David Bates: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became CEO of Bokeh
By: Carly Martinetti
Tags: Startup Lessons, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Business

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Stupidity. Plain and simple. Based on my personality, I knew that I was not cut out for the traditional ladder-climbing route most film school graduates commit themselves to. I was nobody’s intern. So I worked retail behind a Genius Bar at an Apple Store where I honed my communication skills. On the weekends, I did whatever I could to stay creatively active, be it video for weddings and engagements, contests through the now-defunct Poptent, and even maternity films. When I was hired at Google I discovered two things: 1) companies needed content, nobody knew how to produce it, and agencies took advantage of this knowledge deficit; and 2) if I pitched the right creative I could have Google pay for my travel. These realizations led me toward starting my own agency without any previous experience in advertising.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

Early in our journey we found ourselves $5 away from insolvency. The Visa Design Team had a ‘move fast and break things’ mentality and they nearly broke us. Most of the time they were moving faster than their finance department — so SOWs and POs were being approved at a sluggish pace. But the timelines were expedited. We turned campaigns around in a matter of days, not weeks. Kick-starting production requires a lot of capital. Before we knew it, we were $250k in the hole. This was before we had the discipline to make sure POs were approved prior to starting a project. We didn’t believe in letting the formalities get in the way of efficiency. In some ways we still don’t.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

I am driven by the people I work with. They annoy the crap out of me half the time, but they bought into a culture grounded in hunger and humility. Every individual recognizes how and where they want to grow but is also open to and resolute in finding solutions for the challenges they never expected to encounter. This “startup mentality” continues to persist even though we no longer have the luxury of saying that Bokeh is a “side project.” Except now we need to do more than grow our employees creatively. We need to foster an environment that supports everyone’s personal growth as well. The perfect example of this is when my business partner and Bokeh’s chief creative officer, Doug Smith, told me he was going to propose to his then-girlfriend Sara. I cried. When he told me two years later they were expecting a baby boy, I bawled. What I didn’t realize in my early-twenties became all too real to me on the cusp of my 30s. This is the real reason we do what we do. This is what we are building Bokeh for.

So, how are things going today? How did grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

I hate the word “success.” We are not a success. We are a work-in-progress. That is not to say that we don’t appreciate our accomplishments. It’s simply to say that I always strive to maintain the mindset that “our best work is ahead of us.”

To put it simply, we’re not there yet. And I’m not sure we will ever be “there.” But I’m going to push for it every day.

The toughest thing about building an agency from the bottom-up with no connections is exactly that. You are only as good as your last work, and the work is only as good as the opportunity permits it to be. Mind you, I entered my first pitches with a portfolio consisting of wedding highlight films. Every new connection has to be earned and even then it requires the person across from you to show a bit of faith. There’s a lot of pressure to deliver when the investment isn’t just monetary, but also faith-driven. Disappointment is a powerful motivator. We have to consistently find ways to deliver slightly more than expected. To create additional scope when there are no extra dollars to be had just to show additional value. To convince partners that they can trust us with larger, more integrated, more significant campaigns. If there has been any silver-lining to this hustle, it’s that the job of convincing has become easier and easier over the years. And we no longer use wedding videos in our pitches.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

The van stories:

On a production for Caviar in the Meatpacking District, we parked our production vehicle to do a quick scout of Ivan Ramen’s Slurp Shop. After five minutes our vehicle was gone. We did the 10-minute walk-of-shame over to the impound and actually arrived before our van was taken off the tow. Still had to pay the $400 fine. Lessons learned: pay attention to street signs, and always have a spotter. This was on a four-day marathon co-marketing film for Airbnb and Outdoor Voices. It was an emotional rollercoaster. We brought the OV leadership team to San Francisco from Austin and filmed them on a business off-site. After finally wrapping, we stopped in the sunset for a slice of pizza. The van had been ransacked. We lost everything. The equipment, the footage, all of our work. A total disaster. Similarly, a month later on a road trip project for Google Street View, a completely different production team did the same thing. Parked the van, got some breakfast, and returned to chaos. Backpacks and bags had been lifted. By the grace-of-god our camera was where we left it, sitting below the front seat covered only by a windbreaker. Lessons learned: San Francisco needs to do something about break-ins. Always, ALWAYS have a spotter. Pay your insurance. And don’t be an idiot.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

My goal isn’t to scale a company, but rather to scale the type of relationship we strive to foster with our partners.

We look at ourselves as a partner, not an agency. We are not ad people. We don’t come from the advertising world. We’ve worked internally, and we practice empathy for the logistical constraints and bureaucratic loops our partners often have to navigate. We want to navigate these and troubleshoot with creativity alongside them; to act as a true extension of their creative selves. Every campaign is a mutual endeavor. Let’s be in the trenches together. Let’s grind. Let’s hustle. Let’s sprint. Let’s grow. And let’s always keep our partners connected with the work they are actually doing by refusing to dilute our agency structure with too many layers of account management, project management and producing — the layers that are typically meant to insulate a creative team from their client.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

To the other agency founders and CEOs — invest in people who free up your time to make decisions. The only thing you should be spending time on is the agency itself. Your job is to shake hands, not get them dirty.

Investing in the right people and the right experience can be expensive and painful. Painful on your wallet, and painful on your ego. If you aren’t hiring people that make you feel a bit like a fraud, like you don’t know what you’re doing, like you’re a mess that needs cleaning up, then you’re likely not hiring right. Early on, you should be scared of every hire you make. These are the people who will grow the company and lighten your load because they don’t put up with bullshit. They squash it.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

Early in my career I was working at Google Maps as a content producer. I was 22-years old and completely smitten. I took a bus with wifi to work, got 3-meals a day and a mandate to travel around the world and capture content. It was a dream. I thought to myself, “this isn’t a bad life.” So to help set a trajectory of growth I asked for a meeting with Dave Kim. He was the lead product marketer for Google Maps. His advice was concise and cutting: “David, you are too creative for Google.”

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

We try to bring goodness into the world with a lot of the community-focused content we create for brands, but in all honesty, the world is a bit of a mess right now. Doug had a baby though, so that’s some goodness.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started leading my company” and why. Please share a story or example for each.

Don’t start a creative agency without agency experience. If you do, don’t try to channel your inner-Steve Jobs and do it your own way. Hire people who have agency experience. Efficiency is as important as creative ability. PR matters. Get your work out there. Don’t try to do it yourself. You don’t have time. If you founded an agency, chances are that you’re probably a creative person. Don’t get too attached to the creative work. That isn’t your job. This will be a hard reality to accept. The sooner you redirect that creativity the better it will be for your people, your culture, and your company. Apply your creativity to painting the big picture, not tracing the lines.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Reaganomics had failed. The middle-class can’t shower clean if wealth only comes down in a trickle. Wages haven’t increased to match the costs-of-living. People are struggling to afford a home to buy, let alone rent. Our democracy is stressed and yet our politics have become too hyperpolarized to make any significant reform or investment.

Our infrastructure has not been updated in a major way since the 1950’s. Whether it was the creation of the railroads with the nail at Promontory Point or the interstate highway system by President Eisenhower, the United States has always unlocked enormous amounts of prosperity and economic opportunity when it has made our interior accessible. We are at a unique moment where we can do this again.

Technology exists to transport people and goods on-the-ground at speeds of 760 mph. That means you can live in a suburb of Denver and commute to work in Chicago in 1.5 hours. It means you can live in Orange County and commute to San Francisco in 40 minutes. Suddenly States have more power to compete for businesses to relocate headquarter offices because reasonable commute times exist even if employees live hundreds of miles away. You no longer have to live in a city to experience a city. The result of building the network should completely invigorate the economy by creating millions of jobs that will last for years. Rent and housing costs should reasonably decrease across the board. And as businesses and people move, the demographic layout of States should shift, making “red” states bluer and “blue” states redder — creating more geographic (as opposed to party) loyalty among elected politicians.

That would be my platform.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

@bokeh.agency

@dbates0623

http://bokeh.agency/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/bokeh-pictures/