The state of the advertising nation is as sad as it is alarming. A multi-billion-dollar market still running on a broken business model created in the 50’s. Lethargic, ego-driven, and political, clients marginalised, consumers ignored, and the focus on selling hours has made it slow, adding unnecessary layers to pack the margin.

The Liberty Guild set out to:

• Transform the industry, by breaking its obsession with size as well as shape.

• Create the future where our workplace is not ‘one front door’, or ‘horizontality’, or ‘global team whoever’.

• Embrace the pool of outstanding freelance talent around the world.

• Prove that the creative and strategic elite has the skillset, and the working practices clients and agencies need.

• Show the industry that high-performance teams have an optimal shape and size. And it’s small. Not big.

• Engineer that ‘optimal’ structure that can be replicated time and time again and therefore become eminently scalable.

Like with anything creative, the best way to start is with a blank sheet of paper. We had to ensure product market fit, before we developed the MVP, before we took it to investors.

Product market fit started with interviews with 600 marketeers, creatives, strategists and production businesses. We shared our business model and asked, ‘how could it be better?’ We concluded that it’s just not about the creativity anymore. The reason all of us got into the business. It’s about the money. The margin.

We spent a year talking to and understanding the hopes and fears of the nomadic

community of ‘A-list’ creative and strategic talent who have made the decision to leave

agency life. We listened to people of all ages, all genders, all over the world. And there was a desire for a viable alternative to working all hours God sends and having zero work/life balance. We could see the start of an exodus to a portfolio career. Some had private clients, some worked with agencies, some worked directly with brand and some have personal projects. And they were all flourishing.