Entrepreneurship is a Family Sport - Set Creative Studios

Company: Set Creative Studios

Owner(s): Emily Teater

Year Started: 2019

Employees: 1 – 10

What if running a business felt more like managing a family team?

In this episode, Emily Teater, Owner and Founder of Set Creative Studios in Boulder, Colorado, shares how entrepreneurship and parenting intersect in powerful ways.

From leading with intentionality to ensuring your business solves real problems, not just showcases a skill, Emily’s story reveals key lessons that every entrepreneur can apply.

Inside this episode:

• The surprising connection between parenting and leading a team
• Why your business should be a solution, not just a service
• The importance of teamwork at home when growing a business
• How intentionality shapes both your business and family life

Chapters

• 0:00 Entrepreneurship is a Family Sport - Set Creative Studios
• 0:41 Introduction
• 2:37 Favorite "child" - Pistachio Butter
• 4:09 Trading Chores for Food
• 7:25 The Business Side of Parenting
• 15:31 Finding Solutions for Problems
• 23:15 The Business Owner Island
• 26:06 An Intentional Future
• 33:46 A Kid's Day at the Office

Transcript

0:02

Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. From the excitement of starting up the first big sale, passion, doubt, fear, freedom, and the emotional rollercoaster of growth, hear it all on An Agency Story podcast. An Agency Story podcast is hosted by Russel Dubree, successful agency owner with an eight figure exit turned business coach. Enjoy the next agency story.

Russel: 0:41

What if running a business had more in common with parenting than we ever realized? If you've ever felt like juggling your business and family life is an impossible balancing act, this episode is for you. Welcome to An Agency Story podcast, I'm your host Russel. Today, I'm joined by Emily Teater, owner and founder of Set Creative Studios, who knows firsthand that entrepreneurship isn't just about the hustle. It's about solving real problems for real people. In our conversation, Emily and I discuss how the same principles that make for great parenting, guidance, patience, and intentionality are just as crucial in leading a team in a business. In telling her story, Emily breaks down the mindset shift from simply offering a service to becoming an indispensable part of your customer's success. And for those of you navigating entrepreneurship with a family, we explore the often overlooked role of teamwork at home, because let's be honest, no entrepreneur does it alone. So whether you're building a business, raising a family or doing both at the same time, you won't want to miss this episode. Enjoy the story. Welcome to the show today, everybody. I have Emily Teater with Set Creative Studios with us here today. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Emily.

Emily: 1:50

Thank you so much for having me.

Russel: 1:51

I'm excited for you to be here. To get us kicked off, I'd love to just hear what does Set Creative Studios do and who do you do it for?

Emily: 1:58

We are a content creation and social media marketing agency based here in Boulder. Our client base, we work primarily with, uh, brands in the CPG space, which, for those of you out there that are not familiar, that is consumer packaged goods. All those brands that you find on the shelves in your grocery stores or online shipped to your door. Within that sector, since it's such a wide industry, we focus primarily on the health and wellness brands. All the healthy food, all your Whole Foods brands, those are our clients.

Russel: 2:27

All right. I know like kids, in the agency space, we're not supposed to have a favorite child, but what would be one of your more favorite children if we think about a brand that you've worked with?

Emily: 2:37

Oh gosh. We are not supposed to have favorites, but I would say one of my current favorites is a up and coming brand called Pistakio. They are a pistachio butter, uh, founded by two young college students they're fresh out of college now. They started making it in their dorm room. They have a long way to go before you probably see them on your local shelves, but we found them recently through another brand and their product is just so unique, so creative. They have such a passion for what they're doing. It would be hard to say that they are not a favorite at this point in time.

Russel: 3:08

Alright, I mean I love anything pistachio. But I'm curious, what would one use pistachio butter for?

Emily: 3:14

That was something that I was curious of too. Personally, I eat it with a spoon. It's just delicious, but you can put it on your ice cream. You could put it in your latte. I love to put it on top of a granola parfait. They have tons of creative, inventive ways that they're showcasing on their social media platforms and on their website for recipes for inspiration. But essentially it's, like, any place that you would put peanut butter. You could use pistachio butter. It's a little bit more expensive than your peanut butter. So you probably don't want to be throwing huge amounts of it into your smoothies, um, but it's a great addition to any treat, really. It's delicious. You got to check them out.

Russel: 3:46

Oh man, I got to have Pistakio. I got to get me some of this. All right. Fascinating. I can see why that might be a favorite. Again, I have a little love affair with pistachio. But before we get into all more things agency, I still want to go back and hear a little bit more about young Emily's story. Who did she want to be when she grew up and what, and we'll get to that whole agency ownership thing down the road.

Emily: 4:09

It's funny because in, you know, in preparation for this conversation, I was kind of reflecting back on where, where did it all start? I think we get so caught up sometimes on, you know, where we're going and, you know, just the here and now that sometimes we forget our why and where it all started. I was reflecting on, like, what, first one, what, where did I first want to get into marketing? It all started when I was in middle school and I saw the movie What Women Want. I really wanted to be Darcy McGuire. I wanted to be Helen Hunt's character in the big ad agency in Chicago. I was just kind of, like, so inspired. I loved the idea of this kind of mix of, you know, creativity and psychology and, um, you know, that, that movie obviously has a different storyline, but that element of what they did in their jobs was something that really drew me in. I was kind of hooked on marketing from that point in time. Fast forward a little bit and I always loved food. Food has always been a huge love language of mine. In college I would trade house chores with roommates for cooked meals for things that they didn't, they didn't want to do for things that I didn't want to do. And I was always obsessed with photography and capturing moments. I always had a point and shoot camera with me when we were, you know, out and about. Then fast forward to today and all three of those have, have come together. But it all started with What Women Want, which is weird to trace it back to that, but that's where we're at.

Russel: 5:26

Ah, yes. This is actually not the first time, I feel like, this has been brought up on the podcast. I don't actually know if I've ever even seen the whole thing all the way through, but the universe is clearly telling me I've got to go check out this movie.

Emily: 5:38

Oh, you've got to watch it.

Russel: 5:39

I love this path that you've created. You traded house, house chores for food. That sounds like kind of something I would have done, but I don't think I was ever that smart.

Emily: 5:47

I think it just kind of evolved naturally. I had a roommate who was, loved doing laundry, and to this day, it's still not my favorite thing to do. Now I'm trading that with my husband. I'm making dinner, he's doing laundry. But yeah, it just kind of naturally evolved. That I was like, I'll make dinner if you want to do that, or I'll go grocery shopping while you clean the house. It worked really well.

Russel: 6:05

Hey, it's not weird if it works. That's awesome. What was the path before you started the agency?

Emily: 6:11

No, I have never worked a corporate job. I have only really ever had high school jobs. And then out of high school started, high school and college waiting tables in college was essentially my last quote unquote job before I ventured down the entrepreneurial path. I met my husband in college and he was kind of just always an entrepreneur and we moved out to California together. I had my daughters at a rather young age, while still trying to figure out what it is I wanted to do, who I wanted to be and, you know, just kind of that culmination of love of food and photography and marketing all kind of led me towards food photography for commercial brands. It's all kind of just kind of gone from there.

Russel: 6:55

Something I can identify there, I started a family very young and, and, and I don't know how you feel about this, but it, it, it kind of, I guess it made me see, like, just a job was never going to be enough. And just having to have a family at such a young age. I knew I always wanted to do something entrepreneurial, but it, I felt like it maybe pushed me there sooner than I would have ever naturally ended up, um, just to even really provide for my family in a meaningful way. I don't know if that was your case. Obviously you said your husband's an entrepreneur as well, but yeah. Is that something you thought you were going to do or, or did the life push you in that direction?

Emily: 7:25

No, it was definitely life pushed me in that direction. Naturally I always kind of knew that I didn't love having a boss or having to adhere to somebody else's schedule, probably inspired by the fact that I had young children and did not want to miss out on their lives, you know, while they were growing up and young. I read some wild statistic that you spend like 70 percent of your time with your kids between the ages of zero and 12. And then from there, they kind of start, like, living their own lives. I knew that I didn't want to have to give up that time working on somebody else's dream. This inspiration to just do my own thing, uh, that provided me the flexibility. Anybody that's an entrepreneur or listening to this knows that you don't really get a ton of time back. Being an entrepreneur more or less means you work more, but at least it's on something that's for you and it's on your own schedule. Life definitely pushed me in that direction and just was inspired by not wanting to miss out on their lives at all.

Russel: 8:16

That's such a good acknowledgement of it. Cause I think a lot of, a lot of folks do, you know, I'm doing this to get flexibility and, and some don't even find the flexibility of your part, but knowing that, that it's, it's more work perhaps, but you can do it when, sometimes at least, and you can do it when you want it and, and, and can still be there for the moments.

Emily: 8:34

Do you find that that was the case while you were, you know? Raising kids and finding your entrepreneurial side?

Russel: 8:39

I had a slightly different situation. My wife pretty much had always stayed at home when was doing the business and I was just so young and dumb, I just wanted to throw a lot of time at it. I actually think I did the opposite thing is, I think I was there less, but I know also sometimes that's more of a, could, can be a dad thing. I know the natural instincts from motherhood. I think it was later in life that I really found a lot of enjoyment or when they were probably a little older that I could be anywhere I wanted or needed to be when, when it came. Not on the front side but I, but I think I made up for it on the back side.

Emily: 9:09

That teamwork too, between you and your wife and the time that you spent there. I'm sure she appreciates that she had the time with the kids, but it didn't work out for you to have that extra time on the front end of their lives. It definitely takes teamwork between two people to do the careers, do the kids. It's definitely not an easy path to be an entrepreneur or be married to an entrepreneur. And while raising a family nonetheless.

Russel: 9:28

I should have her do a alternative podcast where she always interviews the, the other spouse of the of the person I'm interviewing. That would be an interesting take. But as you said, yeah, teamwork I think is, is gotta be the name of the game. You've got to communicate. Maybe even when I was young, that was, what I wasn't great is I just assumed that this was my focus. This is what I had to do and everything else was taking a backseat. I think that is a big thing I would go back and do is just communicate a little more and, and probably be a little more intentive. Boy, this is, this is like a therapeutic episode already. I'm really enjoying this.

Emily: 9:59

Lovely. It's all part of it, you know, like our, our work is so important and, you know, building the agencies that, which is, you know, the, the feature of what you're, what you're learning and what you're helping people with is so huge, but it's, it's so complex in, in life. Trying to be an entrepreneur, doing the agency thing, you know, having families, finding that balance. It's a journey that I think is a part of being an entrepreneur. You have to kind of pay attention to all the different pieces. Or you wake up one day and you're like whoa, whoa, whoa. What did I do here?

Russel: 10:28

I also want to know about, you know, what you shared is your, your husband was also an entrepreneur and, and that's a world I don't know very much of it just cause I don't think it's the same business or anything like that. Two separate businesses in the same household, what was that like?

Emily: 10:41

Oh man. It still is and always has been this very delicate balance of teamwork. The best word we really refer to our family unit as a team. My husband is big into sports, always has been. Grew up playing sports as well, but it's just the best descriptor of, you know, what it is to be a family. My daughters are now 11 and 12 and we are trying to raise them to be, you know, critical thinkers and responsible. We give them responsibilities and it's like, it takes a team to make a household run. It cannot just be on us as parents. With bringing them into the folds of that now that they're getting a little bit older, it makes it a little bit easier, a little bit more challenging. Preteen girls only want to be helpful to a certain extent. It's teamwork, it's great communication. It is empathy towards each other in our situation. It is 15 years of learning, um, and understanding. It's been really fun. We just have always really gotten along. We were friends first. Friends always and put each other first over everything else. It's a great partnership. Both in business, which we've worked together in businesses. We're not currently right now. He does help me with some of the more administrative stuff that I don't want to do, basically numbers and paperwork. It's teamwork. You have to find a great teammate in order to run an entrepreneurial household.

Russel: 11:57

I love that. And so true. I think that's another, probably, regret that I think I had is, I didn't bring my, probably my kids really into that journey. It was more of a thing that dad did, but I've heard some really great stories from other folks and, and kind of piggybacking off that teamwork concept of, you know, just, I wish I would have asked my kids like, hey, we've got this business problem. What do you think? We've got this person that's screwing around. Whatever that might be and just, you know, it's not that I necessarily needed their answer. I'm sure they might actually have come out with something really profound, but this idea that they would just kind of hear what's going on through, you know, some conversation and some critical thinking.

Emily: 12:33

It's a challenge. It doesn't always go the way that you want it to.

Russel: 12:36

I can see that too, especially preteens and teens.

Emily: 12:39

Oh, yeah. It's tough. But it's, it's fun, you know, working with people, hiring new employees. The two biggest pieces that we look for is problem solvers, problem solving, and critical thinking. If you can do those two things, you're going to be succeeding in life. Even just the smallest things, you know. Mom, where is this? I'm like, well, think about where you had it last. Don't just ask me to solve the problem. Solve the problem. Think about it. It doesn't always apply, like, in business, but just in raising the kids and just trying to put those pieces into their, you know, into their toolkit as they get a little bit older so that they are set up for success in the real world when they are on their own is a big priority for us. Maybe it stems from being an entrepreneur. I'm not entirely sure, but it's a, it's a big part of our parenting experience.

Russel: 13:23

I tend to be in the camp and in some speaking I've done, I even make this correlation of, I actually think parenting and managing is the exact same thing. You just don't tuck your team or your team members in at night, um, or kiss them on the forehead most likely, but that it is the same concepts we have to coach. We have to get them to think on their own, be autonomous. All the same things and, and love them. It's just in a different way, I think is a really important part of the process. It's those fundamental skills that are really going to make or break, not how good I am at Photoshop or something like that. That's always an important reminder on who we're looking to hire.

Emily: 13:59

Because if you can problem solve and you can think through issues, you can become really good at Photoshop because you know that you can Google things. You can find an online class or lesson for what it is that you're doing. If you know how to solve a problem, you can learn anything. When we're hiring, when we were looking at, you know, new team members, I'm not necessarily looking at the skills that are on their resume in terms of like, you know, it's nice if they have been updated on, on some of the softwares and whatnot, but really it's in the conversation and how they, you know, how they carry themselves, how they answer problem solving questions, because I know that if I can do that and I can throw new things at them as the world of social media is always changing, I know that I can put a good solid team member on within our organization that will always be able to figure it out as, as we go. Because it's, it's a big part of being in this world of social media and in an agency.

Russel: 14:49

In the world of Russel's crazy harebrained ideas now, I feel like just the new interview process is just set a Rubik's cube in front of a potential hire and then just walk out of the room and just film that process and see. Did they try to, try to just, you know? Do it all on their own without doing any research or tools? You can go to YouTube and figure these things out. I don't know. Someone out there, try that, uh, and report back onto the results and let Emily and myself know if that was a good idea or not.

Emily: 15:14

I would be so interested to hear how it goes.

Russel: 15:17

Yes. Somebody please do that. I'd love to hear just maybe more a little about the agency journey. We obviously understand how you got started, but, maybe just give us kind of a large swath on where you started from to where you're at today and, and we'll dig back into some of the highlights.

Emily: 15:31

To be honest, I had no intention of starting an agency when I started on this journey. We moved to Colorado about six years ago and I came with my commercial photography background, obviously love of food and three kids. I quickly learned how difficult it is to break into a new market as a commercial photographer when you don't have any connections, so I was referred to a food CPG networking group here in the Boulder area and immediately started to see this, this disconnect between these amazing brands and their online presence. I would meet these really enthusiastic, very passionate people with products that tasted and looked great. And just like any millennial or Gen Z, I'd immediately go home and start doing some research. I'd look at their website. I would look at their social media just to learn more about it and to remember them and would be really kind of shocked and surprised to see that the passion and the deliciousness and all of that did not convey on their social media platform. This was 2019 at the time. Before the pandemic pushed people into that e-commerce space. I think it was kind of being undervalued, but as somebody who always had a passion for the photography and the look and the, the, the visual story of a brand, I was like, there's gotta be a way to kind of merge these two things. It was like, if they weren't a huge, if they weren't a huge brand that had endless amounts of, you know, budget for photo shoots and for creatives, they weren't, they, they didn't have the ability to compete, uh, and, and invest in that. That's kind of where Set Creative was born, was out of the idea of how do I take the skillset that I have and the passion that I have and help them elevate and be able to compete with some of these larger brands and be able to represent themselves online in a way that makes people want to hit buy? That's where I started doing content creation on a monthly basis. Photography, stop motions, graphics, all that kind of stuff. I was kind of a one woman show writing recipes, photographing the recipes. From there I quickly realized within a, within a year or so that we could give them the assets, but just because they have them still didn't mean that they knew what to do with them. This is where social media marketing was added on to our list. Those are today, the, the two main things that we still focus on within our agency. We have other digital marketing offerings, but those are the two things that we would be known for at this point. Now I own an agency.

Russel: 17:43

Now you own an agency. And is it mostly up and coming brands kind of at the point of really relatively unknown, like, like our Pistakio friend?

Emily: 17:51

Yeah, I would say we really focus on emerging brands. I learned very quickly that they don't like being called small brands.

Russel: 17:57

Much more articulate term than I use. My apologies to those emerging brands out there.

Emily: 18:02

Oh, no, you're, you're, you're totally good. Just like in the theater, there are no small lines. There are no, no small parts. There are no small brands. We do focus on emerging brands. That is my passion. I love working with brands where we have a real impact and we are actually, you know, really just giving them something that they have felt is there all along and kind of bringing it to life. However, we do still need to work with companies that have budgets. Emerging is my favorite word to use because they've, most of the brands that we work with have gotten to a point where they understand a basic line of who they are, what they're doing, and we obviously help them elaborate on that. We can build their, build their brand voice. We can build their visual storytelling, you know, um, branding, but they have an idea and they're ready to start hiring so we have positioned ourselves in a way where we can bring an entire team of creatives and manage social media managers and all of that, uh, for the cost of typically about one in-house hire for these brands. Living in that emerging space is a great opportunity for us to still make an impact, uh, but they have budgets, which is always a plus.

Russel: 19:03

One of the things that I love, which is not always the case, yes, you took your core skill set, what you were best at, and you took what you're passionate about. I think those are always two key important things if we're going to go do something hard like this. But then you also have kind of thought about what do these folks that you focus on, what do they need and building your product, your service around their core needs. Not necessarily what, what I think sometimes agencies can go down the path of is, um, just what, what they can do and try to find people. I'm probably going to quote this on every episode I do, but good companies don't find customers for their products. They find products for their customers. That sounds like what you've really done here.

Emily: 19:41

A big piece of it goes back to early in the entrepreneurial stage, uh, Tim Ferriss's four hour work week, the idea behind it, I I'm, I'm almost positive this is, this is where it comes from. But I know I'm doubting myself, but I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure. But essentially what you do is you solve, you find a problem and you solve it. Then you sell that solution to people. That's essentially what we, what we've done here is. Finding a problem is, social media is a huge beast that a lot of emerging, growing brands cannot allocate the time and the funds for essentially. It's too much, especially these days with needing so many different pieces of content, needing to build communities, really needing to be present constantly, needing to make sure that your brand voice is consistent and that you have a great, um, you know, like you're doing outreach to other brands and just remaining active on all the different platforms. It's a beast for, for a lot of companies to take over. Solving that problem for them has given us a really unique placement in this market to be able to appeal to them. Like you said, using our core skillset and doing something that really we, we love, and that is probably, most likely not, not going anywhere anytime soon, but it is important to be able to provide a solution to the problem.

Russel: 20:47

It's funny. I feel like as a business from, from day one, it's constantly trying to complicate itself. It is constantly, you know, becoming more complicated. We have to work harder to simplify it, but that's one of those foundations of the way you put that I think is so critical. You said it far more eloquently than I'm going to remember, but what did you say again?

Emily: 21:06

Figure out what a problem is, find a solution, and then sell that to your consumer. Your customer, your client, whoever that is.

Russel: 21:12

That's it. And I think that's a underlying challenge for a lot of agencies is probably so many folks started because they just wanted income replacement. I have skills and I need to replace my, my pre or my corporate income or whatever that case is. It takes the eye off the ball off of that thing that you just said of, um, go, go find a problem and create a solution for it. I think the, the, the trouble, and I love that I can just see where this has been helpful for you is, then if you build your business for income replacement, well, then it's hard to undo income replacement to get more towards that. For some folks, and this goes down the line where they're doing more positioning and stuff like that, that, that they have a hard time, um, almost like running two separate businesses in some ways. But I'm glad that you have followed your passion and, um, and your skill and solved a problem. That is a great recipe.

Emily: 22:02

Thank you. It's not magic, you know, it still takes a ton of hard work. It still is constantly, you know, evaluating, uh, evolving, all of those fun E words. It's feels like we found something that works really well and it still takes a lot of hard work behind it but I do believe that if you have something that you're passionate about and that you can find a market for it, but just make sure that you're setting yourself up in that space. Where does your passion overlap with a problem and how can you help solve that for your, your ideal customer base or client base?

Russel: 22:33

If I could probably just end this episode and just put what you said there on repeat for, you know, next five minutes, I think that is so critical. It really goes down to, I think what we were saying before of, uh, you know, you gotta bring passion. This is too hard not to have some natural passion to go about it.

Emily: 22:49

We do. It's important because you're going to dedicate a lot of time to this, and so you better like what you're doing.

Russel: 22:54

That is so true. Entrepreneurship is getting kicked between the legs every day and then showing up again tomorrow. That's where passion just allows you to be more willing to get, take the kick between the legs cause it's coming and it might come six or seven times one day and it might not come the next, but you just never know.

Emily: 23:11

It is, and you probably agree with this. It's very similar to parenting.

Russel: 23:15

That is so true. You mentioned as well as this idea of the business owner island. Who do you talk to about all the things going through your head and, and the things that you probably can't often talk with team members about, you know, it sounds like you've experienced some of that yourself.

Emily: 23:31

A ton. Definitely, being a business owner, being an entrepreneur can be extremely isolating and it's been nice to be married to another entrepreneur, but even at that point in time, uh, you know, it's still my husband, still my partner. It's nice to have other sources. I honestly haven't been super great about building a group or a foundation of, of other entrepreneurs to speak with. That's a huge goal of mine this year is to just continue to build my network and find more people because the more I talk about it, the more I realize we all feel it to a certain extent. Anybody that's doing something on their own or, you know, going out on their own in terms of just not working for a large company, you know, so it can be, doesn't have to be an agency. But anybody that's following that entrepreneurial path can feel very lonely. Sometimes working on our computers we're working long hours, working late hours, we're turning down invitations. And then at the same time, sometimes we're raising young kids, which means we're isolated in a completely different way. It's been important for me to have at least close friends nearby, uh, that have some sort of overlap, whether they're mom friends or whatnot, but building a bigger network of entrepreneurs is a goal of mine this year, because it's, it's important to have people who understand the same struggles. You don't have to talk about business. It's just nice to talk with someone who is in the same boat, uh, even if you're just talking about life.

Russel: 24:45

Well, and understands. I feel like it's, it's maybe even somewhat, I, I, you know, the military experience and just, you know, people have perceptions of the military, but, but no one understands it other than, and right? There's even different levels of that. Those have been in combat and those that haven't. And you might, you know, I, I don't want to diminish by any means what someone that goes through the, you know, the, the effects of combat, but, you know, business ownership can be very stressful and, and someone that can understand that is, is really important. I love what, you know, what seems like how you're approaching that is very, very intentional about finding that and, and, you know, knowing that it might not come, you might not get off your island if you're not very intentional about finding that resources and support. It sounds like you've been able to do that for yourself.

Emily: 25:26

Definitely. And like I said, the more I talk about it, the more I realize I'm definitely not the only one. I'm sure you fully understand, um, after doing it yourself, that it's, it can be, it can be tough. It's a tough business. It's hard to be an entrepreneur. There's a lot of ups and downs. It's an absolute rollercoaster. Having people around that understand that is, is important.

Russel: 25:45

If there was a daily therapy group that met at 6 p.m. at night, every night, I think I might go to that. Nobody seems to have created that yet.

Emily: 25:51

The lonely entrepreneurs group.

Russel: 25:53

Yes. We'll have to make it more uplifting than that, but we'll, we can know that that's really, that's the core thing we're solving there. It sounds like you're on a really good track with the business. What does the future look like? What's your, as they like to say, what is your five year plan?

Emily: 26:06

Sometimes five years feels long, um, but I, I really love what we're doing. Like I said, we've been doing it for about probably five years now with the social media piece. I just want to continue to help and work with as many brands as, as we can. This year we're focusing on expanding. I have been the photographer for a long time now and I'm passing that baton so I can focus on working more on the business instead of in the business.

Russel: 26:32

Congratulations.

Emily: 26:33

Thank you. It's a tough one. It's a big, been a, you know, being a photographer has been a big identity piece for me as a, as a professional. It has been an interesting struggle to move away from that, but one that needed to happen for the business to grow. I cannot be working in it and the photo shoots while trying to expand at the same time. I kind of came to terms with that over the last year and started to put pieces into place to be able to move away from that. Just really working on building a bigger network, um, of other businesses that are doing what we are doing. Referral programs, things along that line so we can all help each other out. I'm a big fan of, you know, rising tide lifts all ships and so building more connections within other agencies within the space instead of just working on finding more brands is a big piece. What's next to come? Hopefully a larger studio space within the next couple of years as a requirement, um, as we outgrow our space and just being able to impact more, more brands. My focus is to be able to keep our services at a nice cost so that we can actually continue to work with these emerging brands. I think a lot of times companies start to get bigger and they start to feel like they have to raise their prices. Which is understandable. I think there's a certain price increase that happens based on, like, cost of living and whatnot, every year. That's understandable, that's something everybody has to adapt to, but I want to go about this really, really smart. Especially with like the use of AI being able to automate and streamline more of our practices so we don't have to expand our team massively in order to fit the amount of brands. Just being very strategic about the growth over the next handful of years. I, um, can tend to be a little bit risk averse myself naturally. Trying to be comfortable while also being confident and taking leaps. Next five years should be, should be interesting.

Russel: 28:11

That sounds like an amazing five year plan. I can't wait to see it play out. I just, again, love the intentionality and the, you know, focus on your core value and who you're doing that for and not, just not let the pains of growth, um, you know, not to say again, like you said earlier, it's always going to be challenging, but not letting, letting the pains of growth get in the way of that. Sounds like a wonderful, well thought out plan.

Emily: 28:32

Thank you. Do you have any advice for someone in my shoes for a five year plan? you've done it, right? You grew the business, you sold it, you're on to, you know, chasing things that you feel passionate about. When you're at this point as an agency is looking at growth, looking at expansion, do you have any advice?

Russel: 28:49

Oh my gosh.

Emily: 28:50

I know I put you on the spot. Sorry.

Russel: 28:53

No, you're more than welcome to put me on the spot, but, but a very loaded question for sure. I think going back to what I said a second ago, I, I, I think the foundation of the way you're looking at that, I think, is so important. Sometimes it's not always about advice you don't know, but confirming advice or a thought process that you already have. I think that's where sometimes folks can get awry, is it's about the growth or the money, or, and not to say the money is always for the money's sakes, that might sound greedy, the money still is for folks wanting to do freedom to hire more people, to do very genuine things, but I think if that is the focus, that can lead to some challenges. Really just getting back to the core fundamentals of who do we serve? How do we continue to do that better, provide better results? You talk about costs going up, I think if we're, if we are certain in that this kind of problem solution thing that we talked about we can find ways to not lose our value, but maybe keep costs same, similar, or go down over time, not indifferent than leveraging technology and things like that, to deliver that same value. Again, I'd say most of that is confirming kind of how you're thinking about this. Being just as good advice as, yeah, telling you something you hadn't heard of before.

Emily: 30:03

I appreciate that. It's nice to know we're on the right track. It's always affirming. Like we talked about, the um, the entrepreneur's island is lonely and sometimes you wonder if you're doing it right. Any sort of reassurance is helpful.

Russel: 30:14

Our islands bumped into each other today. Absolute wonderful conversation. The last thing I have to ask before we, before we wrap things up officially is are entrepreneurs born or are they made?

Emily: 30:24

I would have to say made. I do believe there is a part of my husband that was born an entrepreneur. However, that's more of a tenacious spirit, which I think a lot of people are born with. What you do with that can go one of two ways. In order to be an entrepreneur, you really have to focus and put intention into following what it is that you are passionate about or what it is that you believe in. In doing so, I believe that you are made. I did not set out to be an entrepreneur in my life. It's just happened by chance, by way of raising kids and wanting freedoms and taking chances that are scary as heck sometimes. I do believe that an entrepreneur, with the right pieces, is you're born with a little bit, but then the, the, the made is, is key.

Russel: 31:02

I love that. And I just realized this. I never even asked, what does your husband's business, what does he do?

Emily: 31:07

He is currently working and we've, we've done multiple businesses. We actually, along with my agency, we own a ninja gym, which is, uh, American Ninja Warrior. I don't know if you've ever seen the show. It's a sport that our kids got into and we met all of the coaches, and of course we had to go. One of the young coaches wanted to open his own gym. We said, we'll help you, we have business experience. Now we're co owners of a ninja gym here in Colorado, which is doing really well. He has been working as a consultant in helping businesses with their operations. He's currently working with our investor into that business to redefine his operations. Essentially taking all of his skills that he's gathered as being an entrepreneur and helping other businesses restructure and set themselves up for more growth and success in the future.

Russel: 31:52

Very cool. I used to watch that all the time. I don't know, it just never comes across my eyeballs anymore, but I used to really love that show. I'm going to have to go watch What Women Want, and I'm going to have to go rekindle my ninja warrior roots here.

Emily: 32:06

You won't be disappointed.

Russel: 32:08

I have no doubt. If people want to know more about Set Creative Studios, where can they go?

Emily: 32:12

We are across all social media platforms. Instagram, we are at Set Creative Studios. TikTok is the same thing. You can come chat with me on LinkedIn or follow us, it's there. Our website is also setcreativestudios.com. Basically if, if you're on a digital website or a social media website, you can find us.

Russel: 32:30

Wonderful. And if you're in Boulder, you can stop by your, your Ninja Ninja Warrior place. Burn out some entrepreneurial angst in there. Absolutely wonderful conversation today, Emily. When I just think about this idea of comes to integration and teamwork and how do we bring in these other facets of a life, that it's not just about business and introducing us to Pistakio, which I'm totally going to have to check out. Just really appreciate you taking the time to share that with us today.

Emily: 32:55

Am honored that you wanted to hear and share my story. I really appreciate you having me on and I hope the listeners can gather just a little nugget of hope or knowledge that will help them on their journey. Thank you for having me.

33:10

We hope you've enjoyed this episode of An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. Are you interested in being a guest on the show? Send an email to podcast@performancefaction.com. An Agency Story is brought to you by Performance Faction. Performance Faction offers services to help agency owners grow their business to 5 million dollars and more in revenue. To learn more, visit performancefaction.com.

Emily: 33:46

My daughters are always really excited when I come home from shoots because I'm typically bringing leftovers and we have an amazing, we have an amazing recipe stylist or recipe developer and food stylist who makes delicious food and we always have leftovers. They think that my job is always, it's, you know, nothing but kind of fun and games. They see pretty props on the shelves and they see all this delicious food. My oldest daughter just begged me and I was like, it's a lot of hard work. You don't understand what goes into these shoots. She begged me up one side and down the other during the summer to come with me to a shoot. I said, okay. Some people might think this is cruel, so just, but bear with me. If you don't have kids, you might not understand. I said, that's fine. You can come with me. She started essentially the first day on the job. She hasn't wanted to come back since, but she started with me the first day on the job as, uh, as essentially like the intern, she was cleaning off the set. She was taking out the trash. She was helping with the dishes. She was doing all of that hard work because I wanted her to truly understand that you don't just get to start, you know, at the top, you don't get to start doing all of the fun stuff. And even when you are doing all the fun stuff, when it's your business, You're still doing all the ugly stuff, like cleaning the toilets at your studio and, uh, cleaning out the trash can and all of those things. She had a long day of hard work. She did really truly enjoy herself. It was nice to have her on set. She did not complain one time, which I was very impressed with. But that, that is, that is how we are merging parenting and teaching our kids about entrepreneurial tasks.

Russel: 35:11

I love that lesson and I'm equally excited by this notion and want to receive the leftovers too from your photo shoots, but, um, I'll, I'll be just as enthralled by the lesson. That's wonderful.