The exciting times continue at Outlandish HQ. Over the past 12 months the company has doubled in size, shared its record profit between all its employees and announced plans to become fully employee owned. It’s on this note that I’m announcing my departure from the company which I cofounded almost four years ago.
Setting up a digital agency has been a bit of a roller coaster. Unlike product focused startups who enjoy countless meet ups, books, support groups and even films, agency startups like Outlandish are largely on their own. With each organisational challenge we have tackled has come the suspicion that such problems must already have been solved countless times by others before us. Open source software is hugely important to Outlandish and most other digital agencies. But where are the open source business models and management structures?
It’s with this in mind that I’m looking forward to working some short contracts at other agencies and learning how they run things.
I’m also looking forward to not being the expert. While I’ve enjoyed coaching more junior colleagues at Outlandish, it’s refreshing to be around people who are more experienced. On the flip side, my departure allows other Outlanders to step up and develop their skills further. We’ve built up some impressive talent and I’ve no doubt of their ability to continue delivering amazing work.
This is not goodbye forever and I hope to rejoin the team some day, if they’ll take me back.
Outlandish has been a great experience and I’ve learned a lot. For myself, I’m excited for the future and I’m eager to get started on it.
