Hasta La Creative!

The hard work and stress in building a company when your financial ass is on the line is staggering. Ignorance has been the friend of limitless human endeavors in the early going. But while the task sometimes seemed Herculean, I would certainly start an agency again — I’d just do it differently.

Looking back on what I know now, here are three things that I would change.

First, I’d create a disciplined approach to titles from the outset. One of the most appealing things in the early days of building an agency is the vast amount of flexibility you have when it comes to hiring, promoting and incentivizing. We began back in 2001 with a flat hierarchy, and titles were fluid (Sure, Bob can be an art director here, even though he would be a senior designer in the real world). This worked well until we reached about 15 to 20 people. Allowing employees to be on job tiers that exceeded the industry norm helped in attracting talent in the short term, but in the long term it caused more than a few headaches.

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