ABOUT MARKO PFANN
ADVICE FROM LIVED EXPERIENCE
I co-founded a seven-figure creative studio, grew it to thirty-five people and eventually exited. What came next was twelve years of helping creative founders grow their budgets without automatically growing their payroll.
OFFF Panel Host 2024
I know what it feels like to do great work and still build the wrong kind of business around it
Hi, I'm Marko Pfann
I spent a decade travelling the world as a freelance motion designer. Then, in 2012, I co-founded a broadcast design studio.
We branded more than sixty television channels, won over twenty international awards and grew to a team of thirty-five.
Eventually, I sold my shares and exited.
That experience changed how I think about growth. Bigger teams and bigger payrolls are not the only way to build a serious creative business.
Red Bull TV
I've done some cool stuff.
One of the defining moments came while I was advising a two-person studio and working alongside its founders as executive producer. We were pitching a five-figure project to a multi-billion-dollar company. I told the client we should lead the project instead of simply executing someone else’s decisions—and wrote to their second-in-command to explain why. We got the lead. That five-figure pitch became a seven-figure mandate to launch a first-of-its-kind television station globally. From a two-person studio.
Al Jazeera
One change. Everything flipped.
That experience showed me what happens when creatives stop presenting themselves as suppliers and start taking responsibility for the bigger problem.
Since then, I’ve coached more than 300 creative founders and advised over 100 studios, agencies and brands. Six grew from low six figures to more than a million. One reached eight figures. I do this work because brilliant creatives belong in the rooms where the important decisions—and the real budgets—are.
@_superroger_
Fun FACTS
I live in a small town in the German Alps with my wife and our two children. When I’m not travelling for work, I’m usually outside running around the lake or hiking up a mountain.
At twenty, I left home for Mexico without speaking a word of Spanish or English. This was before Facebook—when internet cafés were still a thing. It changed me, and I'm grateful it did.
Football is the family sport. My father made sure we took it seriously, and I had some success with it. Now I coach my son’s team—which is harder than any client work I’ve ever done.
Today I'm building Paradiso.
Paradiso is a non-profit for the creative industry, co-founded with Héctor Ayuso and Beatriz Martínez Pazos. It’s not an agency, a school or another networking conference. It’s a Spanish non-profit that supports our creative industry. A room—a place where the people shaping this industry can sit at the same table without a pitch attached. We run events and workshops across Europe, the US and South America. The industry has spent decades separating creatives. Paradiso is how we bring them back together.
Paradiso Institute >Paradiso Merida 2024
We gave Marko and the team very little by way of a brief, and even less by way of time to complete the job. The job was done, exceeding our expectations.
Cyba Audi صبا عودة
Business News Anchor
UAE
I met Marko at his previous company, which we had hired to do an overall brand review of our platform (and over 50 channels) in Malaysia. — My team and I were very impressed at how Marko seemed to get exactly what we were after right from the start.
Rob Middelton
Astro,
Malaysia
Markos attention to detail is only matched by his ability to get to the essence of ideas and organizing the work into a flawless delivery.
Samer Lahoud
Creative Director, TBWA
UAE