Thinking of starting your own agency? Things I wish I’d known…

Ben Middleton is co-founder of London creative agency Creature. As part of our New Year, New You series, he shares 12 things he wishes he’d known before doing so

I’m going to sell less heroin. Develop an addiction to kale. Stretch out after runs and quit mining for nose gold. We all have our little ways of kicking off the new year on the right foot, in the pursuit of personal and spiritual betterment, but for some folk these small promises we make to ourselves are not enough. They’re looking for some serious stress, extra exhaustion, horrendous headaches and greater elation than ever before. They want this to be the year where they start an agency.

They’re already weighing up the pro’s and cons of their own ‘take’ on the creative company. they know what sets them apart from the competition, they know what clients they’re going to land and where they’re going to set up shop, and they have welly-fulls of self belief.

This is what they know.

They know fuck all.