Creative Capes

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.

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

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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

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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

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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?

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.

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.

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