5 things I wish I knew before becoming an agency founder
Today I’m celebrating HT Design’s 1 year anniversary, and a year of being a founder.
I always used to say that I wanted to work for a start-up in Amsterdam, and though it might have made more sense to learn from others and then become a founder but now I am 1 year into running my own start-up and I’ve got no regrets!
Starting a business from scratch is a huge learning curve. When I first started out I knew virtually nothing about the business world, so here are 5 things I wish I’d known before becoming a founder:
1. Write a business plan, it can be changed along the way
When I first heard about ‘Biz Dev’, Marketing Funnels and the need for a business plan, I felt like I’d just been thrown into the deep end of business school. They’re all crucial pieces to the business puzzle and the sooner you start the better. I started with a one page outline of my business (including mission and future goals) and then built it up from there.
2. Developing your personal brand makes a huge difference
Queue name drops: Steven Bartlett and Garry Vee. They’ve both been successful in the service industry for a reason: consistent personal branding. It’s much easier said than done, but I wish I’d started sooner!
I’ve struggled over what I want my personal brand to discuss: is it design, is it entrepreneurship or is it neurodiversity (which is getting lots of attention right now). Experiment with all your topic areas and see what feedback you get, as it’ll determine the direction you take your brand. Just a note though: if you’re going to put yourself out there you need to be honest and ready for push back, because your brand represents you and you’ve got to commit to it.
3. The growth mindset: reflect and ask for feedback, that’s the only way to improve
I now make feedback and reflection a regular part of the workflow, whether it’s weekly employee 1-2-1’s, project reviews or voice notes to myself (don’t judge!). Art school was all about brutal feedback, and as a designer I’ve built up a thick skin. But with business and people, I’ve found it very difficult to gauge the level of honesty required for constructive feedback. By incorporating regular feedback loops I hope to continue improving this.
4. You need a marketing funnel and company processes, otherwise it’ll flop as soon as you get busy
Prior to being a founder I spent 5 years freelancing, which meant that everything from my client likes and dislikes, random website hacks, and design processes was stored exclusively inside my head. It’s taken me months to build up a back-office system in Notion that allows my team to see what projects we’re working on, their daily tasks and a HT Design onboarding bible for new joiners. My aim is to spend the next 6 months making my company self-sustaining, so anyone would be able to jump in, read our handbook and then work on a project. Even though my company is called Helena Traill Design, the aim is to have the internal processes running smoothly enough that it’ll be able to run without me (I’m looking forward to the day I can go on a proper holiday).
5. A service based business is all about people, networking and relationships
People are everything in a service based business, from client relationships to employees and collaborators. I met a fellow founder yesterday who said that ‘everyone is important’, and I thought that was spot on. I’ve managed to build up a solid network by putting time into conversations, coffees and lunches. My mum calls it ‘skiving’ but I like taking the break from work, chatting with people and lots of the time I learn things too. I just have to be mindful of what my coffee outings look like to a hard working team in the office!
Bonus: Enjoy the process - remember you’re doing it because you want to
This one is easy to forget in the highs and lows of owning a company, so this is a note to self.
