The Lessons Behind Three Agency Exits, with Dominic Marchant
Welcome to Episode 173. This episode will be genuinely useful if you're an agency owner thinking about how you'll eventually sell your business, or wondering whether AI is actually giving your agency an edge or just helping you do things faster.
I'm chatting with Dominic (Dom) Marchant, Co-founder of Run Riot and Riot Studios - Running apparel x Hybrid intelligence agency. As a creative, Dom has sat on the jury of several of the world's biggest advertising/creative competitions (including Cannes Lions Health, Head Judge at PM Awards) and continues to be active in judging creative work. He's also won a few gongs in his time, including Cannes Lions, Creative Floor Awards, PM Awards, PMi Awards, and many others. He was Chair of the PM Society for three years and continues to run Creativity for Good. Currently, he is Creative Lead and founder of Riot Studios with his long-term business partner, Olly Childs. As an entrepreneur, he has built and sold three agencies including DJM, Plastic, and ARK. He continues to invest in companies where he has interest and passion and manages a portfolio of startups and more mature opportunities. As a runner, he co-founded Run Riot - a running apparel brand - and, in his own words, is a very average but passionate runner.
We cover:
what he's learned from building and selling three agencies
why differentiation matters how he shared the proceeds of one sale with employees
and why agencies should use AI to create better work, not just quicker work.
What really stood out to me during our chat was his point that if you're building your business purely to sell it, you've probably got it wrong.
Build the best business you can, and the rest follows.
You can connect with Dominic Marchant here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicmarchant/
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