When Kevin Smith started Stap It he had no savings, but also didn't have much debt. His goal every day was to make that runway number go up. Eventually about 18 months in, the amount of income that he was pulling in was greater than his minimum burn rate. "Once you're up in the air, even if you're just barely airborne, it is so much different"
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