The Starbucks floor mopper

Speaking of starting agencies: running one is stressful as hell.

Eighteen years ago, I was burnt out from running Metalab, so I decided to go backpacking in Europe.

Being an inexperienced fool, I decided to hand off the operations to one of my best friends from college, Mark Nichols.

At the time, he had no experience running a business—in fact, his only job experience at the time was mopping floors at a Starbucks in a Burlington strip mall—and I did a very poor job of onboarding him.

I let him listen in on a few client calls, showed him how I sent invoices and estimates, and introduced him to a few of my contractors.

Then, I disappeared, telling him to only call if there was a true emergency.

Long story short, there wasn't. And Mark really ran Metalab after that.

He turned out to be amazing at running agencies, and quickly grew the business from a four-person studio working with fledgling startups, to an internationally renowned firm with a roster of Fortune 500 clients.

He is THE MAN, and remarkably, he's still one of my best friends, even after working together for decades.

Now, being the grizzled veteran that he is, he finally got fed up with everyone asking him how to run an agency and wrote a book about it.

It's called You're On Your Own. I read a bunch of early versions, and it's great. If you run an agency, it's required reading.

If you run a services business, or are thinking about starting one, you should go buy Mark's book here.

Originally published in the She pushed the needle into my arm... issue of Never Enough.