into advertising/design business? Contacts. Leads. People, who will trust your skills and give you jobs. If you can't land jobs, you don't need an accountant, an office space and partners. If you have someone, who can bring you clients – get together and go for it.
After almost 2 years in this business now, I would give up a stake in it to someone, who can land me jobs. Everything else (incl. accounting, designing, etc.) can be bought from outside.
- SteveJobs0
Early-morning bump.
I talked to a friend recently who works in sales in the advertising industry and she thinks she that with her contact list she could churn up some serious business.. hmmm..
- SteveJobs0
seems like you could get around that issue with a lead finder by offering incentives proportionate to the size of the clients they land, no? At first it might be a little slow-going, but once you have established yourself as a legitimate and capable agency, they'll have to bring you better leads.
- monNom0
'Lead Finders' are going to give you the bottom of the barrel clients, and are going to skim-off a good portion of the project budget, meaning you'll be in a struggle to produce your best work. IMO It's a bad way to open a relationship, paying a finders fee. As the client is often not aware that 20% of their budget just got skimmed off by the guy who was supposed to be helping them (and they probably paid him for consulting too).
In general it's best to earn your relationships yourself. Sell them on your capabilities, impress them with the work you do for them, and make it easy to work with you again. That's how you build a long-term business. Not buying projects from some slimeball.
(just my opinion, there may well be cases that this is okay and or common)
- SteveJobs0
Well, I have two businesses already, both of which I bootstrapped, the most recent just a soft-launch until I can raise money for advertising, so I'm pretty diversified.
I think the biggest problem for me is, of course finding that other person that shares my passion, but how the two of us will wrangle in clients at the beginning. That is the part of the business where I have a lot to learn.
Are there lead-finders in this industry who take cuts for found leads?
- gramme0
About starting a micro-agency, the guy who owns my office building has a small web development business. They also work in the office space. It's a big open space with lots of room to spare. He's sharp as tacks at business development. Great with people. We've been talking about collaborating (in an ongoing sense, not just the odd project) for a couple months now.
- gramme0
You're never truly ready to make the move to self-employment, whether it's alone or with a partner(s). I was thrown into it, have made copious mistakes, and will still make more. But I'm feeding the mouths I have to feed, got my first office space this year, and business is slowly but surely growing.
- ideaist0
My girl (an artist) and I (a designer) opened an art & design shop a year and a half ago; no business person and thus we have become more resourceful and learnt it out of necessity.
It's hard work, so if that's not for you then turn away now. It involves pushing yourself daily in any direction needed and once again if that's not for you then stick to your agency job.
The benefits are free time, independence and elimination of middle men in the creative process allowing for more organic, natural solutions to design problems.
; )