Launching a company for the long-term

Starting with a vision
Right away, I started with the idea of building a team which is why I started communicating under the name Adoraweb and not under my own name. But I don’t know everything… In the world of digital communication and digital marketing, it’s vital to have a variety of profiles. Today, in my team, I have people who know a lot more about social networks than me, people who know a lot more about design than me… even if that’s not hard. I have people who know a lot more about copy-writing than me, and that’s what allows me to really focus on what I do best: strategy, project coordination as a whole, and to have strong members in my team I can depend on. In addition… The second reason for starting an agency is the long-term vision, if someday I want to change angles, if I want to change professions and do something else with my life when I’m not enjoying it anymore… there’s still time, but when it does happen, having built an agency and a brand I can get out, and have a company that could be worth something.

Targeting big businesses
Agencies with staff here in Luxembourg, if we want to do serious projects that will really generate results for our clients, there are budget levels we need to attain. The drawback to that is that you need to find solid clients which also allows me to work on some more exciting projects like helping a startup or something… Of course, when you’re less profitable you have less long-term security but it’s a good compromise between the big guys and the little ones.

Managing threshold effects
It’s the eternal question of the chicken or the egg, and there’s no other solution for me but to… when you hit a threshold, you have to take the risk and go through. What really helped me through the step of hiring my first employee the fifth… was that I had built my commercial strategy on the basis of recurring revenues. Even if in the beginning a lot of doors closed in my face when I’d try to explain to customers that rather than making a website and working for them for 3 months, we were building strategies where I would ask them to sign on financially for 1 or 2 years… But the customers who understood that that was how we could do much better work, those were the first 4 or 5 recurring customers who really helped me past the first thresholds.

From freelance to employer
My role today is really to be team captain. I’m the interface between customer strategies and the various strategies and tactics we implement. And making sure work is flowing smoothly within the team.