"I MEAN, WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS ANYWAY?"

Words said to Richard and I soon after we resigned from our last jobs.

Interestingly the person who said them was someone who’d started their own, not unsuccessful business.

But he did have a point.

I mean, as jobs go, they didn’t come much better. 

We were earning a decent living. We’d had a great run at RKCR: Top of the new business league. Top awarded agency in the UK.

And it was also true that the economy was not in the best of health. 

So what the hell would induce us to want to jump out of a safe, secure, corporate job into that maelstrom of the unknown that is entrepreneurship.

Everyone has their own reasons, but in taking the above question seriously a few answers came to mind. Answers which still held true nine months later when we were finally contractually allowed to open our doors.

First, I felt ready.

Ready to put into practice what I’d learned over the last 26 years. I’ve worked for some amazing people in some amazing companies, and throughout that time I’ve attempted to assimilate the good bits whilst learning from the bad.

Sure, you don’t need 26 years experience to start your own business. But if I were a client I’d like to know that the people I’m working with are not just able to do funky, cool, creative things, but also understand the commercial imperatives, having come across, and solved, a load of business problems comparable to mine. And also that they’ve done enough good work and won enough awards to have got glory hunting out of their system, whilst still staying passionate about the value top quality creativity can add to their business.

Second, and probably most importantly, I’d found a kindred spirit.

In Mr Exon was a like-minded soul also chomping at the bit to do his own thing. And that, I can tell you, is a rare and beautiful thing to find.

Another thing I realised during my contemplation: everyone I truly respect has started their own business.

Dave Trott, Paul Arden, Maurice and Charles Saatchi, David Abbott, Frank Lowe, Robert Saville, Mark Roalfe. And those are only the people I’ve worked for. In the little old world of advertising. The list outside those small confines goes on and on.

There’s something brave and special about what these people did. They didn’t start up for the money. They did it because they felt they ‘just had to’. Most had become too big a character to live in captivity. Their vision and ambition outgrowing that of the organisations they were working for. Their personal happiness, not merely their wealth, depended on their starting their own business.

I know myself well enough to realise that if I didn’t at least give doing my own thing a go I’d end up respecting myself just a little bit less.

A few more reasons:

The world of communications is more exciting now than ever before. Technology has unleashed upon the world wave upon wave of inspiring startups in all manner of spheres.

Over the years I’ve become obsessed with tech and the increasing part it’s playing in everyone’s lives. For me the opportunity to meaningfully partner and collaborate with some of the most amazing experts in their field was becoming overpowering.

I began to feel the need to create something. Something special. Something I can look at in years to come and be proud that I helped create it. Something that doesn’t just have value, but that is valuable. 

Finally, someone once gave me some advice about starting your own business: if you don’t really, really want to do it, for God’s sake don’t. 

And I guess that was the clincher. I really, really do.

My biggest and most satisfying challenge at RKCR.

So, Friday was my last day at RKCR.

And when I reflect upon the four years I spent there, probably my biggest and most satisfying challenge during that time was not helping the agency win awards or new business.

It was something far more profound.

When I accepted the job I hadn’t set foot in the agency. I didn't feel I needed to. I’d met Richard Exon, the CEO, and liked him. We shared the same vision for the agency and agreed there was a huge amount of potential that needed to be tapped. That was all that really mattered.

When I turned up in January 2008 however one thing was blindingly obvious. Something needed to be done with the environment.

There were cubicles and corridors and offices and meeting rooms and little cut-off corner areas. On different floors.

And despite its bright primary colours and jaunty angled meeting room windows, it felt corporate and old fashioned.

Worse, the place encouraged segregation. Bigger offices for 'senior' staff making them appear more valued than others. Not good if you’re trying to build one big, powerful, conjoined team.

Also, rather tellingly, when I polled the staff, asking if the place inspired them and they felt proud to bring their mates or their mums into the office the answers weren't positive.

The first mountain to overcome was getting a budget.

The Finance Director went to work and after months of negotiating with head office managed to get a pot of money specifically for the refurb. It wasn’t enough, but it would have to do.

We invited three architects to compete, eventually choosing Spacelab.

They understood the way space could and should be used in an office such as ours, offering opportunities for random encounters as well as space for concentrated thinking.

They also shared my feeling that we should bring back some of the original integrity of the building. It used to be The Black Cat cigarette factory (hence the two big, Egyptian style statues out the front). It was also the first reinforced concrete building in the country of its size with massive beams and uprights.

At my previous agency I’d experienced the benefits of open plan working both culturally as well as operationally.

No walls means no politics - no corner offices for the management; it speeds everything up - if you need to speak to someone you don’t need to get your PA to call their PA and arrange a time, you just stand up and walk over to them; and most importantly, open plan encourages chance encounters, helping make new friends and with them the possibility of fresh cross fertilizing of ideas – you can’t simply walk, head down, from the lift to your office door without bumping into people in the morning.

But… open plan working spaces do have a few issues. And if we wanted to take advantage of its good bits we needed to overcome these.

Open plan working. And the world's largest welcome mat?

Planners and creative people think for a living. And most of them like a bit of peace and quiet to do that. That’s why, traditionally they like offices with nice doors you can close to ward off unwanted visitors.

The truth is, of course, they don’t really spend every second of their day sitting in zen like contemplation.

Much of their time is spent in briefings, client meetings, presentations, reviews, edits, on shoots, paying bills, buying stuff on Amazon and ASOS, buggering about on Facebook, surfing YouTube, up-loading shit to Pinterest and chatting.

There are basically three types of work that planners and creatives do. I ended up created a traffic light system to help define the spaces they needed:

Pootling about on the internet, researching, paying bills, writing emails. Low pressure stuff. This required 'green space'.

Thinking. Discussing ideas. Concentrating. Writing. Meetings. These needed 'amber space'.

Action stations. “You’ve got an hour to crack this!” Total immersion. Do not disturb! 'Red space'.

If we were going to take away people’s walls we needed to provide everyone alternative spaces for these three types of working.

Green was easy. A section of desk and a chair.

To avoid corporate drone syndrome we went for a variety of surfaces, sizes and shapes: wood, steel and laminate, rectangular, round, six seater, 12 seater, 36 seater.

Amber spaces was where things started getting interesting.

We created various areas that could be used for informal meetings as well as places to sit alone and work.

These were:

Areas of the main ‘factory floor’ sprinkled with sofas, arm chairs and coffee tables.

A high level ‘kitchen counter’ to encourage drop-in chats.

A circular booth, furnished in red buttoned leatherette. (This quickly became known as the 'Strip Booth'. Don't know why.).

The Pit, a sunken amphitheatre, with bean-bags, grass carpet, projector and write-on walls.

But my favourite amber space ended up being The Club. A dark, sexy and surprising, wood floored antidote to the stark white and steel of the ‘factory floor’.

For cost reasons I'd been asked to choose from a selection of furnishings from via the 'preferred corporate suppliers'. But these weren't particularly nice, or particularly cheap. For the main space I'd sourced all the old Danish furniture myself from eBay etc, but for the club we needed something a little special.

We called on interior design firm White Linen to help us out. They designed bespoke sofas and chairs covered with lush, dark velvets and found some amazing wallpaper and curtain fabrics which finished the area off nicely.

The Club

The quiet working space, the red space, was the final, and possibly most critical challenge.

We designed banks of smallish work-pods, which ended up being known as Panic Rooms, that were big enough for two. Useful for creative teams who want to shut themselves away and talk the nonsense creative people need to talk with impunity.

Panic Rooms

For the planners, many of whom wanted total silence to operate, we created The Library. A silent space in which to really get down to some top level, high level musing.

The Library

The main works only took six months, but the ‘finalising' took a lot longer.

Magnetic paint, write on walls. Projectors to show stuff we found inspiring. Rugs. Light bulbs (don't get me started on light bulbs...).

Galvanised conduit baby, yeah.

The re-furb was basically a second job for over a year.

But it was worth it.

The new environment made staff proud to work there and clients enjoy being there.

Did it help make the work better?

Who knows?

Yes, it's true that soon after the office was finished the agency won a couple of BAFTAs, its first D&AD pencils, became the most awarded agency in the country and reached the top of the new business league.

But hey, that was probably just a coincidence.