I'm in New Smyrna Beach this week. My car had some trouble super-charging on the trip down here, so I had to take it in to the Tesla dealership to get looked at (in Daytona). Since I was on that side of town, I reached out to joshua-hays for lunch.

Turns out, he wants me to join his team.

About New York Avenue

They are a full service marketing company with an emphasis on video (which makes their services easier to sell in the central Florida area). Josh has made a strong habit of acquiring small companies and putting them to work together.

He does not have this elongated track record of agency success (other than staying in business for 10+ years). This is not a jack-ogilvie situation where there is a treasure trove of experience in acquiring agencies and scaling them to $10M+.

However, his primary objective is NOT to hire 10-15 junior level people, have a handful of directors, and scale that way. He'd rather have a smaller number of people who are the BOMB at what they do, and let them do their thing. While his agency goes broad (with services), they are all ran by experts (aka. this isn't the generic "all purpose" agency that a lot of people try to run).

Personality-wise there are a lot of similar folks inside of his company that I get along with. I've enjoyed everyone I've met so far.

How it Got Started

I'm going to start by saying we didn't chat about this a ton today (probably 20 minutes or so).

Back in February/March, Josh asked me if I could come down to Florida in June to join him for a conference. They have a huge booth and need some folks to help be some extra hands on it. I said "yes" because the idea of working with his crew sounded like a fun experience.

Shortly after we made the plan to do this, he told me that "he had an idea" that he wanted to chat with me more about in June, and just left it open-ended.

Well, I learned about this idea over lunch today.

The Basic Plan

What He Needs Help With

When he told me about this back in February, Classic City was barely holding a footing. Now, it's running pretty decently ATM. So, he knows this idea may fall a bit on deaf ears because of its timing.

He knows that the two things I love doing:

1. Building relationships with folks (not selling; just building relationships)
2. Tinkering with making things more efficient

He sees two holes in his business to help it grow:

1. Building (and continuing) relationships with potential clients
2. Figuring out ways to make his current team work more efficiently

What about websites?

Right now, they don't really do websites. It's purely an expense line item on their sheet and that's it. They are trying to figure out ways to build sites as efficiently as possible as a value-add to his customers. The most important parts of his marketing plans are the actual marketing pieces (ads, video, SEO, etc.) and the website piece isn't crucial. He typically throws it in as a part of signing up for a 12 month retainer.

He does NOT have a desire to grow a website arm of his business. Yes, it will be a part of his company long-term, but he doesn't see it as a growth lever.

So, what does he want from me?

He sees my two main advantages as:

1. Building relationships with people
2. Figuring out how to make things work better

These are areas that are weak in NYA:

• They do not invest in "moments of delight" for their current customers
• They do not have an "events" motion at all
• They don't have any agency partners
• They don't stay in touch well
• They don't have anyone on their team who understands AI in a way to help accelerate delivery and make their team more efficient

Long-story short: he doesn't care about my web dev/design skills and getting more clients like that. He wants all the intangible stuff that I bring to the table.

So, what tangible things does he want from me:

1. Figuring out events and meeting with groups of people in-person (he's seen all the stuff I've been doing with staying in touch with people, hosting lunches, conferences, etc.)
2. Working internally with his crew on how to make their processes more efficient (he's seen a lot of the stuff I've been building and thinks a lot could be unlocked if I put that energy towards things that are broken)

How would the transfer work?

Basically, my company's revenue would float my salary as I would probably be one of the higher paid folks on the team. Keeping those clients around is critical, however, this is not a line of business that he wants to continue to grow.

I know he doesn't want my responsibilities on the web side of things to supersede my new requirements of establishing the other side of the business that is faltering.

What about sales?

This is not a sales role. He was very clear about that. Yes, it's about building relationships, identifying groups to be a part of, building camaraderie within those groups, but my job is NOT to land the sale. Purely, create the relationship that starts the opportunity.

His main note

He is talking to me about this as he is generating the idea. He's not 100% sold on this (in a good way) -- meaning, he's working through how to make this work and have it be optimal for me as well. He's inviting me into workshopping this with him.

He also knows that with where my business is now, this may not sound like the most enticing thing in the world: "Hey Chris! You should stop doing web stuff (now that you're on a roll), come help me build better relationships and find unique ways to make clients excited, in hopes to make more money together. BTW - I don't want to do websites either, so just keep those coming for a little while longer so I can afford your salary."

No the most sexy offer in the world, but a unique idea though. He doesn't wanna do it "right now," but at some point in the next year or so.

My thoughts

One of the things that is the most intriguing is the simple fact that he's interested mostly in my intangible skills than the tangible, website-related ones. I have built up such a rapport with this guy over the years (all started through a random LinkedIn DM I sent him in 2023/2024) that he is more interested in *the potential* that I could bring to his crew than my clients and money.

What I like:

• The idea of working with a crew of people that I (so far) get along with
• Not doing it by myself anymore
• Focusing in on non-executable tasks (... would I get bored?)
• Not worrying about sales

What I don't like

• I'm no longer an owner of a business
• My destiny isn't in my own hands
• The whole breaking apart of my Personal Identity with my company
• I'm in a good groove now.
• Do I like the idea of working for someone?
• What other opportunities are out there? I know a lot of people. This is simply something that someone asked me about today.

I mean... do I want this? I have ZERO idea. The idea is interesting, but a LOT of ideas are interesting to me. Do I like this because it simply NEW or because it actually makes sense?

Jack offered me something similar last year, and I didn't take it. Why? Was it simply because I was terrified of working for someone, feel like I always need to be a solo-founder the rest of my life, or simply because I see an opportunity and completely glaze over it because I have 20+ years of being a solo person and don't know what "opportunity" actually looks like?

Is there a way to test the waters?