Issue.18 - 20.000 Impressions

and 94.583 words later...

Thiago Patriota

Aug 10, 2023

Introduction

Writing these milestone editions is perhaps one of the most rewarding things I could possibly do.

Many different metrics are evaluated today in the marketing industry in order to classify the success, growth or decay of a project.

Many different terms are used to represent different stages or goals of a project.

Agency was born sometime after I worked as a remote UX Designer in Silicon Valley, and I had to opportunity to not only learn but also see how startups and software are built and marketed in the technology industry nowadays.

Terms like “MVP - Minimum Viable Product” or “Product Market Fit” are very common in the innovation landscape until this day, even though they became popular around 2007 - 16 years ago.

These terms are part of a guidebook strategy in order to understand not only how to launch but also grow companies within the SaaS (Software as a Service) business model.

But I always had a hard time agreeing with what they represented.

Working in the cannabis industry for 5 years taught me many things about crafting new brands, products and companies.

Within emerging markets, where innovation challenges the status quo, and new challenges and competitors arise every day, the golden rule was always: “Done is better than perfect”

I struggled with the idea of doing quick logos, websites, packaging and launching them into the market without being the best iteration I could possibly convey.

It was a naive feeling of aiming for perfection even though the rhythm and pace of the market didn’t allow it.

Such feeling matured until I understood that there is no such thing as perfect when it comes to innovating.

Speed and quantity had to come first at the true cost of quality.

It was a necessary formula for markets in a liquid modernity context. I started recognizing it in many different spheres: Fast Food; Fast Fashion; Fast Learning; Fast Beauty; Fast Entertainment; Fast Marketing…

Until this framework reached what I personally deemed quite sacred: Design.

Fast design, as the industrialization of creativity, was something I couldn’t agree with for the simple fact that if products ought to be designed fast and without essence, it would be more practical to be done with AI technology rather than human effort.

And doing the work of a machine was never something I signed up for when I watched youtube tutorials of Photoshop many years ago.

Thus, I realized that if innovation was being done fast, doing things slowly was the perfect recipe for much more groundbreaking and lasting innovation.

But how could something that takes time to mature survive such an economy?

The answer to this question took me on a thought road to better understand the core of what entrepreneurship meant for me.

Because the answer is another question.

What makes a company fail?

Lack of investments and profit? Debts? Lack of product market fit? Bad products? Bad innovation? Bad founders? Bad ideas?

These are pretty much plausible motives as much as they are problems that can be solved through brainstorms.

Lack of purpose? Lack of vision? Lack of leadership? Lack of strategy? Lack of design? Lack of marketing?

These are even more plausible motives as much as they are problems that can be solved with meetings.

Because the true end of companies only happens when everyone gives up on it.

In the same way that companies only come to fruition when one or multiple founders believe in it.

This capacity of turning a vision of the future into something that exists in the present can only come from understanding the why it should be done, and not the what or how it is done.

The bigger the why, the more hectares of seeds you will need to plant.

The bigger the why, the more further into the future you will need to look.

The bigger the why, the harder it will be for you to give up on the idea.

But in the same way.

The bigger the why, the harder it will be to explain or pitch what it is.

The bigger the why, the harder it will be to understand what should be done or created.

The bigger the why, the deeper the founders have to dig in order to find the answers.

I remember that in one of the first meetings I had with

Amanda de Andrade

, she asked me what the goal (the why) behind Agency was, and I didn’t have a good enough answer.

But I knew what needed to be done.

Because engagement, subscribers, profit, viralization or mass adoption of our brand wasn’t the goal, they had to be the unexpected byproduct of our efforts.

And so I answered:

“I want to build a foundation of knowledge about marketing and design.”

A library of fresh and atemporal knowledge so massive that it would be impossible for people to deny its utility until they read something that we publish and be forever impacted by the Agency brand.

The problem was quite evident - libraries are composed of books which are composed of words and characters. But people don’t want to read nowadays, they need fast information that is easy to digest.

So a bet was made, and it is still running.

Because I believe to my core, that the professionals who put aside video courses and superficial content while rescuing the importance of in-depth reading and books are the professionals that will stand out like shining stars in a future economy where everything is made instantly by machines.

Fairly because such a future will come with many different problems, and although machines ought to solve some of them, there are some kinds of problems that can’t be solved with pure logic and programming.

For creativity can’t be replicated, but can be taught and nurtured.

Thus.

The why is somewhere between the previous paragraphs.

The what is perhaps a new term for the marketing dictionary: KaaS (Knowledge as a Service)

The how, then, can’t be something other than… writing.

For writing is creating.

And creating is the action of having Agency.

A product fit for a market?

I really like to say that between zero and one, there is an infinite amount of decimal numbers.

It took 5 months and almost 100k words for Agency to start generating revenue.

So a hundred thousand words multiplied by one hundred and fifty days can only mean one thing for our brand.

We are only getting started.

THANK YOU!

Nothing is ever achieved without the help and support of those who believe in our capacity and way of doing things.

So to wrap up this issue, I would like to freeze in time the warmest thank you to everyone who has supported the project so far, from the talented and visionary

Amanda de Andrade

who was the first reader (and now Co-Founder) to be truly touched by the content, and every other friend who joined the project in order to share their inspiring journey in the creative field:

, Suelen Viana,

, Keith Romanowski and

Lunna

We can’t wait to interview more creative minds!!