What makes an agency attractive to a buyer and what makes them walk away?

In this episode of GOOD CEOs, Ollie looks at the things that can make a business harder to sell: over-reliance on one client, too much dependence on the founder, processes that don’t scale, and a proposition that’s become harder to explain as the company has grown.

But beyond the obvious commercial questions, there’s a bigger one:

What are you known for?

Ryan Honey spent 22 years building BUCK into one of the industry's most respected creative studios, then turned down a holding company buyout to build something different: Residence, a global network of creative companies that keep their own names and independence. Ollie sits down with Ryan to unpack why he said no to the big check, how he decides who gets to join the network and and where he thinks AI helps versus where it's noise.

Ollie flies solo this week to reflect on what six years of building UNKNOWN - and the thousands of conversations a month with agency leaders - have taught him about scaling well. He unpacks Rob Pierre's idea of growing your company in Vector rather than JPEG, the Four Agreements that actually hold a culture together, why you should treat your clients like prospects and your prospects like clients, his CIAO framework (Clarity, Incentivisation, Autonomy, Objectives) for why good intentions still lead to bad outcomes, and the shift he's seeing across the industry from bloated departments to small "Navy SEALs" teams of senior practitioners backed by a flexible bench of specialists.

Natalie Graeme co-founded Uncommon less than a decade ago and it's now arguably the best creative studio in the world, working with the likes of British Airways and The Ordinary. In this episode, she tells Ollie why a studio that swore it would never take outside money ended up partnering with Havas to fund its US expansion, how they protected Uncommon's culture inside that deal, and why turning down a huge early payday nearly broke the studio before it made them.

In this solo episode of Good CEOs, Ollie reflects on what it really takes to build momentum in the creative economy: not waiting for the perfect moment, but creating enough volume that luck becomes less relevant.

From UNKNOWN’s biggest ever H1, to launching a new M&A practice, to the difference between advice from people close to you and people close to your goals, this episode is about backing your gut, moving before certainty arrives, and building the repetitions that make success more likely.

In this episode of Good CEOs, Ollie Scott chats with Matt Lacey, managing partner of Waypoint, about the intersection of creativity, capital, and the evolving landscape of mergers and acquisitions in the creative economy. They explore key metrics, private equity trends, and predictions for the industry’s future, offering invaluable insights for founders and investors alike.

In this solo episode of Good CEOs, Ollie shares three predictions shaping the creative economy right now - the rise of IP-driven deals replacing time-for-money billing, why AI is forcing a total rethink of junior talent and career growth, and an unpopular truth about why the "open to work" LinkedIn banner might be quietly costing you job offers. He opens with a personal story about learning to step back from the daily grind of running a business to make space for bigger thinking, before diving into what he's seeing across thousands of conversations with creative leaders worldwide.

James Greenfield could have called his agency Greenfield, Matthews and Roden. Instead he called it Koto and built it into a global powerhouse working with Airbnb, Amazon, Google and Microsoft, all while staying true to one belief: creativity is a team sport, not a solo genius act. In this episode, James talks about why he traded his name for longevity, what it really means to take private equity money into a creative business, why he thinks AI raises the floor while only humans can raise the ceiling, and his three predictions for where the creative economy is headed next. 

Ollie explores why creativity and capital are far less opposed than we often imagine. From agency leaders and artists to investors and founders, we unpack how both worlds depend on risk, foresight, storytelling and the ability to spot what people will care about next.

We look at why markets move on stories as much as numbers, what creatives can learn from finance, and why the future belongs to leaders who can translate meaning into money without losing integrity.

Why do agencies struggle to price their work properly? And why does design create so much value… yet capture so little of it?In this episode of Good CEOs, Ollie Scott sits down with Leland Maschmeyer, co-founder of Collins and former Chief Creative Officer at Chobani, to unpack one of the biggest problems in the creative industry: value vs pricing.Leland doesn’t hold back.From why agencies are stuck selling time instead of value, to why pricing is a creative act (not a financial one), to how design is moving closer to finance and value creation, this is a deep dive into how the entire creative economy is being reshaped.