How did you start your business?
Istanbul 2,000-year-old contradiction straddling the Bosporus. I lived there for a while. That was where The Liberty Guild was born. Sitting on the lower deck of the Galata Bridge, watching the balletic perpetual motion of the ferries in the harbor as they went about their daily business. “What comes next” just came. When nothing is familiar anymore, there is no convention to hold you back. That’s where a new form of ad agency started to take shape. Or should I say, the impetus to actually found the business, not just think about it. Entrepreneurship is about the ‘when’. About execution. Istanbul gave me the gift of urgency. Regret the things you’ve done. Not those you haven’t. Whatever plan you have, whatever notions. Do it. Today. Hate something, change something … in the words of Garrison Keillor.
How do you evaluate the past ups/downs of your business?
I think you can boil business down to Revenue & Reputation can’t you? Look after the people, the planet and the 
profit and you can’t go far wrong. We’re perhaps the only global ad agency with a BCorp Certification. That matters a lot to us. Our business was built on a platform of freedom. So making sure that our crew are well looked after and feel valued and supported is very important. It also guides us in our choice of clients. We’ve walked away from business from gambling and fossil fuel sectors to preserve our BCorp status. Principles mean nothing until they’ve cost you something. Follow the money for sure, but not at all costs.
What is a typical day like for you?
It’s cliché to say there isn’t one. But there isnt. I could be unsteadily landing in upstate Vermont in a four-seater crop sprayer, sailing the med in a cruise ship with a negroni in hand, filming with a million live bees, or workshopping butt plugs in New York. More usually however, we have developed a thing we call ‘the window’. While other remote workers have a sporadic stream of zoom meetings, for our core team, we have a window open all day. It’s not for presenteeism, it’s like a virtual noodle bar. We can all chat, chew the fat, ask questions, whatever. It keeps spirits high, energy up and information flowing. All crucial for a start-up. A fair few clients have adopted it… you should try.
How did you win over your first customers?
When we first started. Literally when had just registered the company. Little old me emailed the Chief Marketing Officer of the biggest advertiser in the world. Proper David and goliath moment. I’d read that he was looking for something that looked like our business model. And he was. Kudos to him as he mailed back with 24 hours. I remember I was walking round Westfield with my wife. I nearly dropped my shopping. “Darling look!!!!” He directed us to someone who could help reel us in, and we’re still on their roster today. Never be afraid to ask. First investors? That was a journey. I’d taken the ’pitch’ to maybe 30 VC’s. They all look for something similar but different to something they’ve got to 10x on before don’t they? Are you a marketplace? Not really. Are you a platform? Not really. Are you B2C? Kinda…. Problem is with all of them you have to try to explain advertising as business so that you can explain how we’re radically different and better. And that takes longer than their collective attention span. So I pivoted and found an UHNW serial entrepreneur who had already built and exited in our space. He understood our value. And has been a brilliant business partner throughout our growth. As with all things, you’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs.
Have you ever felt unsure of a decision you made?
What matters most is how you walk through the fire. I don’t think anyone is ever truly ‘sure’ in business, are they? Life is volatile. Personally, I use the 70% rule. And if I’m 70% sure I will go for it with unswerving conviction and absolute confidence. There are very few things that you can’t unfuck if it all goes pear shaped.
What are your daily habits for connecting with your team?
As I mentioned before we have a zoom window open during the working day so we are all accessible to each other. But we also meet IRL in Covent Garden once a week to keep the energy levels high. That’s where conversations that need a bit more face time happen over coffee or a drink. As well as the new business scrum. It’s a good balance we’ve found.
How do you plan on growing your business?
We’re in 37 countries currently. But by far the biggest market in terms of opportunity and revenue is the US. So that’s where a lot of the growth efforts are currently targeted. We use a mixture of automated email & LinkedIn coordinated outreach, our own growing CRM database and a number of other dark arts to fill the funnel. We’re also cooking something up with our own LLM, or should I say Specialised Language Model that will really shake things up. AI is a massive part of the future and ensuring the business wins there is crucial. But it’s just a bit too soon to talk about that here.