“Not wasting their time, but if I had a great idea I’d be tapping into them and probably open up a couple of percent if they want a stake.”
“Not all agencies will do that, but some of the ones that want more interesting work will.”
So now he’s left New York and is preparing to start-up all over again, what was it like to leave behind the business he co-founded?
“It was quite emotional finally walking away,” he says.
“I think if you ask anyone about starting up, they’ll say the first couple of years are the best: you’re in it together, you’re getting going, starting your own shop, looking out for each other, and really enjoying it.”
And with plans for a new venture in front of him, what has Archibald learned about standing out from the pack?
After all, surely the last thing the world needs is yet another advertising agency?
“Ha! That’s an opening line of mine these days: ‘The last thing the world needs is another ad agency’.”
“To stand out you have to ask yourself the hard questions. You have to put yourself through the mill.”
“Go and talk to clients, I have constantly been talking to clients here; and I’ve always come back to Sydney every year, so I try to hit their perceptions head on.”
“I also listen to my friends in the industry who put my ideas through the wringer so that I can better answer the question ‘why you?’”
“I guess we’ll find out whether it’ll work over time.”
Archibald’s five start-up tips
1. Imagine the end
“It’s important. Especially for drawing up agreements on your partnership. From the day you start in a partnership you have to forecast the day you split.”
“Pretend you and your partners are falling out, how would it transpire? You have to be careful of that and you need a lawyer to look out for you.”
2. Trust your gut
“Gut instinct is the most underrated thing. After all, when you’re starting out that’s what you’re basing everything on.”
“That you’ve got the right idea and you believe in it.”
3. Get a financial director in early
“We’d have been better off if we’d got an FD in earlier.”
“We felt we could do it ourselves for a long time, but the agencies I most admire tend to have a great financial person at the heart.”
4. Hold on to naivety
“When I did my first start-up I was naïve, and naivety is a great thing. I never used to worry as much.”
“The younger you are, you think ‘so what’ when people tell you something might not be possible, simply because you believe it will happen. You have to have that belief.”
5. Be open with your partners
“We have a great relationship and are very fortunate that the three of us could always work it out over a couple of beers every time there was an issue.”
“That’s another key thing: you don’t have to be mates in business but you have to be able to be open with each other and talk stuff through with your partners.”
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
