Starting with "what is an ad agency?": What I learned founding and running an agency in year one

In our first year, we handled 14 clients and averaged 90.000 TL in monthly revenue, but net profit wasn't even 10.000 TL. Most clients dumped work outside the original scope on us under the guise of "just squeezing it in real quick." In year two, we slashed our client count to 5 and set a minimum retainer of 35.000 TL; our revenue doubled while our hours got cut in half.

made the exact same mistake, said yes to everything and ended up chasing revisions on sunday nights. honestly we don't even send a proposal to clients who won't fill out a brief form anymore total peace of mind now tbh.

Follow these three steps to keep scope creep in check: 1) Pin down the client's marketing goals with a hard metric during the first call. 2) Set up a weekly approval cadence, and don't publish any creative that wasn't approved during that window. 3) Put a clause in the contract capping client meetings at two per month, with all other communication strictly over email except in true emergencies.

The full-service agency era is dead anyway. If a three-person team tries to juggle social media, search ads, websites, and video production all at once, clients won't take you seriously and will treat you like cheap commodity labor. I honestly don't see agencies surviving another year if they don't drill down deep into a single channel.

there are just two of us and we just started out so we're really struggling with putting contracts together.. and i mean how do clients react when you try to bill them for extra revisions and how did you get over the fear of losing clients?

Send all your clients a clear scope-of-work framework first thing tomorrow. Let them know that starting next month, any out-of-scope requests will require at least a three-business-day turnaround and will be billed at an additional hourly rate. If anyone objects and wants to leave, let them walk; trust me, you won't be losing anything.

Reading your post felt like looking at myself three years ago, I know that burnout all too well. The day you start seeing yourself as a consultant rather than just an advertiser everything changes. Don't let it get you down, just making it through the first year is a huge win.

It really all boils down to one thing: an ad agency isn't a cheap do-it-all subcontractor, it's a business partner with clear boundaries and expertise. Without strict contract discipline and vertical specialization, first-year exhaustion turns into second-year bankruptcy.

I'd appreciate it if you shared the outcome.

The opposite happened to me, that's why I'm writing. When you try to change everything at once, nothing settles.

Good luck with that.

This thread is archived.

there's a trap here, let me mention it.. then anywy the longer you delay cutting the team, the more people it affects.

looking profitable on paper but having no cash in the bank is very common but i mean if I were you I'd go this route.

You're right. When you try to change everything at once nothing settles.

If you post the result here, it will help others too.

good call starting this thread. looking profitable on paper but having no cash in the bank is very common.

Thanks for writing this, that's the right way. The moment you depend on a single client, you no longer set the price.

Extending terms makes customers happy but turns you into a financing institution. Proven by experience.

I didn't know that.

I went through the same thing two years ago. Cutting your own salary is a temporary tactic; if it lasts more than six months, something will break.

If you don't write this down from the start, it leads to arguments later. Hope this helps.

Thanks, this was very helpful. The moment you depend on a single client, you no longer set the price.

If I were you, I'd go this route.