The lessons I learnt while trying to set up my online digital agency

To be honest, I never thought of setting up any business venture on my own. I’ve seen quite a few bosses, and what I’ve observed was enough for me to believe that they never had much time for themselves or for their friends and family. This assumption made them look so miserable and grumpy to me. I see them as people who cannot take a day off to enjoy and celebrate normal things in life. That was not true, but I learnt that the hard way.

 

I was working as a marketing executive in an online digital agency and I was doing good. The life was going smoothly, I helped the digital branding agency to gain some excellent clients during that period and I knew it was all about delivering quality services as a creative digital agency. I loved the way I developed excellent business relationships with clients. Then, I realized I am really good at it and I should try a little more for my own good. This made me think why not launching an interactive digital agency. That’s when I started making preparations to launch my very own online digital agency.

 

After resigning from my employer digital media agency, I launched my company and started to contact a couple of clients for business. I secure a couple of brands and that went well. I initially helped them launching a couple of Facebook apps and web apps. It was a wonderful experience, but when I started to deal with traditional advertising mediums like Print, TV, Radio, and Billboards I startled a bit.

 

That was becoming a little bit too much for me as I was looking after the whole things with a couple of assistants. I had to meet new clients to secure new business all the while keeping an eye on app development projects along with my meetings with several advertising partners like Newspapers, billboard sign makers, 3d artists, and copywriter.

 

Many of you would be thinking, why I didn’t hire all these crafty people, rather than outsourcing. Well, I could not hire them on a full time basis, as my business was just starting up and I had to keep a healthy balance between payments and expenses.

 

It was so tiring but I was learning a lot of things which I never knew before. Then, I realized that why all my bosses looked occupied all the time because they want to stay in touch with everything happening around them. I realized that it was not business for them, it was their passion as it was becoming my passion. It is a great feeling when you successfully complete a project for your clients. It was tiring but it was wonderful.

 

My assistants were very professional and they helped me a lot, yet there were things which they could not do. So, I had to take things head-on, and it was tiring. I burned out within six months time and I hired a couple of more guys to help me out with the tasks.

 

Overall, it was a wonderful experience. I moved to another venture by selling my online digital agency with a huge digital branding agency. They were so impressed with  the performance that they kept it alive as an independent entity. That move was satisfying for me for two reasons. First, it gave me a lot of pleasure to realize that my online digital agency was doing such a great job in the market that a big interactive digital agency thought it as a potential competition and tried to buy it off. Second, I got a  chance to take a sigh of relief and maintain a healthy work-life balance. After the acquisition, I am working for that digital branding agency in the capacity of CEO of my recently acquired company.