The definitive, irrefutable, and totally honest answer to “how are you guys doing?”
(Or, our first year in 5 hypotheses.)
THEM: “So how are you guys doing anyway?”
ME: “We’re doing okay.”
I’ve spent a lot of time answering this particular question, in this particular way, in the past year.
It’s hands down the most common question I’ve been asked about Modern Craft. I get it from everyone I meet — friends, clients, ex-colleagues, cab drivers, prospects, freelancers, vendors, other agencies, wives and distant cousins.
If you’ve met me and have asked me this question, you’ll know that I always take this opportunity to ponder my response.
It’s not an easy one.
It’s far too easy to blurt out, “GREAT!” and throw a few exclamation marks on the end, hoping to move quickly onto the next topic.
Instead I tend to be a bit of a realist. I take the question seriously. I see it as a chance to try to see past the challenges of the moment (ahem, cashflow is a bitch, what’s up with that?) and reflect on everything we’ve overcome. Or everything we could do better tomorrow.
“Okay” is my way of saying that we’ve come a long way . . . yet we still have a long way to go.
(Plus, I also really hate vapid answers to this question. I cringe at the posturing I sometimes hear from other small business owners who are overly eager to tell me that everything is 100% rainbows and unicorns. Let’s be honest — that’s just bullshit. And, more to the point, it’s a waste of a good question.)
One year ago today
A year ago, April 22, 2014, was my first day on the job at Modern Craft. John Ounpuu and I had quit our jobs. We had convinced ourselves — like millions of other founders before us — that instead of finding the perfect job we could create it ourselves.
This idea gets a lot people in trouble. But we figured: what’s an adventure without a little danger?
When we started, we had an idea for a business model. It was based on our first-hand knowledge of the industry, what we had learned from working with many marketers and brands, our beliefs in a broken client-agency relationship and our own perspective on how we could create value given our unique set of skills.
We had a rough plan. But like every other company that’s started a business in an environment of chaos and uncertainty, we knew it was better to fail fast.
“We’ll know in 3 months”, we said.
Now that those 3 months have become 12, we’re able to look back with enough data to share what we’ve learned.
Our hypotheses
“Value is defined as providing benefit to the customer; anything else is waste.”
— Eric Ries, The Lean Startup
If you subscribe to the tenets of the Lean movement (as we do), you’ll know that the only way to understand whether the world truly wants what you are trying to create is to put it out there and test it through a series of measured hypotheses.
Test, learn, optimize, rinse and repeat.
Here are 5 things we tested in our first year, and what we learned looking back at the data:
Hypothesis #1: Marketing = digital. There is no need to separate these disciplines or categories anymore. And digital, in all its various forms and formats, is hard to do well. So marketers need help.
We’re in an interesting time in the evolution of digital marketing. At this point, most marketers have employed numerous digital tactics — campaigns, websites, social, paid media, search etc.
But talking to a lot of marketers, we also hear a lot about what’s not working — sites with no traffic, apps that get built but are expensive to maintain properly, social media channels with little engagement. All sorts of stuff that gets produced in silos, remains disconnected from the larger enterprise and doesn’t deliver any tangible value to the business. In other words, more contributions to the digital landfill.
In response to the shifting of dollars to digital, agencies, freelancers, technology vendors, consultants, self-proclaimed gurus and everyone who does anything remotely “digital” has jumped into the mix and begun competing for clients and budgets.
So today’s marketer has a harder job than ever managing it all, choosing the right partners and seeing the forest from the trees. As John said in my favourite Modern Craft Medium post, “as modern marketing grows more complex and specialized, it’s getting harder and harder to hold it all together.”
Our test: Build a business doing what we are passionate about. Start a new kind of agency that can help marketers up their game in digital . . . and get paid to do it.
Results: There has been no shortage of opportunity to help marketers, intrapreneurs, start-ups and other partners. Everyone we talked to has recognized how challenging it is to “do better digital”. And some are even willing to hire us for it!
The lights are still on. We’ve doubled our team size. Zero cheques bounced. CHECK!
Hypothesis #2: The AOR (agency of record) is dead.
In response to the demand for more digital, all agencies have added digital competencies. However, it is impossible to be good at everything. So the idea of going to a single agency that can do it all under one roof is no longer a tenable reality.
Our test: Instead of trying to be an execution agency with everyone under one roof, we will set the stage for great work from an agnostic POV and when it comes to execution we’ll bring in the best people/specialists for the job. A more-experienced, and hand-picked team will always do better work.
Results: MIXED.
We have employed this model for all of our work, and our work has been well-received (see #4 below). However, what we have found is that not all marketers, especially here in Vancouver, are ready for this approach.
We are seeing clear evidence of the need and demand for specialization in recent RFPs. But there are still many marketers out there who would prefer to just hire an ad agency to do it all. So the AOR is not truly dead . . . yet.
Hypothesis #3: In an ecosystem of specialists, teaming up with other specialist agencies will be mutually beneficial.
In the past year I have personally met with a ton of agencies. 64 to be exact. That’s more than one per week. I met them in order to explain our beliefs, our mission and to try and understand where they might fit in, should the right opportunity come up. And vice versa.
Since we’re specialized and very clear in our focus, it seemed that perhaps these potential partners would be comfortable tapping us for the right job without fear that we’re going to steal revenue.
Our test: Meet lots of specialists. Tell story. Shake hands. And promise to find a way to work together.
Results: MIXED.
I should start by saying out of those 64 meetings, we have uncovered a few great opportunities to collaborate.
However, most of the time it’s been a bit like the awkward high school dance with girls lined up on one side and boys on the other. Everyone waiting for someone to make the first move. And more often than not, that first move has been up to us.
Partnering with the right companies is important to us. So although the results have been limited, we continue to seek out partners. Recently, we have managed to find some very strong affiliate partners. We’re currently collaborating with With, a consultancy in Paris. We think of them as a brother (agency) from a different (French) mother.
Hypothesis #4: The value of an agency can be measured by more than just awards or a collection of trophy logos.
People pay us to help solve their business challenges. Most often, these challenges are related to digital marketing and the technology that enables it. We think about problems such as: digital strategy (or rather lack thereof), the pursuit of digital maturity in marketing and beyond, digital-fueled business transformation, sharpening of value-propositions, evolving marketing models, technology adoption, road-mapping, validated testing, and organizational adoption/set-up.
Our decks look great and our workshops are well received. But unfortunately we can’t enter them into the running for any glossy creative awards.
Our test: The work we are built to do means we can only take on a few clients. But our work promises to be deeper and more impactful. Will it hurt us if there isn’t a flashy case study at the end of the project?
Results: It hasn’t. CHECK! We are blessed in that most of our clients have come to us through referrals. And all of our references are strong.
If there is anything we can share, it’s public testimonials from the organizations we’ve worked with in our first year:
“The (strategy) presentation is awesome and your recommendations are thorough and right on. You could start a restaurant concept with this.”
— Charlie Kassaseya, Islands Restaurants, Marketing Manager
“We were really impressed with Modern Craft. Those guys brought a tremendous amount of digital expertise and a collaborative spirit that was important to helping us create a new and disruptive new brand in Airtel. We consider them a unique and valuable partner.”
— Matthew Cosar, Team Lead, Product Marketing, Glentel
“We were referred to Modern Craft and signed on soon after meeting with them. We’re glad we did. Modern Craft understood our business quickly and helped sharpen our digital vision, taking it to a new level.”
— Craig Roberts, Sr. Director, Strategy & Corporate Development, CMD Group
I have to say, we’re pretty proud of these simple statements. To us, they’re proof that we’re on the right track.
Hypothesis #5: We can create a home for a new specialist agency in Vancouver, of all places.
We live here in Vancouver. It’s a pretty awesome city. Our families and friends are here. Smart people live here and all sorts of talent has moved across the world to be surrounded by all of this.
However, due to the lack of big companies headquartered in Vancouver, the agency business can be challenging. When I talk to other local agency founders, most have a single piece of advice — you need to get out of Vancouver.
But that’s debatable. One of my favourite subject matter experts on the agency business is Tim Williams, from the Ignition Group.
Tim believes that “if you want your firm to be hired based on its own merits — not your ability to schmooze — you’ve got to be more than just a good regional agency. You’ve got to base your prospecting program on a clear positioning strategy, not proximity.”
Our test: As Wayne Gretzky would say, “go where the puck is going.” Specialization is key to getting noticed. We heard the warning but we went against the grain and started a specialist agency in Vancouver.
Results: TBD. Our clients have been equal parts regional and out of country, so we’re off to a good start. But if I am honest I have to stop short of a full-fledged check-mark.
In Summary
- Check
- Mixed
- Mixed
- Check
- TBD
So like I said, we’re doing ok.
But as I write this and I look around the room at the team, I see busy people. Happy faces. People laughing at bad jokes. Faces thinking hard about solving big problems and trying new things. No one watches the clock. Everyone cares.
Isn’t that all that matters?
