From one ₹8,000 retainer to a ₹5,00,000 monthly book

01

Situation

March 2019: two of us, no agency experience between us, no employer to have learned it from. One client at ₹8,000 a month.

The split held for the whole seven years. I headed operations and the team — hiring, delivery, creative and every client relationship, front of house. My co-founder held the backend. Anything on this page with a client’s name on it came through my side of that line.

02

Action

By December 2019 the book was ₹40,000 a month, still two people. Post-COVID the accounts arrived — Isuzu, Le Grapes, Namma Power Run, clinics, restaurants — and the book moved ₹75,000, then ₹1,00,000, then ₹3,70,000–5,00,000 a month at peak in 2024. Throughout I was CEO, senior designer and client strategist at once: I designed, and I owned the client relationships personally.

For ten months in 2023 I took a full-time role at DayOne Tech Solutions — see Entry 04. The agency did not pause. I moved day-to-day delivery onto part-time staff and the freelance bench and kept the book serviced around a full-time job. No account was dropped, and the following year was the peak.

03

The decision

In 2020, every instinct in the market said clients would pause and we should let them. I took the opposite view: if our clients went dark they would lose the ground they had bought, and we would lose them permanently. So we serviced the entire book at roughly half rate and argued them into staying online. We ended 2020 having lost margin and zero clients — and that intact base is precisely what let us grow tenfold by 2024.

04

How it ended

In 2025–26 I consolidated on purpose: fewer accounts, a team of four plus freelancers, a ₹1,50,000 monthly book at much better margin and delivery quality. Growing the top line was never the hard part. Choosing what to stop doing was.

In 2026 I handed the agency over and stepped out of it. It is still running — clients served, team in place — I am simply not the one running it. That was the point: seven years of building something that does not need me in it, and then proving it by leaving. I am not looking for a way to keep it going on the side. It is done, and I am available.

Across the whole run the studio has delivered more than 10,000 tasks for 72 brands and agencies — packaging, campaign creative, branding, websites, photography and short-form content. Nine accounts was the peak concurrent load; 72 is the number of brands that have actually been through the door.

05

In pictures

06

Results & what it taught me

Nandini (KMF) · Government of Karnataka · Renault Goa · ITC Grand Chola · Heritage Foods · Isuzu · Sangeeta Mobiles × Redmi · Solace Life Clinic · Swaasthya Fitness & Physiotherapy · Vera Fitness · Le Grapes Restobar · Annapoorna Naati Kitchen · Panthers Cricket Academy · Good MD Foundation · and 48 more

Accounts