"It's a really fucking difficult business model that I personally just have no interest in getting back," he says. "You are entirely reliant on things that are entirely out of your control at any time, because you have to use this client facing service." He adds: "I'm obviously still deep in it, but we're not quite as beholden to the eccentricities of SEO contracts by themselves"
Today Josh speaks with Roy Steves about the chaotic life of the marketing and agency world.
Some of the topics we dive into are:
- The emotional rollercoaster of starting and maintaining a marketing agency.
- The issues of incentives, scope creep, and managing expectations with clients.
- Advice for young people getting into marketing and the agency world.
- What Roy and I would do differently if we had to start again.
- Escapism, imposter syndrome, and the trappings of success.
- Existential threats, and the importance of therapy for entrepreneurs.
- AI, machine learning, and the unexpected implications of complex systems.
- Crypto, Brave, and BAT.
- The future disruptions in digital marketing, social media, and the attention economy.
- And lots more.
Roy is an industry veteran, who over the last 20 years his career evolved from being a programmer to running several of his own businesses, being the VP of Digital Marketing and CMO of two prominent eCommerce brands, to ultimately co-founding StatBid in 2015.
StatBid is a boutique paid search and SEO agency, where Roy and his team work with direct-to-consumer eCommerce brands to optimize and scale their digital marketing.
Connect with Roy:
Music by Kirby Johnston – check out his band Aldaraia on Spotify