E191: Run your agency in 8 hours per week with Jeff Venn

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Jeff Venn owns Create Studios, a 10-person agency that he runs in eight hours a week, and is a mentor to millennial and Gen Z entrepreneurs. Jeff’s taken a forward-thinking, progressive approach on how to build and run his businesses, and how he builds and runs his days.

Episode highlights:

• How Jeff built his business to work on such a minimal time per week.
• What Jeff was spending lots of time on before working fewer hours.
• What Jeff went through in hiring to build a team that works well in his agency.
• What Jeff sees for the future of his agency.
• What Jeff did with all this free time, and how he schedules his day.
• What Jeff’s leadership team looks like.
• How to structure project payment to lower stress (and it didn’t lead to any complaints).
• The most important part of operations right now.
• On being “afraid to get paid”.
• Best advice: You gotta stick with it.
• Habit that contributes to success: Creativity and possibility.
• Recommended tools: Headspace
• Recommended book: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
• Run time: 32:21

Links:

• JeffVenn.com
• Headspace
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
• Steven Pressfield’s author profile

Quotes:

• “We have an aptitude to more than just build websites.”
• “It was equal parts pain….and curiosity.”
• “For a while, it was like a mini-vacation.”
• “What’s funny is we quickly adjust to the environment we’re in.”
• “They looked at me like I was crazy.”
• “The one-time work is not that sexy, but it will lead to the recurring.”
• “We made $4 an hour!”

Takeaways:

• If you want to work fewer hours, you need to get out of the day-to-day.
• Annual rolling averages of costs can be really helpful in money management.