What happens when you ditch the facade and focus on good work?
Q+A with Natalia Cortazar, Founder of The Good Egg agency
There’s no shortage of agencies out there talking a big game. But The Good Egg? It walks it - with a killer client list, a clear set of values, and an unapologetically human approach to business.
We spoke to its founder, Natalia Cortazar, about ditching the industry faff, building an agency during a global crisis, and why personal brand is more than just an online flex - it’s a solid business strategy.
You founded The Good Egg in March 2020, a challenging time for many businesses. What motivated you to start your own influencer agency, and what challenges did you face in those early days?
I always say I founded TGE as a response to what I was seeing in the industry, after years in big and small agencies and a brief stint client-side, I realised the amount of bullsh*t agencies were selling to justify budgets to clients and realised we could scrap all of that and keep what actually really mattered: good work.
Bear in mind this was BP (Before the Pandemic) so the world, especially the agency world, was a much different place with pointless office hours and face-to-face meetings reigning vast and wide. In a way, I feel I was anticipating what the pandemic forced us to, simplify and be more efficient, I guess?
If I am brutally honest, I face bigger challenges now than when I founded TGE as the media landscape was waaay more wealthy back then and brands’ pockets were fuller, therefore we didn’t struggle as much to secure budgets, partially because there was a massive shift towards digital from other ‘pots’ as, well, no one was going to the cinema or commuting, so it made sense to put all eggs on the digital basket. (Remember this is a time people used to binge-watch Joe Wick’s videos so the screen time was up the roof!)
Your agency has won awards and worked with large brands like Silverstone and H&M. What do you attribute your success to, and can you share a highlight from your agency’s journey?
Something people are surprised about is how large the brands we work with are, for such a small agency, and, to be honest, they do have a point! We are a very small agency working with some of the biggest names out there, which makes me think we must be doing something very right if these brands choose us over bigger players.
However, to give a sense of reality, big names don’t mean big budgets. There is a misconception that just because a brand is well-known, they may have more cash to invest than a random client - mistake. In fact, our biggest campaign (a near-7-figure one) came from an ‘unknown’ client, whereas we do £15,000 campaigns for very established brands.
To me, success looks very different from that of many other founders. Going to bed early, sleeping 8 hours, having time to see your friends, partner, and family, and switching off at the weekends are my understandings of success.
I am very conscious I could grind more, grow more, earn more. But (and this is a big but) I don’t think that’s what TGE or me as a person stands for. I guess our highlight is definitely being able to survive as an agency, paying people fairly, staying true to our values and being able to do everything I mentioned above.
If we’re more specific, it felt pretty awesome to win Best Boutique Agency 3 times, ha!
The Good Egg is a “purely Millennial and Gen-Z led team, 100% digital and highly flexible, with a focus on creativity over unnecessary complexity”. How does this approach influence your agency’s culture and the way you work with clients?
Going back to the first question, it was a matter of removing faff to just focus on the important - the quality of work and the outcome that comes from it. Big agencies rarely talk about their actual performance results but you will hear them talk at large about Cannes Cabanas, yachts, business trips and so on.
THIS is what we fight against, the unnecessary frills that comes with agency work, which makes, sometimes, in the best case, only 40% of your investment go to the actual campaign.
On a more day-to-day basis, it means we don’t count hours, locations, or accents (yup, microaggressions to people who don’t sound native are a very common part of agency culture) and we put creativity at the forefront, crafting campaigns with storytelling over mechanisation.
Having worked in influencer marketing for agencies like Goat, how have you seen the landscape change over the years, and what trends do you think are shaping its future?
I would be lying to you if I said I see a major shift in the way clients understand the industry, but the sad truth is that there is still a long way to go in terms of education. I sometimes wonder if clients don’t know or don’t want to know what’s going on, or if agencies are just very good at selling their part, but something I would love to see more is more transparency and education.
Trend-wise, I think the biggest thing to note is, in fact, that trends change and evolve at lightspeed, and it is crucial you don’t become yesterday’s news. Then we have the obvious: professionalism in the industry, trend-cycling (YouTube to TikTok and then back to YouTube again, for instance) and the imperious need for good content over metrics.
You’re in the process of building your own personal brand. How do you see your personal brand aligning with The Good Egg, and what encouraged you to start taking your own branding seriously?
This is a funny one because I think my personal brand ‘birthed’ TGE and not the other way around, and this is something that’s still lingering, for the good and bad.
I wish I could tell you there’s a magic formula to craft a personal brand AND a company brand successfully, but the reality is that both myself and TGE are the byproduct of honesty and bluntness. We’re both very bold, relaxed and don’t take ourselves too seriously. Ah, and we are very clear about our priorities (and these are very much related to never answering emails on a Sunday or at 10 pm).
On a practical level, my personal brand drives circa 70% of TGE’s revenue. Yep. I know, it’s outstanding and I am equally happy and terrified about this - eeek!
Starting a business during a global pandemic must have presented unique challenges. What strategies did you implement to navigate those difficulties and ensure the success of your agency?
I never took myself too seriously. If you work to live and not vice-versa, there’s probably little initial planning when you launch your project and a lot of gut-led decisions involved. I am not the best businessperson and I am not ashamed of it. Really. My recommendations are based more on common-sense and ethics than on business profit, so here are my top 3:
Make sure you have money to pay suppliers, influencers and staff. Honestly, this should be a given, but we’ve all seen the £4M-in-debt wrecks some agencies are leaving behind… and some are still operating. DON’T be these people.
Not everyone has to like you. And this does not mean you have to change. I am very aware we’re not the agency for everyone. And that’s ok!
Value your team and their work. If your average tenure is 8 months and your industry image is on the floor, your business will suffer. Also, it shows you may be a crap person so yeah, don’t be that person.
Working across different countries can present various challenges. What best practices have you developed for fostering collaboration and maintaining a strong team culture?
Love this question! Funnily enough, we’re quite a close team despite not having met everyone face to face or not having been all in the same place… ever? When your personality (as a leader and as an agency) is so strong and unbent, it transfers through the screen, it really does!
My team are, and will always be, my priority. I have let clients go in the past because they were disrespectful to my team, and I would do it again. This shows your team you’re not only putting the nice words in but actually showing accountability.
In terms of comms, when you deal with different culture staff, you need to make sure there are some established things across the board: ways of communicating, language, tone, processes… but we let people be themselves, and it’s this what makes us successful and the go-to agency for international briefs - we live and breathe the culture, not just create a one-size-fits-all with British eyes and pretend that will work everywhere else. Spoiler: it won’t!
Building relationships with clients is crucial in influencer marketing. How do you approach client management to ensure long-term partnerships and satisfaction?
We are respectful but close, transparent and honest. If we identify something going wrong we vocalise it and propose a solution: ‘Hi team, we are having some issues with X talent but, don’t worry, we have found an alternative’, for instance. When you’re honest and talk about the good, the bad and the ugly, people trust you will be working in their best interests.
On a more ‘professional’ level, we make sure we do feedback sessions with our clients regularly (usually, quarterly or at the end of a campaign) to make sure they are happy with our work and what have been the highlights and lowlights and how we can improve certain points. I am proud to say that, our of 10 points, no client has ever evaluated us below 8.
What are your future goals for The Good Egg? Are there any exciting projects or initiatives in the pipeline that you can share?
Oh, 2025 is coming in hot, let me tell you! We are in the midst of 9 (!!!) exciting pitches/proposal stages with incredible brands in the tourism, consumer and tech space and I really do hope these projects will grant us a much-needed period of stability.
We would also want to become a source for both creators and agencies in the industry to stay up to date, refresh knowledge and, quite frankly, be a top-of-mind agency. We are implementing a more curated social strategy, developing free resources and getting involved in industry events as our next year's goal.
For those looking to start their own influencer agency or business, what advice would you give? What key lessons have you learned that you wish you had known at the start of your journey?
If I am BRUTALLY honest, I don’t think it is the best time to start an influencer marketing agency. Don’t panic, hear me out - we are in a ‘valley’ period with not much investment arriving from and to the UK (we’re frankly surviving on US campaigns many of us!) so I would use this time to equip myself and learn as much as I can working for other people or even freelancing.
There’s also the fact that the space is quite crowded and we’re seeing agencies close on the regular, sadly.
If you’re still determined to take the leap, I would make sure you understand what having a business entails and educate yourself on the financial, logistic and red-tape side of the business - trust me, you will spend more time than desired looking at P&Ls and trying to understand taxes, especially, if, like me, you pay taxes in 3 different countries!
If this sounds like something you’d happily avoid, then entrepreneurship is not for you. You need to know the bad and ugly and make sure you account for all of this when setting up your gig.
What I would 1000000% focus on that will - eventually - support your business, should you ever decide to go down that route, is work on your personal brand: it will make you more employable, raise your profile, make you more confident (an underrated skill, if you ask me) and make you an overall better-equipped person.
If there’s one thing to take from this convo, it’s that building something meaningful doesn’t have to come at the cost of your sanity. The Good Egg is proof you can do serious work without taking yourself too seriously - and that clarity, conviction, and a decent night’s sleep might just be the real secret sauce.