David Wilson Shares His Business Journey: From Free Agent to Agency

If you are looking to start your own creative marketing agency, this is for you. We had the opportunity to speak with David Wilson, creative, storyteller, and founder of Third Concept Media about his decision to go into business for himself, and here is what he had to say. If there is one thing we love here at The Less Than 1% Club it is a success story, because our community deserves more of them.

We asked David "What made you decide to start an agency?"

I decided to start an agency because I wanted to discover a way to be in business for myself, and to help people within my community - BIPOC and LGBTQIA creative freelancers find work opportunities in the industry.

I hustled in the streets of New York for years as an unrepresented creative freelancer. At one point, I gave up and decided to try the “normal” office job career path in marketing/advertising. Even after I landed that office job, I noticed both the internal and client leadership teams were usually homogeneous. As a Black, Queer creative professional now working in a corporate environment, I had a new opportunity to reach customers across the globe through my work. However, the customer-facing initiatives I produced solely reflected their values, not the global community, and typically outside opinions like mine were hardly considered. To make timely and relevant content for everyone, I pitched ways to include the opinions and voices of diverse communities, but these attempts were often unsuccessful.

I felt that a homogeneous agency leadership team would not place me with equal value or such high regard as popular, white thought leaders, even though the work is often targeted towards the BIPOC communities I grew up with and am a part of. Statistically, I knew I would not receive equal pay in this environment and that I would be overlooked and scrutinized with more intensity than my white peers. So instead of trying to make it in an already-broken system, my solution was to create an agency of my own.

I wanted to create a business that allowed me the freedom to set my prices and state my worth, not have my worth determined for me by a person who doesn't see my full potential. I wanted to build a business that offers a safe and non-discriminatory work environment for QTPOC. An agency that values diversity and inclusion in marketing not to create gimmicky sales campaigns, but for the sake of promoting authenticity and helping people live healthy lives. A business that advocates for the freelancer, the vendors, and the customers, that helps to build community through education; not solely appeasing the shareholders.

"Alexa, play Freedom by Beyonce."

What are some challenges you faced early on when starting your own business?

One of the challenges I faced as a newly formed business was navigating trust. Navigating trust between creatives and partners when it comes to sharing what makes my business unique. Trusting that people truly believe in the mission, vision, and values of my business, and are not just here for money or access.

My journey is somewhat unique as I formed my LLC in the fall of 2019 right before the COVID-19 pandemic spread globally, causing a major plot twist. By the spring of 2020, it was common knowledge that mass layoffs were affecting marketing departments everywhere meaning our target customers were collectively becoming unemployed.

Social distancing mandates forced a halt in content creation.

Crews were physically not allowed to gather and film concepts.

Then, production studios began to go out of business.

It was a challenging period for everyone, brands began posting content filmed in peoples’ bedrooms. Most days, it felt as if the sky was falling, and there was no market for my new production company but I remained confident the industry would regroup and begin filming live-action concepts again.

Recognizing and owning my power as a leader was challenging early on. Above all, I aim to be seen as an entrepreneur, a status that was often overlooked when I started my business. I had to find a balance between being a creative and industry mentor, while also standing my ground with clients and partners as the owner of the agency.

If I were starting a business, I would be writing down and studying these four topics DEEPLY. (If not pandemic impact, the implications of changes within global health, economy, and social norms.)

How easy or challenging was it to leverage your career to start a business?

One of the key factors in winning a client booking is showcasing a winning portfolio of relevant projects. From 2018-2022 I was under strict non-compete and nondisclosure agreements, so legally, I could not approach the majority of client leads already in my network or share the bulk of my previous projects publically. This made the first year of lead generation very challenging, having to rely upon my freelance projects, testimonials, and spec work to move leads through the sales pipeline. In my opinion, withholding my “big agency” projects made my pitch feel incomplete. As a solution, I began to form new partnerships with my creatives and showcase the best of their work along with mine to win new business.

Not only did this solution prove successful, but we also began to collectively learn new business development skills with each opportunity. Fortunately today, these non-compete agreements are becoming illegal, and the industry is shifting in our favor allowing more freedom for creatives to expand and build their business.

If you are in a contract, it is time to review it, and if necessary to include legal review for what may or may not be legally binding, this is a starting block for your new business.

How are you determining success?

I look at success from different perspectives.

Financial success is determined in much the same manner as other independent creative agencies and production companies.

We weigh the cost of investing in software, equipment, and educational programming to build the business and upskill the creatives, against overall agency performance.

We look at the annual amount of sales achieved and profit earned from client engagements, and how it compares to historical performance, forecasts, and business goals.

We also track the growth of our clients from a high level to showcase the broader impact that our project may have on their business. For example, we track all of our clients' annual sales over time, employee count, and market penetration (like the total number of distributors).

Additionally, we track PR wins and fundraising close amounts when applicable.

This practice reminds us that our client’s success is our success, especially when working with small businesses.

Naturally, each project we produce has its success metrics that are unique and valuable to the client. Overall, for media projects and marketing campaigns, we compare the performance results of the campaign period against the original project objectives.

For the agency, we’ll track the performance of our published content over time, indefinitely.

This practice applies to both in-house content and client projects allowing us to have constantly updated metrics and fresh performance results for our case studies, so new leads are not informed of outdated results.

Workforce development and community engagement is another pillar of success at Third Concept Media.

We look at our membership growth of creatives and partners over time, and how many paid jobs we provided against how many persons we have officially signed.

We look at our rates for creative roles in comparison to industry averages and how we’re able to maintain through market fluctuations.

Many of our creatives including myself volunteer to support local nonprofit initiatives. Personally, I support LGBTQ+ small business development by volunteering with Heritage of Pride (NYC Pride) and StartOut. While not a success metric, we do track our legacy by the social causes we support as a collective, including charitable fundraising campaigns and impact results.

A business has many working pieces all moving at the same time, what is most important is to understand if all of these pieces are working toward the same end goal, and to set your KPIs way before you begin testing or executing, understand what you are measuring, why you are measuring it, and what you will do with the information when you have it.

If you could give yourself advice, just starting your career, what would you say?

Just starting my career… I was 15 years old! My first job role was as a Working Artist with Artists for Humanity, a nonprofit that helps inner-city teens launch a career in the arts. Despite being accepted into this program, I still faced doubts from my family who continued to tell me the arts is not a career choice. My only advice to my teenage self would be…

“Don’t pay them NO mind... keep building your masterpiece because one day they will stand upon it and be amazed.”

As a first-time entrepreneur, the advice I would offer myself would be:

“First carve your niche and then, sell your offer.”

Making time to adequately define my target market and customer base and how to confidently guide sales leads through a funnel would have been vital to improving my first 2 years in business. It was very easy for me to dive headfirst into building offers for clients, and discovering the many ways I can support clients through my expertise and my team. This was the programmatic workflow I was taught by colleagues but it was not sales. What I did not learn was how to effectively run and manage a business from the perspective of an owner, not an employee, and how to build a business by generating leads and nurturing sales.

This is where the lift comes in, we need to do research, network, and seek mentorship (especially from those who are licensed or certified to support operational stability.)

How much time and money did you need to invest in the early stages of your business?

When I decided to turn my weekend freelance projects into an LLC with a formal business offer, what I needed vs. what I had were completely different! I knew the costs of being a freelancer - I knew the cost to produce projects, hire people, and build a team. I knew the costs of expenses - software, equipment, and business operations and I knew how much money I wanted to earn.

In actuality, I did not know the real costs needed to get a business up and running. Over time, I learned much more such as the costs for small business registrations, certification, insurance, and maintenance fees needed to keep a business operational for the long term.

In the beginning, I devoted time to building the core of my business, developing a business plan, and the go-to-market strategy. However, some of this process was rushed due to the time. In the real world, there was a global pandemic causing chaos and uncertainty in the very industry I planned to enter so I had to stay agile and react to the shifting climate.

In hindsight (and without a global pandemic causing an industry shutdown), I would have chosen to enroll in a 6-month or year-long small business accelerator such as StartOut Growth Lab or Klout Academy instead of going down the self-starter route. Simply learning how to build a sustainable business model in a cohort-type setting would have helped me define my business goals and recognize my pivot much sooner. Accelerator programs offer immense business development knowledge, a life-long community of mentors, and the social proof needed to access private investor networks. The opportunity alone is usually worth the cost of admission.

It is too common within our communities that we do not have the funding necessary to see our business fly - especially within the first year, but we can look into all of our options to find the most suitable strategies. Venture funding, loans, grants, support from family and friends, or just down right bootstrapping may all be options that assist you in getting your business off ground level.

We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to discuss David's business with him, though it was an uphill battle he has been able to give vision to his growing team and evidence of what can be a successful business within our community. We here at <1% are rooting for David's success and for the success of others in our community who wish to start businesses of their own. We are stronger when we are connected and when we get to share stories such as these with each other.

Continue to be 1% greater every day!

-The <1% Club