The Reality of Running an Agency

"That's what you've been working on? Really?"

November 2023, Ottawa, Ontario: I was driving in the city with two designers and they were surprised to hear that, after hearing that I was starting a design agency, the main thing I was working on…

Was templates for SOWs and Proposals in InDesign.

One of my friends – Izzy – was stunned. She assumed I'd be neck deep in doing the fancy things: updating the portfolio, designing sleek case studies to win new work, hopping on podcasts to talk about what we were doing at STUDIOFORM®…

But the truth is, the beginning was more boring, mundane, but necessary work: setting up an incorporation, navigating tax rules for the business, setting up our project management dashboards and documenting all of our agency processes, to name a few.

This builds on the truth of building a creative agency: it's chock full of amazing moments, like nailing a client's brand identity, winning awards, and seeing your work out in the wild…

But also, filled with many more moments of doing more mundane and consistent work in and on the business itself.

And truly, if you want to start a creative agency – which many copywriters and designers do – you have to love both.

“Why do you want to start an agency in the first place?”

Having control over your own schedule and projects; making more revenue; having the dream team you've always wanted to work with; learning new skills and gaining new experiences you never would in a 9-5 job: these are all legitimate reasons for starting a creative agency.

And genuinely, I enjoy all of those.

Here's what else it takes, though:

Constant selling and hunting for new projects to fuel studio growth and health as a business; learning business and project management fundamentals to ensure processes and projects run smoothly; navigating the required tax and legal challenges of your respective country of business operations; navigating what it takes to be great at hiring, leading, and managing expectations for employees…

And the list goes on.

As mentioned before, you have to love all of it.

Another thing to navigate when starting an agency: are you a solo founder or do you have co-founders? I won't tell you that either is inherently positive or negative, but that they both come with their upsides and downsides.

Solo founders get to move quickly in many aspects. If something in the business isn't right, the decision only has to move through one person, initially, to be fixed. You also shoulder all the responsibility in the beginning, of working in the business and on the business. Creative? Your job. New sales? Also your job. Marketing? Yup – also you. The stress can build up quite quickly for a solo founder, while their capacity can easily and often fall below threshold.

Having co-founders, when done in an intentional and strategic manner, has a lot of upside. For example, let's say you have two co-founders for a creative agency: one of them specializes in project management and finances, with a type-A mind, while the other is wildly creative and excels in doing the work itself. These two would make a great balance and free up each other's capacities, meaning the business could move faster, with less stress, ideally.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg to consider.

My advice, though?

Go for it.

Worst outcome is that it doesn't work, but you still become a far better leader, designer, and creative in the process – and I'd still count that as a win.

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