Why the colab not!?
First let me introduce myself, I’m James, Founder and Designer for Layers Studio. We create brand-led digital solutions, that’s not only great branding but websites and web applications that meet the same standard in their bespoke brand look and feel.
We put a core set of skills to work at a high level and produce strong quality work that projects our clients brands, we don’t pretend do things we don’t do internally. However we work with some great people who do, and we don’t mind telling our clients that.
So working as a small — hell, we’re a micro business — we believe that’s a good, honest approach — but what’s more, we are proud not to be a ‘jack of all trades’, we are bloody good at what we do.
These past couple of years have an interesting and exciting challenge. One thing that seems to slow us down, which frustrates me more than anything, is falling short on some larger tenders, where, as a solo outfit, we are dismissed for, well…being small. Not because the team can’t deliver the job, but because as a small company we are seen as a ‘risk’. We have even joint tendered for work before with the likes of Nebula Labs, who are great at what they do, and as a Native App Specialist, align perfectly with our services. But still…we fell, not because we were not proving to provide the best solution, but because we literally could not pass red tape or bureaucratic hurdles based around, staff numbers, infrastructure and basically being bigger.
Knowing how bigger agencies work, and that they all say they can do everything under the sun, knowing fine well they will have to farm it out to someone else they know is cheaper, more agile and will sign an NDA to prevent them for ever taking credit for the work (Sorry guys — but you do). I realised, this is why so many mid — large sized agencies compromise on quality and professional pride when it comes to ‘the work’. The only solution here would seem to be to lower prices, take on as much work as possible and churn the same old sh*t out as quickly as possible. Allowing you to hire, hire, hire more churners, grow to a size that ‘shows your capable’ and then, then you can start doing the good work. Right?
What tends to happen from discussions with a few well respected industry honchos, is that this does not happen. Because now you’ve build a monster, and you need to feed that monster. So you try your best to pick the projects which you will allow real time to be spent on, but you need to keep the churn going, and coming, so that you can feed the beast.
This is not something I’m interested in.
I hate wingers, so we need to be doers.
What to do…
We need to shout more about how good we are. ‘We’ being a collective of smaller companies, who set up because they don’t want the churn, to work for big agencies who care more about bottom lines (because they have to) than the quality of their work. People who set up to be innovators, not followers. On our own, were a small voice, together, supporting each other, we can deliver a message that has much more reach and weight behind it.
Some of us may have a cross over, but we should be able to layout our core skills and not only work as a solo companies, but come together as a group when the opportunity arises to be something more, to collaborate, innovate and deliver integrated solutions that blow people’s socks off. We need to become…
AGENTS OF AGILE
The idea is simple, we create an umbrella brand, that exists only as a listing site / contact base to solicit work that requires specialist knowledge to deliver innovative solutions of a high standard at the forefront of what is possible (or at least some super f*cking awesome sh!t).
I’m looking for a list of companies, contractors, they don’t have to be in Campus North where we’re based, but it seems like a good place to start.
From there everyone commits some time to put into the project, aligning with your skill set. That way we all put it and grow the potential of the delivery.
The current idea needs only a short introduction from each company, 3 key phrases that are services you provide. We will also need design assets for each, but we can get round to that once things get going.
I’m no marketeer, but was thinking we kick it off with an Agents of Agile Thunderclap, where all participants and everyone we can get to join in, signs up to make some notice when this goes live… beyond that, I need your help.
Who’s in?
Campus residents, fill out this form:
If your reading this and your not from Campus — leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you.
