The Nathan Barry Show What 16 Years Running a Creative Business Really Teaches You | 098
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Oct 9, 2025 Frannie Pack, the founder of Ampersand Studios, shares insights from her 16+ years running a creative branding agency. She discusses the pivotal experience of buying out her partner and reinventing her business strategy. Frannie emphasizes the importance of delegating fulfillment to avoid burnout and highlights her methods for scaling through systems and subcontractors. She also shares her hiring strategies, including using assignment-based applications, to ensure a good fit and maintain a strong company culture.
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Make Values Operational
- Create internal-facing values and use them as a people scorecard to make evaluations objective.
- Run quarterly self-assessments and remove hires scoring poorly on core values.
Use Concrete, Story-Backed Values
- Define specific, memorable values (e.g., 'Full Hands In, Full Hands Out') with stories and examples.
- Use those values in onboarding and quarterly reviews to align behavior.
Avoid Building Roles Around People
- You can't build roles or products around individual people or customers without risking repeat fragility.
- Standardize roles and products so replacements and scaling are possible.
