We've all had those moments at work -- let's call them "Johnny Paycheck moments" -- where we'd love to just take this job and shove it. Countless desk jockeys share the dream of packing up the knick knacks and coffee mugs, kissing the office goodbye, and starting a new venture that fulfills their creative goals and passions.
Believe it or not, some people actually follow through on this dream. They quit good-paying gigs at agencies and go out on their own. Some want a little more control over their work lives, some depart for creative differences, and still others do so out of necessity.
To find out exactly what goes into starting a digital agency, iMedia spoke with three agency founders who are in various stages of their careers. Tom Hespos, the president of Underscore Marketing, has watched his business grow steadily since starting it eight years ago. C.C. Chapman co-founded The Advanced Guard before selling to Campfire and is now a full-time freelancer. Meanwhile, Adam Broitman is a little more than a year removed from launching his agency, Circ.us, with partner John Swords.
The spark
There are countless reasons for going out on your own: creative differences with bosses, the desire to have more control over your work, and a fear of losing your job.
Chapman was a VP of new marketing at crayon, but he felt he approached business in a different way from his bosses. Chapman originally left to freelance and turned into something of an accidental entrepreneur when clients approached him and partner Steve Coulson for work. Three months after starting, the duo realized they made a profit.
In Hespos' case, he started his own venture out of necessity. He'd just been let go from an agency in 2002, and wanted to avoid that experience in the future. It was this desire that led him to found Underscore Marketing with four other partners.
"The real reason that you want to go out and do this is for yourself," Hespos says. "I wanted to be able to control my own destiny. If I screw something up, I can own up to it 100 percent."
Broitman, who also happened to be at crayon, simply wanted a little more control over the creative process and had been kicking the idea around for years.
"At crayon we were doing a lot of social media consulting, prior to that I was on the media side, and I wanted to do something where we could deliver a holistic experience: We'd say, 'Here's the idea, here's the idea fleshed out, here's the idea produced,'" he says. "I often think creativity goes wrong when everyone puts their stamp on it, and then an idea looks nothing like it did."
If you're going to up and quit, it helps to have a solid plan in place and a little nest egg saved up for living expenses. It's also best to give your current employer as much notice as possible, but be prepared for the worst.
"Sometimes in the agency world, you tell them that you're leaving and you're gone the next day, so be ready for that," Chapman says.
Ideally, it helps to formulate a plan in your free time. While some might be starting their own agencies out of necessity like Hespos, if you have a day job now, spend your nights planning what you want to do, and how you go about it.
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