Emma Grede's Biggest Failure –And What She Learned

Key Concepts

• Agency Expansion Failure: The primary topic, detailing the speaker's unsuccessful attempt to expand a successful agency into the Los Angeles market.
• Cultural Assimilation: The critical importance of understanding and adapting to local business culture and practices.
• Market Relevance: The necessity for a business offering to align with the specific needs and dynamics of a target market.
• "Knowing What You Don't Know": Acknowledging one's own blind spots and lack of local insight.
• "Fail Slow": The detrimental impact of prolonging an unsuccessful venture, contrasting with the "fail fast" philosophy.
• Broker/Middle Woman: An intermediary service provider, which the speaker's agency offered.
• Product Placement: The strategic inclusion of branded products in media, a service offered by the agency.

The Biggest Failure: Agency Expansion to Los Angeles

The speaker identifies their biggest failure as the unsuccessful expansion of their agency into Los Angeles (LA). This agency, which specialized in celebrity partnerships, film product placement, and collaborations, had been built from the ground up over 10 years. Initially, the speaker handled all aspects of the business, from writing proposals and selling to delivering services and invoicing clients. After five or six years, the agency achieved significant success, leading to the opening of offices in Paris and New York before the decision to expand to LA.

Challenges in the LA Market

The failure in LA stemmed from two primary issues: a lack of market relevance for the agency's offering and a fundamental misunderstanding of LA's unique business culture.

1. Irrelevant Offering: The agency's core service as a "broker" or "middle woman" for celebrity partnerships and product placement proved unnecessary in LA. The speaker explains that in LA, "your neighbor is a celebrity. Your kids are at school with Beyonce's kids," meaning direct access to talent is common, negating the need for an intermediary.
2. Close-Knit Business Culture: The LA business environment was described as "so close-knit," with "like 10 people doing all the deals" who "all went to school with each other and they all... grew up with one another." As an outsider, the speaker "didn't appreciate the way to do business" within this insular network.

The "Slow Car Crash" of Failure

The speaker admits to not being quick at admitting failure at the time, contrasting with the modern "fail fast" concept. Instead, the LA venture was a "slow car crash," prolonged due to an inability to let it go. This protracted failure had severe personal and professional consequences. Employees from the New York and London offices were relocated with their families to LA, only for the speaker to eventually have to inform them they no longer had jobs. This experience was described as "soul destroying" for the speaker.

Lessons Learned and Application to Good American

The profound failure in LA provided critical lessons that were applied to the speaker's subsequent venture, Good American:

1. Presence and Cultural Immersion: The most significant lesson was the necessity of being physically present in the market and deeply understanding its culture. The speaker realized, "if you're going to be successful somewhere, you probably need to be there... be of the culture and... assimilate to a different way of doing business." This was a departure from previous successes where the offering had been "exported" without such deep local integration.
2. Learning the Local Way: The "LA way of doing business" is something that "you really have to learn" and not "take anything for granted." This emphasizes the importance of humility and active learning when entering a new market.

Conclusion

The expansion of the agency into Los Angeles represented a "big failure" and a "whopping loss" for the speaker. However, it served as a pivotal learning experience, highlighting the critical importance of market relevance, deep cultural understanding, and the personal cost of prolonging an unsuccessful venture. The speaker's commitment to not repeating the same mistake underscores the transformative impact of this experience on their subsequent business strategies, particularly with Good American.