1. Growth Management
From being a one-man shop to starting your own company, there’s no one to blame. When you’re in a company, you can say well “that’s such-and-such’s fault,” “well, it’s that person’s fault,” or “that person didn’t stay late,” or “that person didn’t do that job.” When you’re the only person sitting around, there’s no one to blame but yourself. So, you really have to look in the mirror. You start at one person, you get to two, you get to three, you get to four, you get to five, you get to ten, you get to twelve, you get to thirteen, and all of a sudden, it’s a different animal. So growth management has certainly been one of the challenges.
2. Hiring
Secondly is finding great talent. There’s a lot of people out there just looking for a job. If you’re looking for a job, I can give you recommendations of a lot of other places to go, where you just kind of punch the clock from 9 to 5. If you want to be a part of an advertising agency, if you want to do great creative work, and be a part of a growing company, then this is the place for you. So finding the right mix of talent has been key.
3. Impacts on Economic and Financial Markets
When COVID hit a lot of companies didn’t survive. We had a lot of great clients that stayed with us, and we all pivoted and we moved and we shifted – that was the word, obviously, “pivoting.” But that hit, and a lot of companies did not survive that. We were able to survive, and that’s due to the hard work of our team jumping in and helping our clients navigate that timeframe.
Read the full interview with Andrew Smith, Founder and President of initiate-it.