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Thomas: Hey there. Welcome back to another, episode of Greyd Conversations. Today’s guest is, you know, sponsor, CEO of JUNG&BANSE, an owner managed creative agency from Germany. Long time great customer. And a great example how a small design led team can deliver high value digital products without simply scaling throughout headcount. In this conversation, we’ll unpack what it really takes to scale an agency without hiring more people.How win larger projects, reduce delivery complexity, complexity, increase client value, and build an operating model that allows a small team to punch well above its weight. Linus, it’s great to have you here for people, who might not know you tell us a bit about yourself.
Linus: Yes, I am Linus Banse I’m the managing director of JUNG&BANSE. We are, an agency within a digital focus. And, yes, I started my career as a designer for more than ten years ago. And today I mainly work at the intersection of brand strategy and digital, WordPress projects. And, yeah, I think that’s mainly for all to know.
Thomas: By the way, to be really honest, Linus and I, we we know each other well.So finally, it’s it’s amazing to have you here on the episode. I mean, we recently, met on CloudFest, so. And, Yeah, you had to talk. CloudFest. And it was like a similar topic we’re discussing right now. And you as an agency owner, I mean, so the one question you might get already and with every customer, every new customer especially might be so how big is your agency actually? And I guess that’s a really annoying question, right?
Linus: Yeah it is. But of course I can give you an answer on that. So at the moment we are five people in our agency. So we have a small core team. Yeah. We have one person responsible for the back office. We have, two people that are able to design and implement. We have one person which is responsible for design only and more focus on brand design. And we have one person, that is responsible for online marketing stuff like ads.
Thomas: Yeah. Okay. So and when you hear this, this question all the time. So how big is your agency? And you tell them, okay. So yeah, we’re five people at the end of the day. And just an assumption. But I think a lot of customers first think okay, that’s a small team. Can they really deliver a project for our needs. And with that scale we have in mind, and maybe you can tell the audience a little bit about so what’s the problem you in this thing actually because as we know, because we know each other well the size of a team doesn’t matter. But what they’re missing specifically.
Linus: Yeah. The problem is they are not asking how many people we are. They are asking if the project is safe and our agency. Yeah, but the problem is headcount measures capacity, but not capability. So, it the question doesn’t reflect, structure or efficiency or clarity. And that’s the whole problem in this question. So the question ignores how work is actually executed in our agency.
Thomas: So if you, if you say, or if I understood it correctly. So headcount is not a signal. It’s like, it’s more how you like, empower your team to be as productive as possible and that every, every part of your company, whether it’s design, it’s development, it’s, the creative part versus, versus actual production part. So everything ties together. Yes. There was a yeah, well, well made product with a proper quality. And, I mean, I was an agency owner before as well. I know different, different kind of agencies, different sizes of agencies. Sometimes. And we will dive deeper into that, during our conversation, the more people you have, the more struggles you have, whether it’s from an agency owner perspective or even from a project perspective, because you have to align a lot of different ways of thinking, different hats. There is stuff happening at the end of the day which can lead to, less productive, workflows. So, it’s headcount for you and for me as well is not the signal. So what does enterprise delivery actually mean to you? And yeah, in general,
Linus: yeah, most of the people associate enterprise delivery it with things like budget size or complexity. But for me it means something much more fundamental. It means being able to deliver predictable outcomes even under complex conditions. So the problem often is not, how difficult the project is. The problem is often to manage multiple stakeholders with clarity. And for that you you need a clear structure for delivering projects. And of course you need to to combine speed with control.
Thomas: Okay. Can you give some example how for example a a big project. And exactly what you told us looks like in like in practice maybe you have some kind of example, you could work with or perhaps through,
Linus: you mean for, for the structure.
Thomas: Yeah. So how would a normal project in this range would look like when I, as a client, work with you guys?
Linus: Yeah. So we start with, structured kickoff workshop. In this workshop, we clarify everything you need to know. Or…, so we need to know. And, yeah, that’s, the starting point. Then we then we, go into the sitemap for the whole website. So we are creating the structure the project needs after that and after, we discussed it with the client, we go deeper into the first wireframes. So we yeah, make it a bit more clear. And after the wireframes, we dive into the design phase. So yeah, we clarify how it looks. We choose colors. We choose typography. We choose our, design system and we design everything in Figma after that that we present it to the client in a design presentation. And yeah, at the beginning we start with, like four pages, for example, of the website. And after, after the presentation, we get a lot of feedback from the client. So maybe he likes it, maybe he wants to change something and yeah, then we we implement the changes and after that we dive into the content phase. So we are doing it also with a weekly sprint rhythm. So we have weekly calls for the client and they get access to our Figma board. And that’s the point where we start to collect all the content and where we start to design every single page in Figma. And yeah, that’s that’s a really important step to not collect the content at the very end of the project, because now we are able to combine design and content. Yeah. And once the content is finished, we, we start with, technical implementation in WordPress. So we yeah, just implement it one by one. And then of course, it’s followed by some testings in every browser. And responsiveness. And after that, of course, we show or we teach the clients, how to work with a content management system. Yeah. And then we have to go live.
Thomas: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Just just circling back to to to the first part, because when I understand it correctly. So you try to onboard the client as, as soon as possible, especially when you’re in design phase. Definitely makes sense to, Yeah. Give a rough structure. So you get first feedback from the client. And so you can align the design system, because the most horrible thing you could do is you’ve fully fleshed out the design, making every page, every screen responsive and well, and then they come back, yeah, we need this. And we need the we need that. We want to change this and that. If it’s still on a component base, I mean, you can, you can like with due to changes will really quick because you change just one element instead of going through everything. But sometimes there are bigger changes. So definitely makes sense to, yeah. Get the client into into the design phase already when you just like giving them a rough structure to get, the, the design language and the design system. Right. So one question, just out of curiosity, when the client, the when the client is already in design phase, or it’s possible for him to see how the, the screen design looks like in Figma How do they deliver the content? Do you give them access directly to Figma file so they can type it in and somehow, some way or, does it like go the normal way with them delivering, Word files, Excels and stuff?
Linus: Yeah. But word files are horrible. So we give, we give direct access to Figma. Yeah. But for most of the clients, it’s easier to just comment inside Figma not to work inside Figma. So, for most of the projects. Yeah, they have, a view access, not an edit access. So they can just comment. They can also comment images. So it’s really, really easy for them. And after that we can implement the the changes or the final content. And then we directly see how long the text is. Or if we should if we still should change something or shorten it a little bit. And yes, that’s, that’s really cool. Yeah.
Thomas: I think yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s one of the things I love personally as well in, in design tool and modern design tools like Figma. And there were others as well. Now that you I can give like the direct access leads to you can …. or you can hold the client accountable because the client. Yeah. It’s okay I change that content law in five comments all of the time, again and again and again. And you have a version history of what the client has done, which actually shrinks down all of the, ongoing processes around the actual building.
Because and that’s, that’s one thing, people often forget, and that’s the thing which, often leads to, okay, we want to have a five person agency actually, to pull off our project because we’re constantly discussing content stuff. We’re constantly doing, like, project management the old way with doing meetings, sending out emails instead of giving them access to the actual design tool.
And they actually put in their content, they see what they what they put in like two days before. And you can directly communicate with them, with your bosses, with them can lead to, yeah, scaling down the, scaling down the team and this like, yeah, deletes a lot of layers in your process, in your account. Yeah.Makes that thing possible.
Linus: Yeah. We we really try to eliminate email conversations with our clients. So, the Figma set up is really transparent for our clients. So they are not asking them. Say them themselves. What is the status of the project? They can just go into the Figma board and see, yeah. What the status is. And as you said, it’s really transparent. So we have we have different boards, for the, for the status of every week. So you can also see the whole history of the project. And yeah, all of the comments from the past.
Thomas: Yeah. So I mean, as soon as you get the client in, into the project and you start working, with them, I think they they all give it everybody. Okay. That’s amazing. That’s that’s really fast paced. We have direct access. We can talk to you guys. You can implement feedback much faster, but, how do you actually build trust with a client who before, like, is more used to the, let’s call it old school way of, project management building all the project. Because these are normally the people who, initially equates the trust with team size. How, how how did you support them through that process?
Linus: Yeah. Of course, in the in this process it’s important to show trust with clients. We worked for. It’s it’s important to show the projects we already delivered. And of course it’s really important to show the whole structure how a project looks like. So, this is very transparent for the client.So he sees every step in the, in a project. And also a structured delivery is some kind of a proof for the client because, it shows that we are doing it day by day.
Thomas: Yeah. So we, both can agree that, scale or scaling projects, scaling the agency is not about adding more people. It’s it’s more about like narrowing down the process, making empower people, empower your, your, your client as well as your team to be as efficient as possible. So, actually, this could lead to something which is, instead of and that’s what a lot of, a lot of agencies, do as well. So they always think about, okay, we need more clients. We do this, we need to do that. So it’s, like, okay, we have one project. Okay. Boom. Next boom. Right. Which is very stressful for an agency as well, if they want to have constant growth and if they want to increase, value instead of getting more clients because you can get a lot of value from one client if you like, if you grow with the client as well, because you you empower the client to get more growth. The same way you can you can grow. So, talking about that mindset shift, so it’s it’s. Yeah. As, as well more of a business model. So how was that?
Linus: It it’s, for us, it was important to understand that growth is not only adding more people to our agency. So, last year, we we were at a point where we, where we understood, okay, we have a lot of work to do. We have, like, no time, to add more projects, and but we were not at our maximum profit. We could have an as an agency. And this was the point where we understood, okay, we it’s not about doing more and more projects. It’s about doing the right projects. So yeah, it’s not it’s not always the solution. Yeah. To to fill the pipeline with new projects and new clients. You can also shift to bigger projects, higher revenue. And yeah, that’s that was really important for us to understand.
Thomas: So yeah, I mean it’s it’s the old problem. We we might know. So so, getting new projects. So you start the cycle over and over again and then normally you start like and I always phrase it like this. Throwing people on to problems, people on projects, multiple people. And then. Yeah, with, with more and more headcount, there is more and more troubles come. So people, for example, are on maternity leave. People get sick, people want holiday. You have like constantly all of this, which is a huge overhead instead of just making and empower them and make them like, yeah. Like narrow down the process at the end of the day.
Linus: So and also let me, let me, let me add something because, in my opinion, there are often to two types of small agencies. There are agencies that are really, really focused on doing sales the whole day. And there are agencies that are that are really focused on doing a great job. And we are that kind of agency that is focused on doing a great job. And that’s why we are not able to push our sales so much. And that’s why it’s an important step to have longer client relationships and bigger projects.
Thomas: Yeah. So that’s actually, yeah, a shift, a mindset shift. And how do you how do you think about an ideal client? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So maybe you can share some insights on how did that new mindset or the shift in mindset, affect your your pricing, your scoping, or especially the sales conversations you have with these clients? So what was the shift there? How do you approach things different now?
Linus: It’s I think it’s an ongoing process. So we it feels like we are just at the beginning. But of course we need to, in our communication, we need to address a bigger type of clients and of course, we we thought about what is our starting price for delivering a project. And yeah, this is something we we are we we already clarified, but I think, we, we are shaping it all the time. So, this is something really important you need to think about. For which clients do I really want to work for?
Thomas: So if we would think about the ideal client for the process and for you, as, JUNG&BANSE.So how would this client actually look like?
Linus: So the ideal client is, of course, a mid-sized company. And for us, it’s important that the clients are not comparing five offers and choose the lowest price because this is not our way to work for for us, it’s important to to give a real structure and a real process, to the client and the whole process, and sometimes of course, it’s more expensive. It’s of course, more expensive, to have a real custom project. And this is something our client, our ideal client, needs to understand. And. Yeah, I think, that’s all. And, I think it’s also important that they have a marketing team or someone who is responsible for, for doing the communication with us because, when we are doing a call every week, it’s important that we have someone who has time and also time to work on the project. Yeah. The worst case is that it’s, a CEO of a company, that tells us every week, today, I don’t have time. So can we, find another, Another time? So that is not ideal because we we really need to move forward. And, this is how our process is built.
Thomas: Yeah, yeah, I, I completely understand you. I mean, you need, like, you need a proper project lead as well on the client side because, that’s something clients need to understand as well. It’s not like buying a desk because you. Yeah, just go to Ikea or wherever, and you buy a desk, and then you put it down and it’s done. I mean, building out a web project is a process. And often, as you mentioned as well, I mean, you have like maybe a, you have a price point where you agree on. But during the process of building out the website, maybe there is a new situation coming. You need to change something. Or what happens often is that at the start of the project, the client doesn’t even understand what he actually needs.And that’s that’s part of your process as an agency as well to consult them. So yeah, because not always is like the first idea of a solution, maybe the best ideas. So how do you approach this? Do you have a huge part of, consulting as well?
Linus: Of course. And so we are calculating our projects in an agile way.Way. So who knows where at the beginning which pages the client needs, or which elements the website needs. So recently I had a lead, who gave us a really structured briefing where, like, every element was predefined. So for example, we need a slideshow, we need a gallery, we need a testimonial slider. But who knows which elements we need to, to solve the problems of the client. And that is really important, to understand for our clients that we should just trust the process and maybe
Thomas: if I assume, a lot of the clients themselves, they don’t even understand about it. Now comes the marketing buzzword buyer persona. How a client might think, how they look like, what information they need. And that’s, that’s that’s the thing you you can run down during like the process of building, especially if you’re.Yeah. Onboard the client directly in for example, like the Figma file. So they actually see how the website would look like in a, like, from a, from a content perspective, they can understand, because I’m sure you had this before as well. So imagine doing it the old way. You get this, word file, we all laugh and you get, like, this chunk of content, and it’s just one. By the way, that’s the product page we’re talking about. And you think, okay, so that’s not gonna work because you need to, like, do a completely different structure. And I think, yeah, that, that that’s the things we need to consult and talk with our clients. So this client you mentioned, so they narrowed down everything. So what was that. So they had like ideas like galleries and stuff or what. Was it specific.
Linus: Yeah it was, it was a gallery. It was a slider. It was. Yeah. Some kind of specific elements. And it was really, really hilarious. Because I was thinking about maybe you don’t need a slideshow. Yeah. And, and, it also misses the consulting part of an agency because, the client needs, Or we need some space to consult the client. What the best solution For his problem is. Yeah. It’s so. Yeah, we we are thinking about user journeys. We we we are, thinking about, about search engine optimization and all that stuff. Yeah. And after we clarified everything, we can choose elements we need.
Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense. It’s more like, I mean, you studied design. I studied design, so, back then in university, we like, for that of my time, it was, there was like this new thing coming, which was an atomic design, idea. So you have, like, small components and you mix them together. And that’s basically the same thing where how you could structure a page. So, I mean, you look at the broad outcomes or what, what story you want to tell per site, and then you look at the tools you have available and then you structure it properly and think about, okay, so what is the information? What are the sections? What are people understanding. And therefore yeah that’s a huge thing. So yeah. To circle back to our initial conversation on, yeah. The size of a team doesn’t matter. It’s the process, that matters. And, yeah, we or you’ve we together, we argued that, Yeah. Small teams, don’t compete on size. They compete on structure. Let’s look deeper into the structure behind. Let’s unpack a little bit your operating model, if possible. So what does a small team truly made. High performance. How about ownership and all of that stuff.
Linus: So at the beginning I told you that bigger teams have something I call a layer delivery. And small teams have a direct delivery. So we have a clear ownership shape. We have minimal handovers, which reduces friction a lot.
We have direct communication and of course faster decisions. So we, we don’t have to ask, another team in our agency or other people who are, responsible for different things so we can, yeah, we can work much more efficient in general. So, yeah. So these are like the main three elements you describe. So ownership process, focus.Yeah. So. Which of those three was the hardest to get right in practice actually. What worked when you did transformation to how you actually work now.
Linus: Yeah. I think it is still the focus part because, so our heritage is so we started as a brand branding agency. So we were focusing on doing, corporate designs and so on.And at some point we, we, we started to focus on more and more web projects. And now we are still on our way to focus, on it more. So, but that’s also a point where we need to change the communication of our agency. We don’t want to do branding, communication campaigns, redesigns, websites and everything at once. So we need to sharpen our focus. And that’s a really important step. But it’s also hard because, yeah, sometimes you have a lead who wants a campaign or a redesign, and, it’s hard to say. I can do it, but I don’t want to, because I want to do more projects in a specific way. Yeah, but but it’s an important, step to build the structure.
Thomas: Okay, I think I understand what you’re trying to tell, and that’s a really paradox thing, because, you’re you’re describing and just an assumption. It’s like you need to learn how to say no to scale.
Linus: Yeah. And that is, that is actually the hardest part and the hardest shift.You need to go. Yeah.
Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Totally understand that. So but learning, saying no and focusing on specific, like what kind of projects you do, focusing on your process. Yeah. I mean, that that makes for more free time for other things. We talked about getting more value out of the client instead of stacking client on top of client on top of client. So, what does, like with this free time? I think the delivery process is one thing, but there is another thing which is long term support. How to like yeah, get more value. Our client, how to grow the client, give it more value so they know okay JUNG&BANSE focuses on us on our product. They understand us because after you did the first project, you know a lot more than before. And over time you do the next part of a project and the next and the next and all of the sudden you start being a team. Not like, okay, I’m service provider. This is my client. Yeah. we are a Team together and we try to get that brand, that product which the client sells out to the market. So yeah. How did you, like transform into that that you have this long term support that customers really see. Okay. JUNG&BANSE cares about us not as just a money machine. That’s. Yeah.
Linus: Yeah. So it’s it’s really important to make the client understand that we are not here for doing website after website. So we have a real commitment to the problems of the client. And of course we try to solve it. And often the solution is not just to to make a new website. And, then the client goes his way. Yeah. We can we can improve a lot in the long term support, for example, changing content, doing maintenance, adding new landing pages and so on. And, this is important for the client to understand because, this is, a point where we can, yeah, add a lot of where you, in a long term way…
Thomas: is just kind of customer care at the end of the day.
Linus: Yeah, yeah, it’s a lot. It’s it’s it’s care. It’s not just selling and Yeah, earning more money, but it’s adding value. And this is also something clients need to understand. We are not just here for, for selling projects. Yeah. You, you actually care about your clients.
Thomas: And actually, that’s, what I actually love about your story, how you did, the transformation from a full service agency doing everything, going more into focus on all, like, growing with the client, growing projects, consulting the clients. And that’s actually the part where we met a couple of years ago. And, we had, like, a lot of discussions first, because. Yeah, doing this, like you told us, before is it’s an ongoing process. And to to pull this off, I mean, you mentioned Figma to streamline the process in design phase on board the client as, as fast as possible.And, Figma is doing something really amazing, especially for the designing part is, like the entire, component workflow. Yeah. Yeah, that’s one thing. We, at Greyd or with our, WordPress extension, can pull over in WordPress as well to transform, like the way you think, the way you design and Figma, the way you onboard your client, you can now transfer this into WordPress as well. It’s not a disjointed, process. So we have process one, process two. It’s it’s it’s it’s like a joint venture. You do it together. It’s always perfectly together. So,
Linus: Yeah, this was a real advantage for us because when we started as a branding agency, we always had the problem that, the client is implementing his website, maybe with an with another agency or with us. But we always had the problem to transfer the, the brand design into a website that looks like how we wanted, but and we, as a design driven agency, we have high standards in implementing things. Yeah. And that was always the hard part. And, with Greyd, we were able to transfer it one by one into into a Greyd website. Yeah. Without without adding too much knowledge in our agency in this coding part. Yeah. You don’t have the well, you don’t have, development right away. Right?
Thomas: If I understood correctly or if. Yeah, I’m right in mind. So you basically had whether the client has a separate agency who does the development. So, I think you were the one in charge before talking to the developers.Have fun doing that from time to time as a designer, as I completely understand. And maybe, yeah, you have an external team of freelancers or an agency, a partner agency. You actually pull something off? Yeah. But yeah, this adds another layer of complexity at the end of the day. Yeah. Friction, as you mentioned. So, yeah. And that was, that was a part where we, started to talk a couple of years ago. Yeah. Since we went down similar road back in the agency days. Just wanted to streamline our process as well, to empower the designers and to give them the tools they need to do to. Yeah, actually fulfill their work instead of.Okay, that was Figma. Oh, no. Yeah. Do it all the way. So you are in control, and you can take the client with you all the way to the client understands which it again adds more value I guess. Yeah. So JUNG&BANSE was a design agency first. Earlier you did like, rent and then you relied on external development, a partner agency who pulled off, like, all of the development part. Or the client might already had some external, development agency, and you had to make sure that your design actually, is well implemented. And by the way, have fun doing this one time talking to an external web agency. They just develop and you want to make sure that your design is place. So what changed now that you can pull this off in your company directly?
Linus: Yeah. So as you said in the past, it was like we we did the whole branding concept and then we worked with external developers or external agencies and the problem often was that there was a lack of the concept we did. And the final result. Yeah, the final website. And that’s why. Yeah, it was it was different. It looked different. Yeah. The whole feeling was, was not as intended. And then we decided, to be also responsible for the web implementation. And yeah, that was the starting point for Greyd because it simplified a lot for us, and it enabled us, to deliver complex projects with a small team and also with a strong design focus. Yeah. And this in combination is really, really powerful for us.
Thomas: I think that takes down the average, the other project duration as well, because, yeah, you, you start a project, you have control over the process. You can onboard the client. So yeah, I think, yeah, it’s safe to say that it improved everything. So which adds, I guess, to a higher lifetime value, because before when you have this, this, this joint. And what’s this? The design you had, for example, poor implementation for the website and then the finger pointing starts with made. Yeah. Yeah. The mistake. Right. So and at the end of the day, you’re, you’re, you’re constantly defending your work. And now you make sure that everything is properly done, so, and the client is happy and you can yeah. You have more lifetime value because client will definitely come back and you can like, even reach out to the client and tell them, okay. So now we could improve this. Now we could. Yeah. This right.
Linus: Yeah. So this also of course increase our customer lifetime value. Yeah. Yeah. So.
Thomas: I mean there is there is a lot to learn in this process. So maybe you can share something maybe funny stories. So what actually did get wrong while building that process or while developing this process, this business model.
Linus: Yeah. It’s it’s it’s hard to, to just pick one specific mistake, but I, but I think it’s important, to understand that it’s not wrong to make mistakes. We are still doing mistakes every day, but, you need you need to have an internal process to improve your, your projects. You need to improve your pricing. You need to, check your, your time tracking. Yeah. And and these are the important components. And then you need to adjust your offer. Yeah. And that’s, that’s the way to get better. That’s a way to make more profit. And yeah that is an important thing. People are people are often missing. So you are adjusting all the time. Yeah I think yeah. That’s like okay so the process is never done because it’s a process. It’s constantly evolving. It’s constantly changing.
Thomas: Yeah. Actually that is what agile work means: constantly reinventing yourself refining stuff to to at the end of the day maybe master it. But then yeah, yeah, you never master it. You always can’t get better. And that’s something, someone needs to understand. So, in your, I think it was on CloudFest where it where you had that talk and, I think you, you narrowed down the process quite well and have some kind of playbooks. So what advice would you give to a five person, five plus like 5 to 10 person agency? When it comes down to, to serve bigger clients, what advice would you give them?
Linus: So the best advice is always focusing. So if I would, start an agency today, I would directly, choose a strong focus on a specific, yeah, kind of web project. And this is, this is one thing that is really important. But one advice I was, I was thinking about is, the problem often is that small agencies are, would be able to deliver complex and, and large projects, but they are not brave enough to do so. And my advice is, you don’t need to hide yourself. You can just go out and start selling complex projects and, yeah, fight against large agencies.
Thomas: Yeah. And I think what this means as well is, to be yourself, to be authentic instead of just copying blindly. What others. Yeah, might make no sense for your agency, for your specific part, because you need to to look into your employees as well. So what are strong skills here? Yeah, I guess so. Let’s let’s wrap this up and let’s, let’s think about let’s for the agency owner. So if there is one thing they should stop right now, what could that be?
Linus: Yeah. In my opinion, you should stop to reinvent the delivery with every project because things are repeating with every project, you’re always doing a workshop. You are always, setting up a design system, and you can define a lot of standards to make the work easier with every project. So trust the fucking process. But first you need to build your process. And this is something really important. And of course, improve your process all the time. Yeah. Trust the fucking process that I love. Definitely. Yeah. That this is, a bold sentence , which plays a huge role in our agency. So we also have posters and mouse pads, with the sentence. Yeah. To to push it in the heads of, of our employees.
Thomas: By the way, I need a new mousepad. Just say no. No. In a nutshell, I would say the the real key of scaling an agency is. Yeah, as you mentioned, the process and instead of throwing people on to problems. Yeah. Investigate these problems. Find a smarter way. Right? Yeah. Of course. Yeah. All right. So this was, Greyd Conversations. Linus, thank you so much for this conversation. Look forward to, yeah. Have our next meeting because we talk a lot, whether it’s for feature improvements, projects or different stuff. Looking forward to see you soon. And for everyone who was in the audience and, for everyone who watches the episode. Hope that was a good one. And we’ll see you soon. Thank you. Bye.
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Key Takeaways
Headcount measures capacity – not capability.
When clients ask how big your agency is, they’re really asking whether their project is safe. Those are two different questions. Team size says nothing about structure, efficiency, or delivery quality. A five-person agency with a clear process can outperform a twenty-person team running on chaos.Enterprise delivery isn’t about budget size – it’s about predictable outcomes.
The hardest part of complex projects is rarely the technical work. It’s managing multiple stakeholders with clarity. Agencies that can combine speed with control, and show clients exactly what happens at every stage, are the ones that win bigger projects – regardless of how many people they have.Transparency is the new trust.
Clients who are used to equating team size with reliability need to be shown something else instead. Giving clients direct access to the Figma board, making every project step visible in real time, and eliminating status-update emails builds more confidence than any headcount number ever could.More clients is not the same as more growth.
The real mindset shift is realising that chasing new projects creates a stressful, low-margin cycle. Growing existing client relationships generates more value with less overhead. Less volume, more depth.To scale, you have to learn to say no.
Focus is the hardest part of running a small agency. Saying yes to every project type feels safe, but it fragments your process, your positioning, and your team. Deliberately narrowing what you do – and turning down work that doesn’t fit – is what creates the conditions for consistent, high-quality delivery.Small teams don’t compete on size – they compete on structure.
Clear ownership, minimal handovers, direct communication, and faster decisions are structural advantages that larger agencies can’t easily replicate. A small team with direct delivery beats a big team with layered delivery almost every time – if the process is solid.Bringing design and implementation under one roof changes everything.
JUNG&BANSE used to hand off to external developers after the design phase – and the final result rarely matched the vision. By taking ownership of WordPress implementation directly, using Greyd.Suite, they eliminated the gap between what was designed and what got built. Less friction, more accountability, better outcomes for clients.Mistakes are part of the process – but only if you learn from them.
There’s no single moment where you figure it all out. Linus was clear: they’re still making mistakes every day. What matters is having an internal process to review, adjust pricing, track time honestly, and refine your offer continuously. The process is never done. That’s the point.Trust the process – but first, build one.
The biggest mistake agencies make is reinventing delivery from scratch with every project. Workshops, design systems, content phases, testing – these repeat. Standardising them doesn’t limit creativity; it creates the foundation that makes creativity possible. Stop improvising. Build the process once, then keep improving it.





