There’s an activity that the Barrel partners have been doing for a while: reaching out to a couple of contacts per week. These have typically been former clients, industry acquaintances, other agency operators, investor types, old friends and classmates, etc. It’s been a practice we’ve kept up weekly since 2017. In recent months, we decided to up the number. We went from 2 to 4 for a few months, then from 4 to 6 for […]
I’m taking some family time this month as we welcomed our son Xander. As a result, I’ve not been as involved day-to-day although I’ve kept up with emails and checked in with my Barrel partners. There’s a lot of down time with a newborn, especially the late nights when I’m rocking the baby for a few hours giving Mel some time to sleep before the next feeding. These moments have been good for catching up […]
A couple of notes: The following tips apply mostly to fixed fee design or web/app development projects. However, aspects of these levers can apply to any kind of services business. Achieving profitability on your projects doesn’t necessarily mean your business will be profitable. Other factors like overall team utilization, sales & general admin expenses, and non-billable staff can determine whether or not your agency is profitable. Profitability on projects is a good measure for how […]
This past month has been about gearing up for some major personal changes in my life. After 16 years in Brooklyn, we’ve relocated to Hudson Valley as our family gets ready to welcome child #3. I’m excited about the move but will also miss various aspects of city living, being a quick e-bike ride from anywhere in Manhattan, and meeting up with people in-person on a near weekly basis. Just four years ago, we were […]
The Barrel leadership team has been working with a CEO/business coach this year. One of the most valuable takeaways from our sessions with him are the questions he asks about our business. It’s humbling how often we don’t have a clear answer, but with each session, we’ve been able to improve our knowledge of the business and install systems to better retrieve answers in the future. The following are 25 questions (not exhaustive by any […]
For our design agency Bolster, we’ve been looking to find our way around the agency version of a “cold start problem”. In tech, a cold start problem (as popularized by Andrew Chen’s book on the topic) is the conundrum that startups face when trying to achieve network effects with their product. For example, for Airbnb, their cold start problem was trying to get both enough host inventory and guest interest at the same time in order for each […]
I spent the last full week of July in Spain on a family vacation. We stayed an hour outside of Barcelona. I loved the view we had from the home we rented, a sweeping panorama of trees with the Mediterranean Sea off in the distance. I thought more than a few times what it would be like to live and work in Europe with primarily American co-workers and clients. Being 5-6 hours ahead means that […]
How much cash in the bank makes sense for an agency business? Some agency owners I’ve talked to say enough cash to cover at least 3 months’ of expenses. I’ve also talked to ones that have enough to cover a year’s worth of expenses. Some serious amounts. I like having cash in the bank. Especially in a higher interest rate environment, having cash is a good place to be and provides a sense of security. […]
At the start of the month, we briefly acknowledged Barrel’s 17th year of being in business. I posted something on LinkedIn and after work, poured myself a glass of white wine. On one hand, it’s just another day, month, and year in the business – I like to think that we keep our heads down and continue working hard. On the other hand, every additional day, month, and year is a blessing and a privilege […]
Complacency Has Its Roots in Success “Companies usually fail because of the incompetence and arrogance of a complacent management team, not because they struggled to predict the future.” (Scott Davis, Carter Copeland, and Rob Wertheimer, Lessons From the Titans) In Lessons From the Titans, a book about large industrial companies and their various ups and downs as businesses, the authors share a story about Boeing. The aerospace company, with great focus on driving efficiency, achieved financial […]
In 2010, we moved into a new office a few blocks away from the Flatiron District in Manhattan. Coming from a small, dark room at a co-working space, the new office felt like a dream come true. We had a conference room, a private office for me and my Barrel co-founder Sei-Wook to share, and an open area for about six employees. I distinctly remember talking to Sei-Wook after our move and saying, “This place […]
May was a hard month. Lots of travel, meetings, and moments, both business and personal, that tested my patience. Thankfully, I knew this was going to be the case going in, so I tried to be as mentally prepared as possible. The trick was to take things one day at a time, enjoying the occasional down moments as best I could and also celebrating even the smallest of wins. More travel, work, and personal obligations […]
Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles is a quick read (a little over 100 pages, can easily be finished in one sitting) told in a business parable style. A protagonist called Area Manager is guided by a fairy godmother-like character named Charlie and introduced to business owners practicing the Raving Fans framework, delivering exceptional customer experiences to their respective customers. Raving Fans Framework Overview The Raving Fans […]
A key to longevity in this business is to have a lot of friends who also run agency businesses. I’ve been lucky to meet and develop relationships with dozens of agency operators over the years. They’ve inspired me with their discipline, creative thinking, leadership, and ambitions. They’ve been great sources of comfort when things haven’t gone so well for me, sometimes lending a patient ear to hear out my challenges and at other times commiserating […]
I’ve written about the various aspects of running an agency business. Like any other topic, the deeper you get into it, the more nuances and complexities you encounter. However, it’s worth taking a step back every now and then to revisit some core ideas even if they may come off as oversimplifications. I present to you five agency business themes with some lessons: 1. Win New Business Winning new work from clients is what breathes […]
We concluded our trial of Roam, a virtual office collaboration tool that’s meant to evoke a sense of place online while encouraging more casual “drop-in” conversations among team members. The interface looked sleek and the value proposition was promising, so we went for a 30-day trial with our team. The 30 days came and went very quickly and we decided to send out a team survey to get a check on how people were feeling […]
I turned forty years old today. I spent time with my kids, shoveled our driveway (it snowed up in Rhinebeck), got in a workout, enjoyed dinner out with Melanie, had cake with the kids, and took a long walk alone outside. It was a quiet, normal, and beautiful day. My thirties flew by quickly. It feels like yesterday that I sat down and wrote about some things on my mind as I turned thirty. But […]
“What I am suggesting is that a dose of gratitude be injected into the process, because everything is not “bad.” We all have a long list of things to be grateful for. Never say, “It can’t get any worse,” because it can get a lot worse. I love H. Ross Perot’s definition of an entrepreneur: “Someone who is grateful for the progress that has been made and simultaneously dissatisfied with the rate they are making […]
Note: Right before heading to bed on a winter weekend night, I took a few minutes to remember what transpired that day. I wake up tired and groggy, but it’s 7:20 and I can hear my oldest son Grant playing with his trains right outside the bedroom. Mel goes upstairs to change our younger boy Teddy. I make a smoothie for the kids dumping bananas, spinach, blueberries, pineapple, mango, and strawberry chunks into a blender. […]
I’m feeling positive about how we’re starting the year. This isn’t because things are all rosy and looking up. In fact, as you’ll read in the next section, we’ve had some setbacks that’s required tough decisions in the first few weeks of 2023. But what feels different about this year is that we’re starting off with a lot more confidence in the systems and structures we have in place, the result of a year-long effort […]