The startup world moves fast, thinks different, and breaks things. But when it comes to creativity, the old agency playbook doesn't always apply, says our latest podcast guest Brian Wakabayashi, Head of Brand at WestCap’s internal creative studio COLAB.
Brian's taken an unconventional path into his role, starting as a receptionist pushing mail carts and ordering pens at a small California agency, before working his way up through some of the most respected names in advertising: FCB, TBWA, McCann and BBDO. Now at CōLab, he's part of something entirely different – a creative team that doesn't bill by the hour, can't compete for pitches, and has no incentive to oversell.
Instead, they're embedded into WestCap's investment strategy; their success is directly tied to the business growth of the startups they support. In our conversation, we discussed the art of coming at problems sideways, why startups need a particular kind of creative approach if they want to succeed, and why psychological safety is the secret ingredient to breakthrough work.
Soundbites (lightly edited) from the episode below. Listen to the whole thing on SPOTIFY, SOUNDCLOUD and APPLE PODCASTS.
CREATIVITY FOR STARTUPS
"The fundamental difference with CōLab and other agencies is that we are a creative studio reimagined for startups. We were born inside of a private equity firm. Our compensation is tied to their valuations. And what that really means is they grow, their company is worth more and ultimately WestCap benefits and CōLab benefits. So we don't necessarily want to do work just to do more work. We're trying to do work that makes a difference, that can actually drive sales, that actually drives long-term value."
“IT HAS TO BE NIMBLE”
"You really can't do too much strategy for a seed stage startup that is going to last very long because they have to be able to pivot. That happens all the time. I think strategy doesn't break at any level for startups. I think it has to be nimble and you have to be able to do it in different ways."
SELL IT TO THE CEOS, AND BEYOND
"Half of our job is to move towards solving the client's problems internally. Because startups at the growth stage have a board, they have investors, and these people will determine whether they’re funded next year or next quarter, or whenever the next raise is. If you can’t sell in the value of creativity at that level – so not even to the CEO but beyond – you’re essentially setting yourself up to fail.”
A BROADER MINDSET
"I always joke that when you work for startups, everyone gets flattened into marketers. I think in the world right now, in order to be viable moving forward, you can't have one product mindset. You really do have to figure out how to – at least at some level – broaden into everything."
COME AT IT SIDEWAYS
“We do all sorts of things to try to get at something without necessarily directly asking the question: hey, what do you think we should do? If you ask [brands] to role play as Nike or McDonald’s and solve the problem through another company lens, or write seven blocks of copy in different voices and interrogate those, or free associate images and metaphors, it tricks the brain into being honest. And if you get to that, you maybe get to something good.”
BE WRONG EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE
"The key to a client-agency relationship is to create a sense of partnership and psychological safety. To go: I want you to be wrong every once in a while. And to create that trust and transparency through honesty. What agencies have to also understand is we have to be more honest. Creativity is not a linear line to effectiveness or growth."
THE UNPREDICTABILITY OF SUCCESS
"You could invest in a great artist and have an album flop, or you can invest in something that shouldn't work and have it become the greatest hit of the summer. There is a certain amount of randomness, probability, just unpredictability about anything that relies on human beings to collectively make a decision."
EXCELLENCE WORKS OVER TIME
"If you think about any examples of great brands, there's been a lot of mistakes along the way. There are a lot of forgettable, forgotten campaigns from Apple, Nike, whoever you want to point to. But they never lost faith in the ability for creativity to move their business and that excellent work is going to bring excellent results over time. Excellence is gonna work over time."
