Yung Studio: Year 3!

One of my favorite people who has helped grow and pivot many businesses in the Bay Area, said that the 2nd year of business is usually the hardest and the most important. The first successful year of business is always an illusion. Naturally, there are enough clients in the pipeline in the first year so you start your business. But the 2nd year is a test year. That’s the year you will need to find new clients and attract new prospects to sustain the business. Now Yung Studio is in year 3, officially. I still can’t believe we made it this far. We passed the test!

If you look at my resume on Linkedin, you will see I jumped around in different work settings and industries – from early-stage start-ups to growth-stage start-ups to small and large agencies, and even typical corporate work. Each career step was never linear. I am always curious, always wanting to get into the strategy, the creative, the mechanics, to be one of the many people who makes seemingly impossible things happen. I want that, on repeat, so here is Yung Studio, doing the seemingly impossible, alongside many first-time (and second- or third-time) founders and entrepreneurs.

Here are a few things I learned for the first 3 years:

Work is all about relationships. And relationships are hard work.

The work is brand-building or design or whatever we promise we will deliver, but the real work is being resilient, mentally and physically, with the client and team together, until the end. It’s the non-billable hours!

No shit. It’s always about who you know in the scenes, who you can trust, finding the right personalities, learning from the ones who have been there, and getting mentioned and referred to by the people who champion your work. Those relationships matter and definitely help grow your business. I am not good at building relationships because I suck at catching up.

Interestingly, we heard:

• “You always deliver.”
• “Thank you for owning the brand as if it was your own.”
• “I will try to be a good client” (Because it’s both ways!)

Guess what, relationship building is also about showing up, every time. It’s the trust, over time. Not only the clients we show up for, or the clients that respect us, but also having each other’s back among the creatives at Yung Studio. The rallies are as important as the creative work itself.

The only way to find your ICP is to be yourself.

We finally started to think about what kind of clients choose us over thousands of independent brand studios.

In the beginning of our business, we would jump on any opportunity. We didn’t know who our ICP (ideal customer profile) was. Candidly, we didn’t know our own brand, as we were just heads-down trying to build other people’s brands. After many intro calls I have done since then, let’s call this research, it is obvious that we are not for everyone.

But then, I would receive these in my inbox:

• “Your curiosity and question answering were strong. We felt like we had a natural rapport.”
• “We do a webinar series where we bring experts on various topics throughout the year. I can't think of a better person than you to talk about Brand.”
• “You have people to do XYZ, right?”
• “I've continued to follow your work online and have been continually impressed by the brands your studio has created. We would love to reconnect.” (After we have turned down the project 2 years ago when their product was still in R&D)

It's our honest and straightforward conversations. It’s the constant knowledge sharing. It’s being resourceful. It’s the resilience to meet excellence every time.

Then, I was thinking about some of the things we always say among the team in the studio.

• “We don't care about personally being right.”
• “We need to remind them: facts tell, stories sell.”
• “You don’t need a 70-page brand positioning, you need an elevator pitch.”

It’s undeniable that we are all very open and curious as creatives. But we are also super pragmatic and real, because at the end of the day, the way to measure success for our clients is to get to their first customer or their next round of funding as quickly as possible. And only the collaborators who can recognize that as a value will go really far with us and are willing to pay for the “exploration phase” once we build that trust with each other.

So not only are we able to be our true selves, but by doing so, we’ve been able to identify the type of clients we would love to invest into, mentally and physically together, for a long time.

And, the last one and the most important, always take care of yourself first.

You can kinda imagine my day-to-day is a bit crazy. Sometimes a 30-min strength workout feels like a luxury when everyone is asking for my time. As I am learning how to distance myself with the mechanics (just started the classic The E-Myth book!), I am also learning how to shut off and give time to myself.

If I don’t feel the best, it affects the rallies. The same thing goes with our team who had a lot of going on in their lives outside of work, they can rub onto the rest of the team or clients. I think overall, if you are not 100%, it’s so hard to set your mind to stay focused, especially what we are asked to deliver.

So yes, we are taking 2 weeks off. See you in Jan 2025!

THANK YOU 💜💜💜

to all our clients, collaborators, advisors, teammates, and friends (not in order) ~

Cristina Lopez, Jeremy Nishimura, Devon Stern, Becca Ray, Helen Ip, Yu Rong, John Rodriguez, Stephanie Jung, Ji Park, Afton Vechery, Carly Leahy, Seema Otoya, Michael Polansky, Bobby Campbell, Lauren Farleigh, Nicola Pardy, Damien Lecocq, Janelle Lamothe, Ritupriya Basu, Cristina Shin, Zoya Brar, Emilie Faure, Marina Pavlovic Rivas, Thomas Cortina, Lena Kozarov, Pious Saraswat, Morgane Descat, Bobby Campbell, Claire Whitman, Brent Clouse, Shelby Williamson, Gabrielle Adam, Amy Berkowitz, Viso Haus, Mac Hughes, Matthew de Jonge, Jesse Evans, Kitzzy Aviles, Michael Quinn, Alison Stelzer, Ryan Perlowin, Rachel Gogel, Emilie Faure, Simon Wesierski, Michal Klim, Robert Suchocki, Marcin Szabłowski, Katie Baynes, Melanie Galang, Anna Semenova, Kenneth Young, Joy Young, and many more...