FP&A for small businesses
Welcome to Incubateme’s newsletter, curated by Alice Zhang.
Dear all,
Last week, we talked about how Amazon Prime came into play when analysts tried to knock out the shipping fee bottleneck that prevents more customers from adopting.
It turns out, for every product category, Amazon has a financial planning and analysis (FP&A) person that partners with the general manager to rigorously mine the data, constantly detect any potential growth bottleneck, and develop initiatives to bust it. “I could not imagine how effective my work would be without the FP&A partner,” one ex-Amazon line manager told me.
For independent brand builders who are constantly drowned by the myriad of data from multiple channels, can not afford a dedicated FP&A person, yet are forced to compete with the big guys, how can they build up the planning and analytical muscles?
Well, I am excited to share that a small team of us have been researching and doing experiments in this area for a while and have been working with a few technology partners to bring the vision of FP&A for small businesses to life.
I am calling on the independent brand builders to check out our FP&A FOR SMALL BUSINESSES PAGE HERE and SIGN UP FOR THE WAITLIST. Our goal is to continue to bring powerful tools to the hands of independent brand builders!
With the same token, I’d like to introduce you to this week’s featured business, Astronaut Monastery, a creative agency that has a list of big brands under its belt yet at the same time is flexible and eager to work with boutique brands and startups!
Our dream is to have an ecosystem for independent brand builders who serve each other. So please do not hesitate to reach out to us if you want to offer a service or ask for a service!
Featured business: Astronaut Monastery
Company URL: astronautmonastery.com
Location: New York City (and sometimes LA)
Founder(s): Cody Min
Founded year: 2017
🎨 Tell us about yourself, your company, and how you got started:
As many friends and peers were building companies, I saw a huge need to build a creative studio that actually understood how founders think and price more fairly than these massive, old school agencies (who were at the time and are continuing to, dying). My background in design and creative allowed me to actually understand how many people worked on a project -- charging $300k for a rebrand made no sense and wasn't feasible for a pre-seed founder.
🎨 How did you acquire your first batch of customers?
I spoke to as many people as possible. I knew the New York ecosystem well, but also knew that most clients came from serendipitous interactions (seriously, so many of our clients came from meeting someone who had a friend who needed a brand at that exact time. Right place, right time, and a lot of prayers :)
🎨 Did your business pivot in the pandemic?
We've grown significantly during COVID. Part of this has been many clients needing to pivot to digital solutions and/or seeing the value of creative and good creative when all you have are pixels to market. Many clients also either downsized their internal teams (creative is always the first to go) or grew as a result of COVID (many ad sales teams) and for both parties, creative production was a pressing need. We've stepped in for many clients as a long-term or temporary solution in-between hires to handle all creative (emails, web activations, even content production and social).
🎨 What is your plan for the future? What trends do you foresee for your industry?
The plan is to continue to grow the business and continue to grow our outsourced creative model. It's a great solution for many brands that don't want to hire a creative director (it probably costs you $150k+ annually for just that individual's salary). Much more efficient to have a creative studio that's super sharp, on retainer. You also get much better quality since it's impossible to get the best talent to work in-house.
🎨 Any other lessons/advice you’d like to share with other fellow micro-entrepreneurs?
Get outside of work. Work isn't everything. The times I've been the least happy throughout this grind have been the times I've allowed work to consume me. But, again, it isn't everything, and it will always be there. I definitely work really, really hard, but I also try to have a sabbath on the weekend.
🎨 Any requests/special offers for the community?
If you know anyone looking to build their creative team and is interested in exploring a more flexible and cost-effective solution, please don't hesitate to reach out at c@astronautmonastery.com.
You made it to the end!
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