Female Agency Founders Give Tips on Starting Your Own Shop

Simply put: There aren't many women-owned ad agencies in North America. According to the 4A's, there are 14,000 ad agencies across the continent. Less than 1% are owned by women. Those who do run their own shops want to change that, starting with Zambezi founder and CEO Jean Freeman and Cornett president and owner Christy Hiler, who today launched OWN IT, the first database of women-owned agencies. They've also created a podcast; the guests will be women and non-binary ad agency owners who tell their stories to help empower women to start their own shops. Women who own agencies spoke to Adweek about their experiences founding and running shops—and the obstacles they faced. They gave advice on how to get started, from thinking about funding to getting their shops off the ground. Most importantly, they stressed that women in advertising will have the back of any woman looking to start her own agency. "Please start an agency. I can't encourage women enough to go do it," said Lisa Clunie, co-founder of Joan Creative, a New York-based agency that employs more than 60 people and counts eBay, S&P Global and Sheetz as some of its biggest clients. "A support network will come for them." Bootstrapping to success I want to make sure that the women who read this article understand they shouldn't wait till they have every bit of knowledge. There's not a point where you go, 'Now I know.' You always are going to need to seek consults.Lisa Clunie, co-founder Joan Creative Several of the agency founders Adweek spoke to for this story said they didn't pursue funding because they didn't think they could find a backer who would be committed to their mission or they didn't want to answer to a holding company. In venture capital, funding is substantially one-sided. According to an Axios study, just 12% of decision makers at venture capital firms at women, and another study found female-founded companies received less than 3% of venture dollars in 2020. "With men holding those purse strings, so to speak, it's a harder match to find someone who would understand and support that vision," said Susan Lee Colby, co-founder of Grace Creative, a 10-person California-based agency that works for clients like P&G's SeeMe Beauty and Seabourn Cruse Line. Without funding, agency founders have to grow their businesses organically and make tough decisions about who to hire and when. "Just suck it up and pay for the stuff you don't know how to do," said Katie Keating, co-founder and co-CCO of Fancy. "Pay for someone else to do your QuickBooks and insurance forms. The time you'll spend Googling how to fill that shit out is time you could be spending doing something A) you actually like and B) are better at and will have more return for you." She and co-founder Erica Fite are creatives first and when they founded their agency, they didn't yet have an operations background. They hired Lindsey Seyman to take care of those things six years, and now Seyman is president of the agency. At Joan Creative, Clunie and her partner Jaime Robinson took on project work to fund some of the steps they took to start the business that they couldn't handle themselves. "With legal and accounting, those are the kinds of decisions that are more costly to forego them than it is to pay for them," said Robinson, co-founder and CCO, of Joan Creative. Agency founders made it clear that just because you may not know every answer is not a reason to hold off on pursuing your own agency. "You have to not be afraid of not knowing everything, because there were so many things that we didn't know," said Kathy Sjogren of Grace Creative. "You'll figure it out." Be willing to learn along the way Focus on the areas where there are true authentic opportunities and wins, but also believe that anyone can be turned around with passive pressure. Consistency really does wear away at injustice.Shante Bacon, founder of ONE/35 Agency, on when facing people who treat women unfairly. Before Fancy, Fite and Keating, as creatives, didn't get to look under the covers much at how an agency is run. "When you're a creative coming up in big agencies, nobody tells you anything about how the business of advertising works," Keating said. "You're just sort of handed your box of crayons and told to go over there and try not to hurt yourself." Fite added creatives usually only get to talk about money when they want to do something that costs too much. For anyone with the entrepreneurial spirit it's important to start asking questions and learning the business are you rise through the ranks. "Ask for projects, especially early on in your careers...try to work on as many projects as many clients that you possibly can," Josy Amann, co-founder of Media Matters Worldwide, which does work for Google, SAP and Sierra Nevada. "So that you can get the knowledge across different types of industries, projects and agencies. That's what it takes to start a company." And to keep growing your business, keep growing your knowledge. Shante Bacon has been in business for nearly two decades with her agency ONE/35 Agency, which works with Google, YouTube and Disney and has helped Nicki Minaj launch alcohol brand Myx Fusions Moscato. "The learning has never stopped. Not for one minute, it will still continue every single day that you have a business open," Bacon said. She dedicates the first 90 minutes of her day to reading about success stories, failures and analyzing pitch decks. How you know you've made itShante Bacon zeroed in on the IRS as the moment she realized her agency had staying power: "Probably one of the biggest things that I learned is that when you start to make real money, your worst nightmare is the IRS...And every time you're digging to the next level the IRS is digging further into your pockets and counting your money and tracking your every move. So just know that when they become your worst nightmare, you've made it. That's where you know you're making some money. Because when you're not making any money, you really don't hear from them." Don't be afraid to ask for guidance The agency founders interviewed for this story stressed there's a whole community of agency veterans who are willing to help anyone looking to start a shop. They just need to be vocal about their needs. Robinson said when they were starting Joan Creative, they told everybody about their plans and that led to connections to lawyers and accountants that helped get them off the ground. When looking for mentors, it's not just about finding one. It's about matching the right mentors to the current stage of your journey. "I'm a person who built my career just recruiting constantly—recruiting mentors to help me to the next phase and to the next phase and to the next phase," Bacon said. There's one kind of mentor Bacon didn't seek out in the beginning and regrets: Someone who could teach her how to secure big dollars. "If you want to build a big business, that is a skill not readily taught." From Bacon's experience, it's a skill that's 100% relationship based. "It's not about how smart and talented you are. It's learning to speak that language. I'm just now getting into that now. I'm obviously late to the table but you're never too late to learn a new language," Bacon said. Paving the Way for the Next Generation of Female Founders

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With Just 1% of Ad Agencies Owned by Women, Female Founders Give Tips on How to Start Your Own Shop

Don't be afraid of not knowing everything and don't hesitate to seek help

Jameson Fleming

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Jameson Fleming