MOTIF®

MOTIF Update: How We've Grown Our Agency 234% YoY Since 2015

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Ash Ome

Founder, MOTIF®

$35K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

MOTIF®

wemotif.com

from Beverly Hills

started November 2015

$35,000

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Discover what tools recommends to grow your business!

Discover what books Ash recommends to grow your business!

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About M... Robert T. Kiyosaki

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuou... Eric Ries

Want more updates on MOTIF®? Check out these stories:

1. How I'm Planning To Redesign My Entire Branding Agency [Update] (2024) ➜

2. We Have Grown Our Agency [For Bootstrapped Ecommerce Brands] To $35K/Month In Revenue [Update] (2023) ➜

3. How I Started A $10K/Month Growth Digital Agency For Fashion, Luxury And Lifestyle Brands (2021) ➜

This is a follow up story for MOTIF®. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published almost 4 years ago, check it out here.

Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.

This is Ash founder of maybe the world's first Growth-Driven Creative and Marketing agency MOTIF®, I’m a unicorn but specialized in Brand Strategy to build and grow amazing DTC Fashion, Beauty, & Luxury Brands.

We grow DTC brands with our years of proven GrowthX strategy which included User experience design, brand strategy, marketing, and conversion optimization together. It has different phases and workflow to move the brand from nowhere to somewhere.

I started the agency back in 2014 unofficially but officially in 2015 and till now our year-over-year growth is 234%. Right now making over $35,000 per month on recurring and we take only 3 Goal-driven websites per month which starts at $45,000.

A very recent work of us, where we’ve done brand strategy, identity, user-driven website and grew them to 5K to 28K

Tell us about what you’ve been up to! Has the business been growing?

At the start of 2021 we’ve grown so fast and have done some amazing work, as a CEO I took some aggressive decisions; it was like “Go big or Go Home”.

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur you should focus on sales and marketing, no matter how good is your product or service if you can’t sell you can’t stay in the market. These two things are essential to learning.

Because of some wrong hire we destroyed our agency, revenue went almost to zero, pending salaries and bills, it was a total disaster. I had took some hard decisions to get it back. All it happened because of bad/wrong hiring and wrong client onboard.

Then we started doing consulting more than doing sales calls, and I was handling that mostly. So it was like hearing the problem and giving them the potentials solution. If it works I would take a stack from their share or gross revenue + base fee. If not we won’t charge a single dime. Risky but worth it.

The most interesting thing at MOTIF® is we always get back our old leads come back and forth like if they couldn’t afford us at that period now they have the assets they wanna work with us, it’s very common. Because we are partners rather than an agency.

As a Forbes Business Council Member and entrepreneur’s author my new channel for growth is thought Leadership, this year I’m planning to write a lot about all aspects of DTC which I know.

My vision is to make MOTIF® one of the biggest e-commerce DTC agencies for a particular segment within the next two years.

What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?

I made my biggest mistake in 2021 by being so aggressive to grow the business. I was like this time I would go big or go outta business. My first mistake was doubling down my creative and production team, while the cash flow was slow.

The second mistake was hiring salespersons instead of consultants, the behavior of my business doesn’t need salespeople while we needed consultants in that positions. I dragged it down to 9 months and destroyed my pipeline. Now the lessons are

Be aggressive but in the right way
Hire the right people
Double down the team when it requires

I’ve achieved a lot of career goals and I’m very glad that within that period of stressful time I could achieve them.

What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?

I aim to make MOTIF one of the best and biggest advertising and branding agencies for a particular segmented market within the next 2-to 3 years. And after 6 years when we are seeing big companies like magic spoons reaching out to us and giving us the pleasure. Team-wise we wanna be 2000 people remote agency, revenue-wise we want to achieve 400K per month by serving 100 clients only. That’s the plan. Short term goal is to acquire 2-3 clients per month and give them the best result. We are building a different kind of agency here. That’s what I can say.

Have you read any good books in the last year?

I’ve re-read Rich Dad Poor Dad, and I’m messing with my finance, so working on that from the book. That’s inspiring.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur you should focus on sales and marketing, no matter how good is your product or service if you can’t sell you can’t stay in the market. These two things are essential to learning.

New entrepreneurs often do the mistake with branding, they think while they will have money they will make a killer brand but that’s the first thing of a business. If you can’t afford it make a liter version of it.

I think our rebranded website and collateral will inspire you. We’ve done this after 3 years again to make it better.