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Ask HN: Starting an agency rather than a start-up

6 points by ziko ↗ HN
People name their company after an idea/product rather than start an agency and work on the primary product in as much capacity but leave an option to take some extra work that might come in handy, either as financial windfall or experience wise.

What are your thoughts on this?

4 comments

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michaelpinto
I've run my core business as an agency over the last few years and I have to say that it really gets in the way of trying to do your own products. The problem is that even the smallest client tends to require handholding, and the key to being a good agency is that it really is a service driven business — so it tends to be a real time sink.

Unless you have clients who don't care or don't need handholding (which is very rare) running an agency can eat up your life. The problem is that then when you do to do a product you're constantly in stop-and-restart mode.

You might want to think of having another option: Like working for a client project, banking as much money as you, and then live off of that while you do your product.

ziko
Thank you for your own story.

I have some ideas written down that could be executed simultaneously (with the right staff) so an agency type of business crossed my mind.

Especially one product is designed (sorry for being so vague) in a way that could attract a few companies to do a buy-out. How is it with that if a product was done by an agency rather than a startup (in traditional sense)?

michaelpinto
I see what you're saying: So it's that you want to hire an agency to build a product!

It would hard to have an agency build a product that you would flip like a real estate deal. The problem is that an investor isn't buying the product, they buying or investing in the team that made the product.

jamesjguthrie
This is what I do. I bootstrap my business through contract work while building my own products.

I agree with michaelpinto though, clients do sometimes really get in the way as there can be lots of meetings, phone calls, e-mails and Skype conversations before work even commences.