SSubida Skills

Esc to close · results from all notes, skills and people

Marketing›Ad creative

Running several creative partners and keeping a creative culture that avoids sameness

Lessons from Barry Hott's founders' roundtable (The Perfect Jean, HelloTushy, Flakes, Dara Denney) — keep at least one internal and one external creative source (The Perfect Jean runs four agencies, Laura Geller five), share the ad account openly instead of making agencies compete, avoid the "iteration loop" and brand-book homogeneity that flattened The Perfect Jean's results, treat every truth as valid for ~6 months, and give partners freedom plus a clear lens ("laughing or learning").

Updated 2026-10-24·1 source·ad-creativeagenciescreative-teamcreative-diversitybrand-guidelinesculture

Multiple creative partners and creative culture

TL;DR

  • Barry Hott’s rule: have at least one internal and at least one external creative resource. Add more sources only once spend and conversion data can absorb them.1
  • The Perfect Jean runs four agencies for four perspectives and styles, and “doesn’t really say no”. Dara Denney’s client Laura Geller runs five and wants more.21
  • Open book, no contest. Every partner sees the whole ad account and is paid the same to produce the same volume. The founder deliberately doesn’t rank them.34
  • Watch for the iteration loop. The Perfect Jean had a slow six months because “all of our ads started looking identical”. The cure is ~90% net new, 10% iterations.5
  • A new brand book made every agency’s ads look alike. Prescriptive guidelines kill the diversity you’re paying for.6

Details

Why multiple sources. Each agency or internal team brings different experience and a different “creative brain”. Ovadia Lebaton uses several agencies partly to outsource recruiting for the curious, fun-loving, always-improving people he can’t hire himself.7 Barry stresses this only works at scale. Most brands can’t feed five partners.1

Iteration paralysis. Dara’s name for new strategists who only iterate on what worked “to be data-driven”. Messaging converges and audiences fatigue.8

Brand identity vs ad freedom. The Perfect Jean launched with intentionally little visual identity: sharp copy and fun product and models, so no ad ever looks “disjointed” from the site. When newcomers insisted on a brand book and shoot guidelines, the ads “came back looking the same”, so Ovadia went back to letting creators tell the story their way.69 Barry notes most brands move the other way, starting rigid and loosening over time.10

Keeping it fun. One founder (most likely Ovadia, whose brand had the slow six months) said results suffered in a hard year when the brand got nitpicky with agencies and added unrealistic requirements. The fix is to be the client agencies love: give freedom, pay on time, brainstorm together.11 HelloTushy’s Justin Allen frames the brand through a yearly lens such as “are we laughing or learning?” The hard part is enforcing it week after week while keeping ~90% new creative.12

Truth decays. Justin’s view is that platform truths last about six months, so retest everything. Ovadia is “allergic” to the word working, because the same ad relaunched can fail. Hypotheses must still be sharp and testable.133

Disagreement as a method. Justin Allen’s best work came from “iron sharpening iron”: arguing ideas without ego, with continuous improvement as the shared goal.14 Recruiting for that mindset beats training budgets. Founders who offered staff $1K–$10K a year for learning saw it go unspent.15

Real-customer UGC. The Perfect Jean collected 300–400 customer videos, and only 3–4 “really had it”. It’s a valid source, but with a very low hit rate.9

Disagreements / caveats

See also

Footnotes

  1. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 20:28 — Barry Hott, Dara Denney ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 18:06 — Ovadia Lebaton ↩

  3. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 21:16 — Ovadia Lebaton ↩ ↩2

  4. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 22:56 — Ovadia Lebaton ↩

  5. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 18:06 — Ovadia Lebaton ↩

  6. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 52:07 — Ovadia Lebaton ↩ ↩2

  7. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 48:51 — Ovadia Lebaton ↩

  8. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 18:52 — Dara Denney ↩

  9. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 52:52 — Ovadia Lebaton ↩ ↩2

  10. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 50:28 — Barry Hott ↩

  11. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 49:42 — roundtable founder, likely Ovadia Lebaton (speaker unclear) ↩

  12. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 31:57 — Justin Allen ↩

  13. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 19:40 — Justin Allen ↩

  14. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 46:26 — Justin Allen ↩

  15. I spoke to 3 Founders about MAKING ADS (feat. Dara Denney) @ 48:04 — Barry Hott ↩