Emma Grede

It was the fact that I had taken a lot of other people with me.

You know, when you open a new agency, and of course, at that point, we were really at the height of what we did.

You know, I took like names out of other agencies.

Like, you know, it's like you poach people from another agency.

You're moving them across the world to be in this new thing.

And it didn't work.

And not only did it not work, it failed loudly and miserably and very publicly.

And

And so, you know, I went and did this big, you know, like, I'm, you know, opening LA and brought people to my fancy office and told all the clients what our services would be, took everyone at face value that they would work with me.

Nobody called.

Slowly but surely, you know, I didn't have the decisiveness to shut it down in three or four months.

So I dragged it out until it was nearly a year.

And it was hugely embarrassing, but also like hit me in a place that I couldn't believe it affected so many other people.

Yeah.

And that was a huge learning for me.

And when it came to years later thinking about having another company in LA, it really haunted me.

And I was like, have I learned enough?

Did I get the message loud and clear?

What would I not do again?

And I think one of the main reasons that I've been able to be successful, because I live in LA now, is because of that failure with ITB.