A Boutique Advisory
Positioning creative firms profitable in competitive markets.
ABOUT
Can you feel that invisible budget seeling?
Go boutique, not bigger. Studios and agencies grow by adding people. Boutiques grow by raising budgets, to do their best work—without selling out.
Twenty minutes on the four floors and the ceilings that decide your budgets. Watch it before anything else on this page. If it doesn't describe you, nothing we offer will help you.
Proving your value on every pitch, for years, and you can't figure out what's blocking you? Creative firms rarely fail because the work isn't good enough. It nearly always is their market position.
You get stuck because of how you seen. Your portfolio proves you can execute. It says nothing about whether you can think and lead. So clients hire you as an executor. And executors are the last to call. They don't get the budgets. Guides do.
This isn't an accident. And it's not your fault.
We help creative firms (and pros) stop guessing and start breaking through to their next level. Accessing the budgets you need to create your best work. Without selling out.
Three things decide whether that happens:
First: How you're seen.
Second: How you see yourself.
Third: If you'll shift.
Merida
London
Mexico City
Does it feel like something needs to change?
Merida
Barcelona
Barcelona
New York
Milan
Barcelona
Merida
Merida
Merida
Munich
Barcelona
New York
New York
FIRST: HOW YOU'RE SEEN
FOUR FLOORS; FOUR Creative BUSINESS models
Each business model has its own ceiling.
THE ARTIST MODEL
You're the craftsman. You execute. You bill hours. You depend on your hands.
THE STUDIO (PRODUCTION HOUSE) MODEL
You're managing other artists. You've built a team, but you're still managing execution.
THE AGENCY MODEL
You gained expertise and know how to communitcate it. You're paid for what you think, not what you make.
THE BOUTIQUE MODEL
You lead the market with your perspective and your ideas. You're defining the category, and you talk about it publicly.
Budgets are set by the floor you opereate at, not by the quality of the work. It's why most firms are still stuck at the studio floor.
SECOND: HOW YOU SEE YOURSELF
FOUR IDENTITIES; FOUR MINDFUCKS
If it's that clear, why are you still on the same floor?
Businesses aren't stuck because they lack tactics. They are stuck because the founder had not yet become the person the next floor requires. Not more effort. Not more people. Founders stuck to their identity as creafts-people. I lived this while building my studio. After my exit I spent the next twelve years advising hundreds of creative founders around the world. Different companies. Different countries. Same mindfucks.
Because the ceiling is external. What holds you under it is internal. Four mindfucks keep creatives where they are.
COMPETITION
You measure yourself against everyone else's reel and price accordingly. You're competing with the wrong people.
IMPOSTER
You don't feel entitled to the strategic conversation, so you never start it. You never share your expertise.
OVERTHINKING
You've had the plan for a year. You're still refining it. Your new website, your positioning. You know what I'm talking about.
PROCRASTINATION
You'll start social media after this project. The same goes with sales. But there's always a project.
Everyone has one mindfuck running. Usually two. Once you shift you break the pattern.
