Reflections of a CEO

I started Jakt, a digital product & innovation studio based in NYC back in 2012.

I built it entirely from scratch as its CEO into the $4M/year business that it is today.

And it’s definitely been a hell of a ride.

I’ve gone through the highest of highs and lowest of lows during all these seven years.

There were times I felt happy and fulfilled as I’ve ever been, just as times when I thought I couldn’t possibly sink any lower.

As of June of 2019 though, I’m no longer Jakt’s CEO.

The business was acquired by a much larger agency who also offered me a spot in its board of directors.

I’m moving onto a new stage in life and I couldn’t be more excited for what’s to come.

In today’s episode, I’m actually a guest in a friend’s Podcast.

He invited me to come over to share my story, learnings, and personal reflections from building a business with a virtual room of people.

Here’s what we touched on:

- The moment that spurred me to follow entrepreneurship (6:10)

- How my end-goal changed over time as I grew Jakt (10:50)

- When did I start noticing the company’s success (14:00)

- Should you invest in a sinking ship or fail quickly and pivot somewhere else? (18:00)

- Why sales are SO important (22:00)

- How did we approach our potential leads to generate new business and close them (30:00)

When I first started my agency Jakt back in 2012, I didn’t know what I was doing.

Sure, I could code and take care of the production work, but the business side of things?

I was figuring that out as it came.

NYU taught me about many things... but running a profitable agency wasn’t one of them.

And in 2015, I realized it didn’t prepare me to fire someone either.

To this day, I can admit it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

I actually talked myself out of making the decision -- even when I believed it was the best for the business -- for a whopping SIX months before I finally sat down and took action.

If you’re struggling with that right now…

Or you’ve already fired someone, and you’d like to know another’s POV and experience...

This is for you.

I’ll touch on…

- Why I made the decision to let this employee go (3:03)

- The reasons why I talked myself out of it for so long (4:22)

- What helped me get through my mental barriers and stories to take action (7:42)

- The lesson I learned from that experience (13:10)

- Why you’re doing people a disservice if you don’t fire them quickly (13:49)

It was 2016. We had just closed at $2M in revenue last year, and I’m feeling great.

I couldn't know I would be considering shutting down Jakt a couple of months later.

Some of the events that unfolded that year almost broke me.

More than half of our team left us in a short period, clients were leaving us, I couldn’t seem to close any new business...

If you’re an entrepreneur, you might relate to this.

You might have hard times and think about shutting everything down because it’s not worth the stress, anxiety, or depression.

Reality is though: you’re not alone here.

Just as you, other people have been through their fair share of shit.

And if I got through mine, you can definitely get through yours.

In this podcast, I share with you the story of how I almost decided to shut down Jakt for good,

because I want to remind you that you’re not alone on this journey. And that things breaking might be a good thing for ONE special reason…

I’ll touch on:

- The TWO things that started happening within Jakt that almost broke me (3:38)

- Why things breaking turned out to be a blessing in disguise (8:12)

- How you need to frame these exact moments to actually grow from them (12:16)

For three years, my agency Jakt hovered around $1.5M to $2M in revenue.

From 2017 to 2018, we jumped from $1.7M to $4M. That’s a 134% increase.

How did we suddenly break through after a three-year dry spell?

You see…

There’s no silver bullet, just as there’s no “ONE thing” that I did to finally grow past the threshold we were stuck at.

It was the opposite in fact.

From changing the type of customer we serviced and the type of engagement we had with them…

… to varying the type of projects we accepted from short to long-term...

I realized Jakt couldn’t grow past the $2M if we kept things the same.

And in this podcast, I’ll be sharing with you the exact steps we took to do just that.

I’ll be touching on…

- The type of customer we first served at Jakt and why did we have low retention with them (2:03)

- What I realized was necessary to grow to $4M (5:05)

- Why our first customers didn’t want to bring our services in-house, and how this affected retention (6:04)

- How I changed the frame we set with new customers so we worked for more extended periods (7:50)

- Why offering services that were super important to their businesses - but not the main priority - helped us grow immensely (9:58)

Someone asked me two questions on Twitter the other day.

He said:

“Anthony, what’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned at Jakt?

And two - knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently?”

You see…

I don’t believe there’s “one greatest lesson.”

If anything, what I’ve learned throughout seven years while growing a multimillion-dollar agency is the opposite:

There are a TON of lessons, and I haven’t even yet scratched the surface.

Business wouldn't be a game with a constant amount of learning involved otherwise.

From the financial engineering principles I’ve used to stay profitable every single year…

… to creating a culture of high-performers and accountability at Jakt...

In this podcast, I’ll give you a rundown of a few lessons I’ve learned and what I’m doing differently moving forward.

Here’s what I’ll touch on:

- Why sales cures everything (5:25)

- Hiring an executive coach has a massive ROI (11:09)

- Look at your business as a machine comprised of various systems. Your job as the CEO is to design the machine (16:29)

- You are NOT that special (17:49)

- You are THAT special (18:32)

In the last episode of Reflections of a CEO, I covered the topic of the three big systems that every service-based business/agency has…

...and how you must make sure there isn’t an imbalance between the growth of each three.

Because if you don’t, your business might break.

This episode is meant to be a Part 2 of that topic, in where I go in-depth on what you should do as an agency owner when you feel that things start breaking.

This is a very important episode that, if you run an agency, will be helpful as you grow and scale your business.

I’ll touch on:

- Why you need to understand how an agency works to address the problem (2:12)

- Taking a step back and diagnosing the root cause of the problem(3:07)

- Why you need to look at your business and ask how can you replace yourself (3:52)

- How new agency owners might not have a 10,000-foot view of the systems, and what to do about it (7:18)

- What to REALLY expect from your employees as you grow (8:31)

- The difference between working ON the business VS IN the business (10:17)

- Why the News Business system is the last system you want to replace yourself from (12:24)

- Removing yourself too prematurely (13:48)

As you agency grows, stuff can start to break.

Over the years at Jakt and through the questions I’ve received from many other agency owners in our community, I realized why this happens.

It means you’ve reached the breaking point of the systems that worked for you before.

And they need adjusting.

In this episode, I’ll dive into the role each system plays in your business, how growth will cause an imbalance between them…

...and how you must constantly keep them evolving to not break.

I’ll also touch on:

- Why stuff starts to break in your agency as you grow (and why that’s okay) (1:06)

- The three main systems that compose your agency (2:13)

- The imbalance that falls on the systems as you grow (2:50)

- What you have to do to keep them from breaking (4:34)

- My experience with a Back-Office system that wasn’t evolving fast enough (7:04)

What do you do when you lose a big customer?

This is a question I was asked at servicebasedbusinesses.com, a community of agency owners I moderate who are looking to grow and build their business.

A member of the group recently lost an important client.

And they’re now in a kind of situation where they have to evaluate letting some people go or other alternatives like getting rid of their office space.

And I’ve been there, not just once, but multiple times in my career while running an agency.

If you run an agency, I hope this podcast helps you be more prepared if this ever happens to you.

I’ll touch on…

- My personal experiences with losing big customers (2:15)

- Why these are the moments when you get to see what you’re made of (3:31)

- Taking the time to process the loss (but not too much) - (5:03)

- Learning the lesson and adjusting (6:42)

Very recently, I got asked the question if I would ever bring an equity partner in Jakt, and why or why not would I bring someone onboard.

If it was the case I did, what would be the requirements or the situation needed to be?

Now, I’ve found out that looking for the right business partners is a lot like dating and trying to find the person you want to be with.

I had to go through several people to figure out what is important to me over the course of seven years.

And I want to share the lessons I’ve learned with you today.

I’ll touch on…

My first business partner at Jakt (1:05)

How finding business partners is a lot like finding the right person to date (2:43)

What breaks the partnership the majority of the time (4:24)

My personal requirements for business partnerships (6:30)

My good rule of thumb for evaluating potential partnerships (8:55)

How I would go about splitting equity fairly (11:24)

I was asked in my private slack community, Service Based Businesses:

- What do people use in terms of a system or prompt or format to remind themselves about their vision for their company, and the exciting goal they are working on?

- How can you plan your weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly goals more visually?

Join the group & get access to answers like this and resources like the ones described in the podcast.

https://servicebasedbusinesses.com