A studio owner from Barcelona messaged me last week.
We'll call him Alex.
Their work? Award-winning.
Their people? Top notch.
Their portfolio? Stacked with big brands like Nike. Google. Spotify.
On paper, it looked impressive.
And yet… they were still being asked to pitch on $20k projects.
Alex was frustrated.
Burnt out.
Wondering what they were doing wrong.
When we zoomed in, the truth hit:
All the “work” was execution scraps,
a teaser here, a quick animation there, some overflow from bigger agencies.
They were always busy.
Working for big brands, but still.
But they weren’t building equity.
They didn't have fun.
Clients saw them as a pair of hands,
not a brain.
Not a soul.
That’s why they kept getting invited to pitch on $20k projects when their work easily deserved $200k.
Their problem wasn’t talent.
It was perspective.
When you’re inside your own business,
you don’t see the whole game.
You only see the next step:
That’s survival mode.
And survival mode is the enemy of creative freedom.
Because when you’re competing for scraps,
you’re not shaping the game.
You’re just reacting to it.
And you'll be forever stuck in mediocrity.
They have an outside perspective.
Someone who sees the board and says:
That’s how you build market trust.
That’s how you get the budgets that let you do your best work.
You’ll learn:
And if you’re ready to stop playing small and move faster,
with more certainty and confidence,
call us at NOT on sale.
We already work behind the scenes with some of the studios you admire.
They stopped playing alone, and started trusting someone to help them.
—Marko