August 24, 2025 • 29 mins
Company: Scratch Media + Marketing
Guests: Ryan Ellis
Year Started: 2009
Employees: 26-50
What happens when an agency depends too much on its founder? In this episode, Lora Kratchounova, Founder of Scratch Marketing and Media, shares how she built a 40-person B2B tech agency by shifting from founder-dependence to team empowerment. From mastering positioning to embracing deep tech and climate tech, Lora’s story highlights an ever present learning mindset and team focused leadership.
Key Takeaways
- The “school bus test” what is it and why it matters
- The role of positioning as the most critical agency “hack”
- How empowering your team leads to better leadership and client results
- Why primary data and customer insight outperform assumptions
- A lesson in climate tech and passion
Details for an agency planning workshop event November 10th and 11th 2025.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Russel (00:01):
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where owners and
experts share the real journey,the early struggles, the
breakthrough moments, andeverything in between.
I'm your host Russel Dubree,former eight figure agency owner
turned business coach, sold myagency and now helps agency
leaders create their idealbusiness.
Every agency has a story, andthis is your front row seat.
(00:23):
This is an agency story.
Today's guest built her agencyout of pure curiosity and a
drive to solve problemsdifferently.
Lora Kratchounova went fromleading marketing at a tech
startup to transforming howcompanies position themselves in
the market.
Nearly 17 years later, as theleader of Scratch Marketing and
(00:43):
media, she's still just aspassionate about her work and
the clients she serves.
Welcome to the show today, Lora.
Lora (00:49):
Great to be here.
Russel (00:50):
We were talking about travel before we hit the record
button.
Any cool places you're goingthis year?
Lora (00:55):
Yes.
I'm going to Paris.
It was kind of a triple reason,I wanted to take my mom there,
my birthday's in April and thenmy son, son turned 21.
Made it for good reason to goto, to go to Paris.
And then, uh, we're spending amonth in Valencia as well.
Russel (01:09):
Oh my.
Okay.
You got some good plans comingup.
I'm assuming you've been toParis before?
Lora (01:14):
Yes.
I love that city.
Russel (01:15):
What's your favorite thing to do in Paris?
Lora (01:17):
Just sit in a cafe and just watch people.
It's okay to stare so that's thebest part.
Russel (01:22):
Yes.
I will say, usually when wetravel overseas, I mean, it's
just sun up to sundown.
We're just trying to fiteverything in.
But Paris was the one time wewent, we kind of got to the end
of the week and we had seen itall, and so then we just got to
do that.
And, uh, I have to agree.
I think it's a, it's a fun partof Paris.
Lora (01:38):
It's a great city to walk around, to have a bite, to have
a drink, to go into museums, soit's great.
Yeah, I can't wait.
Russel (01:44):
Awesome, well, excited for you.
And I'm an April birthday aswell, so, uh, it sounds like
we're both Aries here.
Lora (01:49):
Oh, twinsies.
Russel (01:50):
Yes.
Twinsies.
Look forward to that for you.
If you don't mind, tell us whatScratch Media does and who you
do it for.
Lora (01:56):
We are an integrated B2B technology agency that offers
all of the services that anoutsourced marketing department
would offer to companies.
The idea started with 17 yearsago, and to this day, I joke
with my former CEO that he droveme to open up Scratch.
I was the head of marketing fora local startup.
It was fun until it wasn't funanymore.
(02:17):
That kind of pushed me to lookinto the market and see what I
can do next.
I didn't have a, um, a masterplan in mind.
Um, and What I figured is that alot of agencies at the time were
really good at one particularthing.
If you go to an SEO agency,they're really good at SEO.
Therefore, every problem theysee is through the lens of SEO.
PR, you know, sales enablement,you name it.
the idea was, hmm, what if wejust look at a company and say,
(02:40):
what, what are the opportunitiesahead of this company?
What are some of the challengesthat we can overcome?
What if we flexed all of themarketing tools in the tool set
to do that?
Russel (02:48):
And here you are, 17 years later.
Awesome.
I'm curious, you mentioned thatyou had your origins or someone
inspired you, it sounds like,maybe, uh, in an interesting
way, uh, to start the agency.
But now just maybe questionslike, who have I, who have I
inadvertently inspired to starta business because of something?
I don't know.
Now I got a question.
I gotta know the answer to this.
Lora (03:05):
I have so many inspirations.
I actually joke about havingprofessional crushes on people
all the time.
I'm so thankful for multiplepeople in my career.
I'm a Bulgarian turned Canadian,um, turned American.
I wanna stay with a Canadianstreak right now.
Russel (03:21):
That's fair.
Lora (03:21):
I started my career at Shale Oil, so my first general
manager was an UK generalmanager, and he taught me a lot.
Actually, he was the first onewho, you know, put a stack of
paper, uh, on my desk and said,okay, this, we need to do the
business plan for next year.
You have five days to figurethis out.
I said, the stack of paper I'msupposed to read in five days
and come up with a plan for nextyear?
(03:43):
I can't even read that fast.
I tried.
I kind of, you know, struggledwith, with it.
We got together and he had halfa page filled out and it had
everything that we needed tothink about for next year.
I said, I don't know what thatis, but that's what I wanna do
one day.
That was the first kind of biginspo and then multiple people
throughout.
Russel (04:00):
I love what you said, professional crush.
Who's your number oneprofessional crush right now?
Lora (04:03):
I have so many.
I don't even know where to startto be honest.
My latest one is, uh, LizWiseman.
I love Simon Sinek.
Uh, but Liz Wiseman, um, I don'tknow if you've come across the
book Multipliers?
Russel (04:15):
Mm-hmm.
Oh yes.
I love that book.
Lora (04:17):
Right?
Love that book.
I figured that a lot of timesI'm an accidental diminisher, so
just even having the awarenessand working through that has
been an interesting challengefor me.
Russel (04:26):
Yeah.
And for the folks at home thatare, you explain for the folks
at home the quick premise ofMultipliers.
How about that?
Lora (04:31):
The quick premise of Multipliers is that as leaders,
uh, there are two types ofleaders.
Leaders that empower otherpeople to do their best, and
leaders that take away from thesuperpowers of people, whether
they mean it or not, some peoplemean it, some, some people are
accidental diminishers.
I highly recommend that becauseyou, all of us have tendencies,
uh, around accidental,diminishing, um, and it's a
(04:52):
great thing for you to look atif you wanna build a great team
and a great following.
This book is an absolute must.
Russel (04:57):
That's a great recommendation Great book, and
not to say it's not popular, butyou don't hear it talked about a
lot in business circles.
I think that's a greatrecommendation and just really
it speaks to, especially of ateam of any decent size, you,
you have to empower, um, and,and to be, and to be aware of
when you're empowering and whenyou're deep powering or
diminishing, I think is how, howyou worded it.
(05:18):
Awesome.
Tell us what really got you thepoint to just say, you know
what, I'm going to, I'm gonnastart an agency.
Lora (05:24):
I think it happened naturally after maybe having two
or three people join me and thenI realized that I'm actually
running a small agency.
But it wasn't, I didn't have abusiness plan in mind.
You know, It was interestingbecause, having been in the role
of head of marketing, what youdo usually, and I completely
sympathize with all the otherVPs and CMOs of marketing out
(05:44):
there, your head's down kind ofon the business, working on it,
making sure that, you know, youdo your job and, um, you don't
have a lot of time to, uh, tosocialize, to network, to go out
there to really, um, make ameaningful contribution in the
community.
I think that the firstrevelation was I just wanted to
be more engaged, and this iswhen I even started mentoring
(06:05):
with Techstars and, um, IntelIgnite, Layron and, um,
Cambridge Innovation Center inthe Bulgarian Innovation Hub,
which is, uh, on the West Coast.
That's kind of how I started.
Then I realized that there wasstill a need for this kind of
integrated function.
Someone who can come in and,really a team who can come in
and quickly figure out what theopportunities are, how to
(06:27):
reposition, position a company,how to maximize the resources,
um, and the market opportunity.
That's kind of how we keptgoing, um, and we kept adding
functions.
For example, I was new to PRwhen I started Scratch.
I mean, I'd only had managed PRagencies, and lo and behold, you
know, I think that I canconsider myself a PR pro these
days, so there you go.
Russel (06:48):
I'd hope so, yeah.
It's funny how you started theconversation and said you didn't
have a business plan.
I'm still looking for the firstagency owner that started their
agency with a business plan.
So if you find them, um, let meknow and then I can have them on
the show.
Lora (07:00):
And vice versa, please.
I wanna meet those people whohad this amazing vision.
Russel (07:04):
I don't think it happens very often, to be honest.
Certainly some people go aboutit more, more intentionally,
but, uh, I don't know still howmany ends up with a business
plan.
I feel like my listeners wouldbe really mad that, I can't
believe we didn't go to thiswell, but, but you said
Bulgarian to Canadian to theUnited States.
Share a little bit about thatjourney because that is unique
unto itself.
Lora (07:23):
Ooh.
I love to tell the story.
My first job was at Shale Oil inBulgaria, so I went to the first
American University that openedup in Eastern Europe.
George Sos funded thatuniversity.
As you can imagine, after thecommunist regime fell down,
there weren't a lot ofmarketers.
Not like today.
There's a ton of marketers whereI am.
Back in Bulgaria that wasn't thecase.
I did get the job of marketingdirector of Shale Oil at the
(07:46):
fragile age of 21, and Iliterally had no idea what I was
doing, to the point where, atone point, I was pulling out the
brand standard guides that I hadbecause we were still in a
physical world and the GM saw mewalking with them home and he
said, what are you doing?
I said, well, I'm bringing themhome to read them.
He said, Lora, these are brandguides.
These are reference materials.
You don't read them, they're notbooks.
(08:07):
You use them with specific usecases.
That was interesting.
And then, uh, Anotherinteresting experience was when
we had to open up the, the firsttwo Shell stations in the
capital of Bulgaria.
At that point, I wanted to closethe main street, and I went to
the GM and I said, this is whowe need to bribe.
This is who we need to pay off.
As he was writing down, helooked at me without any
judgment and said, Lora, wedon't bribe at Shell and he
(08:30):
continued writing.
I said, oh my God, that's whatyou mean by value system.
I get it now.
It clicked.
That was the, uh, a funnyexperience.
At that point you sort of thinkabout what's next.
A really good friend of mine whowe continue to work together,
he's one of my creator directorsbased in the Middle East.
He gave me this booklet andsaid, hey, Emerson College.
Maybe you're interested in kindof applying for a Master's?
(08:51):
That's all I did.
I didn't apply to any otherschools.
I got a scholarship, came overhere.
The rest is history.
Russel (08:56):
Where is Emerson College, by the way?
Where is that?
Lora (08:58):
It's in Boston.
Russel (08:59):
Oh, that is in Boston.
Okay.
Lora (09:01):
That was good 25 years ago or so.
Then decided to, uh, staypermanently here.
It was hard to stay in the US.
Applied for immigration, gotaccepted, um, into Canada.
Moved to Toronto, which was anamazing experience there.
Spent, uh, about 10 years.
Worked for American Expressthere, which was amazing
experience.
Again, traveled back and forth'cause uh, this is how I joined
(09:22):
one of the startups in Boston,then another one, and that's
what brought me back here.
Russel (09:26):
Okay.
You've been around the world atime or two, it sounds like.
A few stamps on your passport.
Lora (09:30):
A little bit.
Russel (09:31):
Very cool.
All right, so, so we, we went alittle bit, uh, around the world
to get to, uh, chronologicallyanyway, to get, to get to where
we're at.
So you started the business.
What were the early days like?
What was going through yourhead?
Was it just all energy or anyfears you were going through, or
was there even time for that?
Lora (09:47):
I think that, of course, as you start a business, first
of all there's always like, uh,a level of anxiety.
Would I make it, would there beenough?
as you're servicing clients, youdon't necessarily have enough
time to think about your newbusiness activity.
So it's a, It's a difficultendeavor.
Simon Sinek in his book, um, WhyStart With Why?
He's talking about the, a schoolbus, bus test.
(10:07):
If you get run by a school bus,would your business continue?
So For a long time that wasn'tthe case.
Everything depended on me.
Thankfully today we're in acompletely different boat, but
it took a while for even me, um,to figure out that that's, um,
the right thing to do.
I guess, to a certain point Iwas lucky because I was at the
right time, at the right place.
VMware and EMC actually was, um,Boston based as well.
(10:30):
Had a few friends there, gotintroduced and started working
on the social media side ofthings with EMC and VMware and
we became a global agency ofrecord for their partnerships
then for their telco division.
I was just lucky to be in theright place in the right time, I
guess, and having the righttool.
Russel (10:46):
Not any different than one of the questions I ask
towards the end of, ofentrepreneurs born or made,
which you'll, you'll get yourchance at.
But, um, it's, uh, this podcast,how I Built This with Guy Roz,
he says, is it luck or is itskill?
It seems like everyone I stilltalk to, regardless of the size
of the business you built.
Lora (11:01):
It's a combination.
Russel (11:02):
Yeah, it's a, and certainly the case in my own
story.
You talked about something thatis really important and I think
maybe, maybe one of the moresignificant challenges I think
in running and growing an agencyis, is that school bus factor of
how do you not be the be andall, be all and end all of the
business.
Is there a particular wake upcall that you came to realize
(11:22):
that, or, and then I'd love tokind of even just explore the
process that you went throughto, to get on the other side of
that.
Lora (11:28):
Great question.
I wish I had the bookMultipliers when I started out
because I think then it, a lotof things would've come
naturally to me.
I think that initially themistake or, uh, the over
indexing that I made was I wasmaniacally focused of making
sure that the clients werehappy, that we were doing the
right thing.
So much so that I almost ignoredwhat was happening on the team
(11:48):
site.
Luckily, I don't know that Inecessarily had the wherewithal
to attract the right people, butthey, they found me interesting
and persevered with my, youknow, sort of, uh, to this day
we joke that, you know, it's notyour kind of quality of stuff,
Lora, but it's okay, you know,um, because I, again, I, I just
over index on making sure we dothe right thing.
(12:09):
And if it's not the right thing,we, we would revisit it until we
get the right thing.
I don't care how much moneypeople paid for something.
At some point you realize thatthere's plenty of other smart
people out there and, um, yougive them a chance and then you
see that, um, they actuallyflourish and they become great
leaders and you learn from them.
I guess The moment you realizethat that's the case, that's
when you go, I can breatheeasier and it's actually a lot
(12:33):
more fun when you find yourselfin that kind of a situation with
peers who you respect and youlearn from.
Russel (12:38):
Yeah.
And that can be, you know, I, Ithink the reason why it is hard
is because, you know, so manyagencies are where they are, and
the success are driven bysomeone that's very ambitious
and capable and talented.
When you think about how you hadto adapt yourself, I mean, is
there any like specific hackthat you know, that you did to
just better empower your teamand better let them take hold?
Lora (12:58):
Yes.
Highly recommend, uh, that folksspend time looking at
positioning, um, and especiallyApril Dunford.
In her books, there are two.
One is Getting, um, uh, Awesome.
And the other one is the salesbook.
I don't remember the names ofboth, but I, those, those are
must reads.
You need to understand thebusiness aspects of what we do.
(13:19):
You need to understand, um, orcompanies, whether they're part
of a super noisy marketplace,whether they're starting
something new, um, who thecompetitors are, who are the,
the major ones, um, out therethat are setting the pace.
If you don't have thatframework, you can easily get
lost in, in the shuffle.
I think having that frameworkhas helped me build on, um, my
(13:40):
industry knowledge, um,technical knowledge, what have
you.
But I think that that is thehack, at least if you wanna run
an integrated agency, you needto know positioning inside out.
Russel (13:49):
It's certainly the talk of the town.
I think agencies are moving inthe direction to start to
understand that.
As kind of the industry anddigital, digital marketing, et
cetera has evolved.
Lora (13:58):
Is that what you're hearing?
Russel (13:59):
Oh, yes.
Oh yeah, definitely.
You're seeing that focus in alot of ways.
I always kind of equate it thatanybody that gets on the other
side of better positioning forthemselves, nobody goes back to
more generic or broad orgeneral.
They live in their position.
But it's always interesting Idon't hear too many agencies
that start out really wellpositioned.
Even if they might, and I don'tknow.
I'm almost curious to startdoing a study on this of, is
that a natural order of thingsthat we just have to figure this
(14:21):
out and that's part of theprocess, or could we start
better positions and, and be allthe better off at?
I don't know what your take ison that.
Lora (14:29):
I mean, I think it's a natural consequence, especially
if you're starting out, uh, youusually don't know who you are.
It's like with our kids, right?
When they're born, they don'tknow who they are and they form
themselves as they go.
I think naturally, that's partof it, finding your own calling.
The reason why, you know, it's,it's difficult to be integrated
because this is one of the,again, again, I was lucky.
(14:49):
When I moved to Canada and Iworked for American Express, our
team was much flatter than whatwas happening in the US.
If you go to New York, people,uh, there were like 10 people
doing my job in New York.
You could only see a sliver ofthe action, and that's how
people grew up through theranks.
So for you to have this bird'seye view on a business, which I
had at Shell, mind you, I didn'tknow what I was doing, but I
kind of peaked at all of it andI was like, oh, okay, okay.
(15:12):
Let me go learn all of that, uh,is really hard.
And then the challenge of build,building integrated is, you
know, from the ground up is youdo need experts in some of the
core areas of marketing.
You need people who understandthe role of public relations and
credibility and corporatecommunications, right?
That sort of function, brandbuilding, which is not
necessarily corporate comms,it's a little bit different
(15:33):
depending on the role.
Demand gen is different.
Field marketing is different.
Sales enablement is different.
You need to find the rightpeople who are willing to, to
look at the other areas.
It's not an easy thing to do.
It's not.
Russel (15:44):
That's a good reminder.
It's not an easy thing to do.
That's why I think I do haveconversations about the idea of
positioning, just to say, it's ajourney, not a destination.
And every day you can just get alittle bit better, a little bit
closer to refining what that is.
I know, um, from a previousconversation that you have, do
that all day, every day for, foryour clients and whatnot, it
sounds like, but maybe notalways the best at doing it for
(16:07):
yourself, but you're, you'reworking on that, I, as I
understand it, and, and tryingto eat your own medicine maybe
more and more these days.
Lora (16:13):
Yes.
It's true.
Well, first of all, when I wastrying to define my brand, um,
when I got a little bit moreserious about it, I didn't do it
myself.
I found people who I trusted todo it.
When you're internal, you're tooclose to it.
You just can't see it wellenough.
I highly recommend that ifyou're doing it, just find a
peer who you trust who can helpyou through the process and be
open to the feedback.
(16:34):
When you have a bigger team, notthat we're that big, we're just
over 40 people, but you do get alot of perspectives.
That's another thing to sort of,when you start forming things,
and then we went out and wetalked to people as well and
said, given the, the nature ofwhat's happening, which is
complete whack-a-mole thesedays, what would you rec and how
do you see us?
We got that perspective and wewere able to kind of open up and
(16:56):
not be precious about any of thestuff that we do.
'Cause to this day, it's hardfor me to say, oh, we don't do
that.
Or we don't do that well.
Not because I'm trying to getevery piece of business.
It's because I see how this canfit into an overall program.
That's my bias.
Russel (17:11):
I totally get that.
Just because you can doesn'tmean you should.
It's hard to say no toopportunity sometimes, but we
build that discipline over time.
That's a really compelling thingthat you shared of just this
idea of out, something that youdo all the time, but still
outsourcing it.
Imagine, right.
I'm sitting here thinking, well,we built websites and we
would've never reallyconsidered, I mean, we talked
(17:31):
about it, but we, I knew wenever would've gonna do
something like that, likeoutsource our website.
In hindsight, I, I kind of agreewith you.
You're just too in it.
Lora (17:39):
Well, not the technical aspect of it, right?
Because the technical aspect, ifyou're really good at it, why
outsource?
But the whole kind ofpositioning and how you need to
show up for people and where youfocus, I think an outside
perspective is.
Russel (17:50):
All right.
I like breaking that downfurther.
Get someone to help you out ofyour own kind of blind, take the
blinders off on the strategypiece, but you can still do the
execution at the end of the day.
And if you can't find time to dothe execution, then maybe you,
you got some bigger problems youneed to address in your
business.
All right.
That's some good advice.
I love that.
Where do you think you'veevolved the most, uh, as a
business, um, over, over theyears?
(18:12):
Or is there any kind of like, Imean, obviously we talked about
just kind of this transformationwith the team, but any other big
pivotal moments that you feellike really defined where you're
at today?
Lora (18:21):
As an agency, we were in a B2B Tech agency when we started,
so learning the technicalaspects in deep tech, right?
Understanding infrastructurecloud, networking, telecoms.
It's not something that comeseasy or natural to people, so we
had to learn it.
I think the moment we realizedthat we need to invest in it and
having the patience to do so andkind of embrace a product
(18:41):
marketing function was the otherthing.
How would a product marketerthink about that?
Is always kind of after thepositioning is the next thing.
Those were super important.
Staying nimble and kind ofadapting to what's happening.
Um, you know, It's interesting,even to this day, if you look at
the AI tech that's out there,you would question whether
there's a future for design,there's a future for content.
(19:02):
I do believe that there is.
AI is going to continue toaugment, but there's absolutely
no substitute for this key humaninsight that we have and empathy
that we have, and if you reallyknow something well, um, and you
can connect it and connect allthe dots.
I'm yet to see AI do this, um,in these kinds of situations.
That was the other point ofseeing ChatGPT and, and kind of
(19:22):
embracing and saying toeveryone, just use it.
Let's just incorporate it.
Let's not just be afraid of it.
And sometimes, you know, um,criticize your own work, upload
it to ChatGPT and say, if I wereX, Y, Z and needed to critique
it, where, where the, um, the,the soft spots?
That was the, the next pivot ofthe moment, but I think the tech
aspect and the product marketingaspect was a huge pivotal
moment, maybe 12 years ago, thathelped us kind of double down
(19:46):
into deep tech.
That's what we do.
Russel (19:48):
Okay.
I love that aspect of, you know,really just getting, getting
your fingers and hands dirty inyour industry and I guess really
become, not just the subjectmatter expert of your service,
but subject matter expert ofthat industry, it sounds like.
Lora (20:02):
You absolutely have to meet.
You can't do it otherwise.
Sometimes people would say insecurity, you can learn it.
Well, good luck.
Maybe you can.
But, uh, it's a, it's such anevolving and such a complicated
field, and it's a, it has acompletely different beat than
DevOps, than IT, than datascience.
You just can't just, you know,make the jump and say, I'm good
at it.
You have to be seeped in it.
Russel (20:22):
Can't fake it.
What did that process look likefor you?
Did you go shadow people in thefield for a day?
How did you take on thatlearning curve?
Lora (20:28):
All of the above.
But I think the most importantthing is first you need to do
your homework and then you needto talk to the experts and get
their take on it.
'Cause they will take you frompoint A to point C a lot faster,
but you have to do the hustleand not expect that someone's
gonna pour the knowledge.
The same thing with AI, but Ithink talking to the people who
know what's going on in thoseplaces, super key.
Russel (20:48):
Yeah.
I'm a big fan and, and pushing alot of the folks that I work
with today to go get thatprimary data.
Let's not make any assumptionsabout any past that we're
thinking about going down.
Go to the sources, get theprimary data, ask'em what they
want, ask'em what they feel, ask'em a whole lot of other things
along the way.
As you kind of said that, I can,you need the expertise first,
the kind of the initial researchso you can ask the good
(21:10):
questions, but then they can,that can carry you from point A
to point C so much faster.
I love the way you put that.
Lora (21:15):
And then talk to the customers, right?
Whoever your customer is, like,you have to understand their,
their worldview.
Don't ever assume that you knowit all.
As soon as you think that yougot it, that's where you become
obsolete.
Always have like, at the back ofmy mind, I always can learn here
and have an open mind.
Russel (21:31):
I thought you did know it all, Lora?
Lora (21:32):
Still learning.
Listen, lifelong learner, thefirst one to, to admit it.
Russel (21:36):
Yeah.
I think in this space, if you'renot, you're, you're, you're
going, you're just not gonnamake it, I think at this point.
The way I feel it, especially AIis only accelerating this, that
every day that goes by, thisgets noisier, more complicated,
more complex, um, all and, andadd people to that mix, uh, that
are equally kind of be befuddledand trying to keep up with it
(21:57):
all in.
We've just got a reallycomplicated concoction here.
Um, well, tell us like, What'sthe future look like?
What are you thinking for thelong term for Scratch?
Lora (22:05):
I think that the long term is doubling down on what the,
our space, which is again, I'm,I'm glad that we're in deep tech
'cause it's less affected thanother, than other sectors.
I'm more interested in, uh,climate tech and we're investing
in this, even though it'sdifficult times because it's not
getting as much funding.
We have doubled down on it andcontinue to do that on the good
(22:25):
side of tech and, you know, um,we'll just be there to support
people as much as we can.
and then the Industrial space issuper interesting for us, and
then I don't think we're gonnaever be a big, big agency, but
um, we're just stocked as a teamand we said, uh, we want a
hundred percent team retentionbecause if we don't want them,
and then why have people workwith you?
We just wanna make itmeaningful.
The same thing, where we cancontrol it, a hundred percent
(22:47):
client retention.
I guess going back to basics andjust running a good, solid
business.
Russel (22:52):
Anywhere you go in life, I feel like it, you can just
always, if you just go back tobasics, you're probably not on
the wrong path.
If you just focus on thefundamentals.
Life lesson.
Lora (23:00):
It's really great to hear that you say that.
It's soothing.
Russel (23:04):
It continues to just ring too true.
You can apply that to sports.
You can apply that seems like toanything.
you know, It's interesting, I,I, I've kind of, it's come upon
this thought of, you know, abusiness is like, every single
day it exists, naturally getsmore complicated.
No different than as a treegrows, branches go different
directions and, um, thingshappen on that tree.
We have to trim it downconstantly and, and focus on the
(23:24):
basics and the fundamentals.
Otherwise we'll get a big,gnarly, um, bush that I probably
got one out here in front of myhouse.
Lora (23:30):
You need to leave some of the branches to grow as well,
right?
It's a little bit of a balance.
Russel (23:35):
Yes, yes, yes.
You can't trim it to nothing.
You can't lop off the top, uh,and expect it to grow, but, um,
it, it grows, it grows betterand prettier if we, if we trim
it in the right way.
Lora (23:46):
If we take the right care of it, right?
Russel (23:48):
Yes.
We need to bring a, we need tobring a gardener in here for
some subject matter expertise tohelp us align this from a, a
business analogy, uh,perspective.
Lora (23:56):
Exactly.
Russel (23:57):
Something, you know, you kind of mentioned there, just
kind of looking at the futurethat was curious about, as you
said, focus on climate tech, isthat just something you're
passionate about?
Is that what you see as a longterm opportunity?
Lora (24:07):
The entire team is super passionate about.
If you think about like, um,eventually tech gets to a point
where doing the right thing isthe easiest thing to do.
Hopefully we can get to the samepoint with climate tech, where
you don't have to think aboutthe fact that it's climate tech,
that it's doing great for theenvironment.
I think we're gonna get there.
We'll have to get there.
That's something that the entireteam is passionate about.
(24:28):
We've done, uh, a lot of non,uh, profit work as well, uh,
supporting different causes onthat side.
I think we'll continue to dothat.
Russel (24:36):
Just for the, the folks including myself, uh, at home,
that maybe don't even understandwhat climate tech is, what
consists of climate tech?
Lora (24:42):
It's a growing, uh, uh, set of technologies, but I'll
give you one example.
ChatGPT, some of these largelanguage models need a lot of
compute power in order to trainthe models and then to use the
models.
You can even see like OpenAIchanging their subscription
levels because they figure outthat even the 200 a month is not
enough and they're gonna charge2000, 12,000 for their GenAI
(25:03):
options.
That's because there's a lot ofcompute.
That means that there's a lot ofbig servers that, these graphic
processing units from Nvidiamostly, but more and more from
AMD and Intel and othercompanies.
These chips need to be cooledand the way we've cooled the
chips, so far, is with air andwater.
Guess what?
That's a precious resource thatis impacting the environment,
right?
(25:23):
And now there's newertechnologies like liquid cooling
technologies that actually cancool these, um, these servers
in, in a perpetual motionwithout ever involving air and
water.
So Imagine, it's aself-containing mechanism
without impacting theenvironment.
You can even take it to thelevel where it starts producing
electricity that it needs sothat there's less electrical
(25:44):
footprint.
That's a good example of climatetech and, um, an area where
we're working.
Russel (25:49):
Very cool.
I mean that, I felt like I justparticipated in a mini moment of
Mr.
Rogers show where, I dunno ifyou ever watched Mr.
Rogers by chance in the daywhere, where he would go to, uh,
a, a crayon making factory orsomething like that and just
tell you how it worked.
Now I feel like you just didthat for everyone about, uh, a
little piece of climate tech.
We learned more than just agencystuff today.
(26:09):
I guess I'll just leave you withone other last big question,
Lora.
Are entrepreneurs born or arethey made?
Lora (26:14):
I think both.
You have to be born with a bug,um, but the bug is not enough to
become an entrepreneur.
You have to work at it, but ifyou didn't have it in you, you
probably shouldn't try it.
Russel (26:23):
Okay.
All right.
Most likely born, but you gottabe made.
Lora (26:26):
Yes, both.
I stand by both.
It's a compound answer, butit's, I, I believe it.
Russel (26:31):
You know, it's so funny that everybody feels like it's
cop out, but I actually, youknow, one, there's no right or
wrong answer by any means, but,um, it, it's probably like all
things that, that answer, focuson the basics and the answer is
usually somewhere in the middle.
If people want to know moreabout Scratch, where can they
go?
Lora (26:45):
They can find me online.
I have this, uh, unique lastname, um, Kratchounova, but the,
the first name is Lora.
That's the easiest way to findme on LinkedIn.
Feel free to connect with me oron our website, which is
www.scratch mm.com.
Russel (27:02):
Beautiful.
Awesome.
Thank you so much for taking thetime outta your day, Lora, for
sharing so many wonderfuldetails about the power of
positioning, uh, the power ofprimary data and doing market
research, and even sharing us alittle bit about what's going on
in the world of climate tech.
Really appreciate you taking thetime to share that with us
today.
Lora (27:19):
It was great to be here.
Thank you, Russel.
Russel (27:22):
Thank you for listening to An Agency Story podcast where
every story helps you write yourown, subscribe, share, and join
us again for more real stories,lessons learned, and
breakthroughs ahead.
What's next?
You'll want to visit anagencystory.com/podcast and
follow us on Instagram at@anagencystory for the latest
updates.
Lora (27:45):
Each year we, we, especially since COVID,'cause
first we were obviously inoffice and then we went all
virtual and then we tried to gettogether multiple times a year
to make sure that we're spendingtime together.
One of our summer, um, outingswas on a private island in
Connecticut.
We rented it for two days and wehad it to ourself.
Russel (28:03):
Okay.
What occurred?
What did you do on this privateisland for two days?
Lora (28:06):
That shall remain, uh, confidential.
No, but we had fun'cause it wason the lake so we could, you
know, obviously jump in thelake, swim and then you can do
all sorts of things on, on theisland as well.
It wasn't a huge island, but,um, it was fun.
Russel (28:22):
This is my first top secret story.
So intriguing.
Gosh, leave it on a cliffhangerhere.
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where owners and
experts share the real journey,the early struggles, the
breakthrough moments, andeverything in between.
I'm your host Russel Dubree,former eight figure agency owner
turned business coach, sold myagency and now helps agency
leaders create their idealbusiness.
Every agency has a story, andthis is your front row seat.
(00:23):
This is an agency story.
Today's guest built her agencyout of pure curiosity and a
drive to solve problemsdifferently.
Lora Kratchounova went fromleading marketing at a tech
startup to transforming howcompanies position themselves in
the market.
Nearly 17 years later, as theleader of Scratch Marketing and
(00:43):
media, she's still just aspassionate about her work and
the clients she serves.
Welcome to the show today, Lora.
Lora (00:49):
Great to be here.
Russel (00:50):
We were talking about travel before we hit the record
button.
Any cool places you're goingthis year?
Lora (00:55):
Yes.
I'm going to Paris.
It was kind of a triple reason,I wanted to take my mom there,
my birthday's in April and thenmy son, son turned 21.
Made it for good reason to goto, to go to Paris.
And then, uh, we're spending amonth in Valencia as well.
Russel (01:09):
Oh my.
Okay.
You got some good plans comingup.
I'm assuming you've been toParis before?
Lora (01:14):
Yes.
I love that city.
Russel (01:15):
What's your favorite thing to do in Paris?
Lora (01:17):
Just sit in a cafe and just watch people.
It's okay to stare so that's thebest part.
Russel (01:22):
Yes.
I will say, usually when wetravel overseas, I mean, it's
just sun up to sundown.
We're just trying to fiteverything in.
But Paris was the one time wewent, we kind of got to the end
of the week and we had seen itall, and so then we just got to
do that.
And, uh, I have to agree.
I think it's a, it's a fun partof Paris.
Lora (01:38):
It's a great city to walk around, to have a bite, to have
a drink, to go into museums, soit's great.
Yeah, I can't wait.
Russel (01:44):
Awesome, well, excited for you.
And I'm an April birthday aswell, so, uh, it sounds like
we're both Aries here.
Lora (01:49):
Oh, twinsies.
Russel (01:50):
Yes.
Twinsies.
Look forward to that for you.
If you don't mind, tell us whatScratch Media does and who you
do it for.
Lora (01:56):
We are an integrated B2B technology agency that offers
all of the services that anoutsourced marketing department
would offer to companies.
The idea started with 17 yearsago, and to this day, I joke
with my former CEO that he droveme to open up Scratch.
I was the head of marketing fora local startup.
It was fun until it wasn't funanymore.
(02:17):
That kind of pushed me to lookinto the market and see what I
can do next.
I didn't have a, um, a masterplan in mind.
Um, and What I figured is that alot of agencies at the time were
really good at one particularthing.
If you go to an SEO agency,they're really good at SEO.
Therefore, every problem theysee is through the lens of SEO.
PR, you know, sales enablement,you name it.
the idea was, hmm, what if wejust look at a company and say,
(02:40):
what, what are the opportunitiesahead of this company?
What are some of the challengesthat we can overcome?
What if we flexed all of themarketing tools in the tool set
to do that?
Russel (02:48):
And here you are, 17 years later.
Awesome.
I'm curious, you mentioned thatyou had your origins or someone
inspired you, it sounds like,maybe, uh, in an interesting
way, uh, to start the agency.
But now just maybe questionslike, who have I, who have I
inadvertently inspired to starta business because of something?
I don't know.
Now I got a question.
I gotta know the answer to this.
Lora (03:05):
I have so many inspirations.
I actually joke about havingprofessional crushes on people
all the time.
I'm so thankful for multiplepeople in my career.
I'm a Bulgarian turned Canadian,um, turned American.
I wanna stay with a Canadianstreak right now.
Russel (03:21):
That's fair.
Lora (03:21):
I started my career at Shale Oil, so my first general
manager was an UK generalmanager, and he taught me a lot.
Actually, he was the first onewho, you know, put a stack of
paper, uh, on my desk and said,okay, this, we need to do the
business plan for next year.
You have five days to figurethis out.
I said, the stack of paper I'msupposed to read in five days
and come up with a plan for nextyear?
(03:43):
I can't even read that fast.
I tried.
I kind of, you know, struggledwith, with it.
We got together and he had halfa page filled out and it had
everything that we needed tothink about for next year.
I said, I don't know what thatis, but that's what I wanna do
one day.
That was the first kind of biginspo and then multiple people
throughout.
Russel (04:00):
I love what you said, professional crush.
Who's your number oneprofessional crush right now?
Lora (04:03):
I have so many.
I don't even know where to startto be honest.
My latest one is, uh, LizWiseman.
I love Simon Sinek.
Uh, but Liz Wiseman, um, I don'tknow if you've come across the
book Multipliers?
Russel (04:15):
Mm-hmm.
Oh yes.
I love that book.
Lora (04:17):
Right?
Love that book.
I figured that a lot of timesI'm an accidental diminisher, so
just even having the awarenessand working through that has
been an interesting challengefor me.
Russel (04:26):
Yeah.
And for the folks at home thatare, you explain for the folks
at home the quick premise ofMultipliers.
How about that?
Lora (04:31):
The quick premise of Multipliers is that as leaders,
uh, there are two types ofleaders.
Leaders that empower otherpeople to do their best, and
leaders that take away from thesuperpowers of people, whether
they mean it or not, some peoplemean it, some, some people are
accidental diminishers.
I highly recommend that becauseyou, all of us have tendencies,
uh, around accidental,diminishing, um, and it's a
(04:52):
great thing for you to look atif you wanna build a great team
and a great following.
This book is an absolute must.
Russel (04:57):
That's a great recommendation Great book, and
not to say it's not popular, butyou don't hear it talked about a
lot in business circles.
I think that's a greatrecommendation and just really
it speaks to, especially of ateam of any decent size, you,
you have to empower, um, and,and to be, and to be aware of
when you're empowering and whenyou're deep powering or
diminishing, I think is how, howyou worded it.
(05:18):
Awesome.
Tell us what really got you thepoint to just say, you know
what, I'm going to, I'm gonnastart an agency.
Lora (05:24):
I think it happened naturally after maybe having two
or three people join me and thenI realized that I'm actually
running a small agency.
But it wasn't, I didn't have abusiness plan in mind.
You know, It was interestingbecause, having been in the role
of head of marketing, what youdo usually, and I completely
sympathize with all the otherVPs and CMOs of marketing out
(05:44):
there, your head's down kind ofon the business, working on it,
making sure that, you know, youdo your job and, um, you don't
have a lot of time to, uh, tosocialize, to network, to go out
there to really, um, make ameaningful contribution in the
community.
I think that the firstrevelation was I just wanted to
be more engaged, and this iswhen I even started mentoring
(06:05):
with Techstars and, um, IntelIgnite, Layron and, um,
Cambridge Innovation Center inthe Bulgarian Innovation Hub,
which is, uh, on the West Coast.
That's kind of how I started.
Then I realized that there wasstill a need for this kind of
integrated function.
Someone who can come in and,really a team who can come in
and quickly figure out what theopportunities are, how to
(06:27):
reposition, position a company,how to maximize the resources,
um, and the market opportunity.
That's kind of how we keptgoing, um, and we kept adding
functions.
For example, I was new to PRwhen I started Scratch.
I mean, I'd only had managed PRagencies, and lo and behold, you
know, I think that I canconsider myself a PR pro these
days, so there you go.
Russel (06:48):
I'd hope so, yeah.
It's funny how you started theconversation and said you didn't
have a business plan.
I'm still looking for the firstagency owner that started their
agency with a business plan.
So if you find them, um, let meknow and then I can have them on
the show.
Lora (07:00):
And vice versa, please.
I wanna meet those people whohad this amazing vision.
Russel (07:04):
I don't think it happens very often, to be honest.
Certainly some people go aboutit more, more intentionally,
but, uh, I don't know still howmany ends up with a business
plan.
I feel like my listeners wouldbe really mad that, I can't
believe we didn't go to thiswell, but, but you said
Bulgarian to Canadian to theUnited States.
Share a little bit about thatjourney because that is unique
unto itself.
Lora (07:23):
Ooh.
I love to tell the story.
My first job was at Shale Oil inBulgaria, so I went to the first
American University that openedup in Eastern Europe.
George Sos funded thatuniversity.
As you can imagine, after thecommunist regime fell down,
there weren't a lot ofmarketers.
Not like today.
There's a ton of marketers whereI am.
Back in Bulgaria that wasn't thecase.
I did get the job of marketingdirector of Shale Oil at the
(07:46):
fragile age of 21, and Iliterally had no idea what I was
doing, to the point where, atone point, I was pulling out the
brand standard guides that I hadbecause we were still in a
physical world and the GM saw mewalking with them home and he
said, what are you doing?
I said, well, I'm bringing themhome to read them.
He said, Lora, these are brandguides.
These are reference materials.
You don't read them, they're notbooks.
(08:07):
You use them with specific usecases.
That was interesting.
And then, uh, Anotherinteresting experience was when
we had to open up the, the firsttwo Shell stations in the
capital of Bulgaria.
At that point, I wanted to closethe main street, and I went to
the GM and I said, this is whowe need to bribe.
This is who we need to pay off.
As he was writing down, helooked at me without any
judgment and said, Lora, wedon't bribe at Shell and he
(08:30):
continued writing.
I said, oh my God, that's whatyou mean by value system.
I get it now.
It clicked.
That was the, uh, a funnyexperience.
At that point you sort of thinkabout what's next.
A really good friend of mine whowe continue to work together,
he's one of my creator directorsbased in the Middle East.
He gave me this booklet andsaid, hey, Emerson College.
Maybe you're interested in kindof applying for a Master's?
(08:51):
That's all I did.
I didn't apply to any otherschools.
I got a scholarship, came overhere.
The rest is history.
Russel (08:56):
Where is Emerson College, by the way?
Where is that?
Lora (08:58):
It's in Boston.
Russel (08:59):
Oh, that is in Boston.
Okay.
Lora (09:01):
That was good 25 years ago or so.
Then decided to, uh, staypermanently here.
It was hard to stay in the US.
Applied for immigration, gotaccepted, um, into Canada.
Moved to Toronto, which was anamazing experience there.
Spent, uh, about 10 years.
Worked for American Expressthere, which was amazing
experience.
Again, traveled back and forth'cause uh, this is how I joined
(09:22):
one of the startups in Boston,then another one, and that's
what brought me back here.
Russel (09:26):
Okay.
You've been around the world atime or two, it sounds like.
A few stamps on your passport.
Lora (09:30):
A little bit.
Russel (09:31):
Very cool.
All right, so, so we, we went alittle bit, uh, around the world
to get to, uh, chronologicallyanyway, to get, to get to where
we're at.
So you started the business.
What were the early days like?
What was going through yourhead?
Was it just all energy or anyfears you were going through, or
was there even time for that?
Lora (09:47):
I think that, of course, as you start a business, first
of all there's always like, uh,a level of anxiety.
Would I make it, would there beenough?
as you're servicing clients, youdon't necessarily have enough
time to think about your newbusiness activity.
So it's a, It's a difficultendeavor.
Simon Sinek in his book, um, WhyStart With Why?
He's talking about the, a schoolbus, bus test.
(10:07):
If you get run by a school bus,would your business continue?
So For a long time that wasn'tthe case.
Everything depended on me.
Thankfully today we're in acompletely different boat, but
it took a while for even me, um,to figure out that that's, um,
the right thing to do.
I guess, to a certain point Iwas lucky because I was at the
right time, at the right place.
VMware and EMC actually was, um,Boston based as well.
(10:30):
Had a few friends there, gotintroduced and started working
on the social media side ofthings with EMC and VMware and
we became a global agency ofrecord for their partnerships
then for their telco division.
I was just lucky to be in theright place in the right time, I
guess, and having the righttool.
Russel (10:46):
Not any different than one of the questions I ask
towards the end of, ofentrepreneurs born or made,
which you'll, you'll get yourchance at.
But, um, it's, uh, this podcast,how I Built This with Guy Roz,
he says, is it luck or is itskill?
It seems like everyone I stilltalk to, regardless of the size
of the business you built.
Lora (11:01):
It's a combination.
Russel (11:02):
Yeah, it's a, and certainly the case in my own
story.
You talked about something thatis really important and I think
maybe, maybe one of the moresignificant challenges I think
in running and growing an agencyis, is that school bus factor of
how do you not be the be andall, be all and end all of the
business.
Is there a particular wake upcall that you came to realize
(11:22):
that, or, and then I'd love tokind of even just explore the
process that you went throughto, to get on the other side of
that.
Lora (11:28):
Great question.
I wish I had the bookMultipliers when I started out
because I think then it, a lotof things would've come
naturally to me.
I think that initially themistake or, uh, the over
indexing that I made was I wasmaniacally focused of making
sure that the clients werehappy, that we were doing the
right thing.
So much so that I almost ignoredwhat was happening on the team
(11:48):
site.
Luckily, I don't know that Inecessarily had the wherewithal
to attract the right people, butthey, they found me interesting
and persevered with my, youknow, sort of, uh, to this day
we joke that, you know, it's notyour kind of quality of stuff,
Lora, but it's okay, you know,um, because I, again, I, I just
over index on making sure we dothe right thing.
(12:09):
And if it's not the right thing,we, we would revisit it until we
get the right thing.
I don't care how much moneypeople paid for something.
At some point you realize thatthere's plenty of other smart
people out there and, um, yougive them a chance and then you
see that, um, they actuallyflourish and they become great
leaders and you learn from them.
I guess The moment you realizethat that's the case, that's
when you go, I can breatheeasier and it's actually a lot
(12:33):
more fun when you find yourselfin that kind of a situation with
peers who you respect and youlearn from.
Russel (12:38):
Yeah.
And that can be, you know, I, Ithink the reason why it is hard
is because, you know, so manyagencies are where they are, and
the success are driven bysomeone that's very ambitious
and capable and talented.
When you think about how you hadto adapt yourself, I mean, is
there any like specific hackthat you know, that you did to
just better empower your teamand better let them take hold?
Lora (12:58):
Yes.
Highly recommend, uh, that folksspend time looking at
positioning, um, and especiallyApril Dunford.
In her books, there are two.
One is Getting, um, uh, Awesome.
And the other one is the salesbook.
I don't remember the names ofboth, but I, those, those are
must reads.
You need to understand thebusiness aspects of what we do.
(13:19):
You need to understand, um, orcompanies, whether they're part
of a super noisy marketplace,whether they're starting
something new, um, who thecompetitors are, who are the,
the major ones, um, out therethat are setting the pace.
If you don't have thatframework, you can easily get
lost in, in the shuffle.
I think having that frameworkhas helped me build on, um, my
(13:40):
industry knowledge, um,technical knowledge, what have
you.
But I think that that is thehack, at least if you wanna run
an integrated agency, you needto know positioning inside out.
Russel (13:49):
It's certainly the talk of the town.
I think agencies are moving inthe direction to start to
understand that.
As kind of the industry anddigital, digital marketing, et
cetera has evolved.
Lora (13:58):
Is that what you're hearing?
Russel (13:59):
Oh, yes.
Oh yeah, definitely.
You're seeing that focus in alot of ways.
I always kind of equate it thatanybody that gets on the other
side of better positioning forthemselves, nobody goes back to
more generic or broad orgeneral.
They live in their position.
But it's always interesting Idon't hear too many agencies
that start out really wellpositioned.
Even if they might, and I don'tknow.
I'm almost curious to startdoing a study on this of, is
that a natural order of thingsthat we just have to figure this
(14:21):
out and that's part of theprocess, or could we start
better positions and, and be allthe better off at?
I don't know what your take ison that.
Lora (14:29):
I mean, I think it's a natural consequence, especially
if you're starting out, uh, youusually don't know who you are.
It's like with our kids, right?
When they're born, they don'tknow who they are and they form
themselves as they go.
I think naturally, that's partof it, finding your own calling.
The reason why, you know, it's,it's difficult to be integrated
because this is one of the,again, again, I was lucky.
(14:49):
When I moved to Canada and Iworked for American Express, our
team was much flatter than whatwas happening in the US.
If you go to New York, people,uh, there were like 10 people
doing my job in New York.
You could only see a sliver ofthe action, and that's how
people grew up through theranks.
So for you to have this bird'seye view on a business, which I
had at Shell, mind you, I didn'tknow what I was doing, but I
kind of peaked at all of it andI was like, oh, okay, okay.
(15:12):
Let me go learn all of that, uh,is really hard.
And then the challenge of build,building integrated is, you
know, from the ground up is youdo need experts in some of the
core areas of marketing.
You need people who understandthe role of public relations and
credibility and corporatecommunications, right?
That sort of function, brandbuilding, which is not
necessarily corporate comms,it's a little bit different
(15:33):
depending on the role.
Demand gen is different.
Field marketing is different.
Sales enablement is different.
You need to find the rightpeople who are willing to, to
look at the other areas.
It's not an easy thing to do.
It's not.
Russel (15:44):
That's a good reminder.
It's not an easy thing to do.
That's why I think I do haveconversations about the idea of
positioning, just to say, it's ajourney, not a destination.
And every day you can just get alittle bit better, a little bit
closer to refining what that is.
I know, um, from a previousconversation that you have, do
that all day, every day for, foryour clients and whatnot, it
sounds like, but maybe notalways the best at doing it for
(16:07):
yourself, but you're, you'reworking on that, I, as I
understand it, and, and tryingto eat your own medicine maybe
more and more these days.
Lora (16:13):
Yes.
It's true.
Well, first of all, when I wastrying to define my brand, um,
when I got a little bit moreserious about it, I didn't do it
myself.
I found people who I trusted todo it.
When you're internal, you're tooclose to it.
You just can't see it wellenough.
I highly recommend that ifyou're doing it, just find a
peer who you trust who can helpyou through the process and be
open to the feedback.
(16:34):
When you have a bigger team, notthat we're that big, we're just
over 40 people, but you do get alot of perspectives.
That's another thing to sort of,when you start forming things,
and then we went out and wetalked to people as well and
said, given the, the nature ofwhat's happening, which is
complete whack-a-mole thesedays, what would you rec and how
do you see us?
We got that perspective and wewere able to kind of open up and
(16:56):
not be precious about any of thestuff that we do.
'Cause to this day, it's hardfor me to say, oh, we don't do
that.
Or we don't do that well.
Not because I'm trying to getevery piece of business.
It's because I see how this canfit into an overall program.
That's my bias.
Russel (17:11):
I totally get that.
Just because you can doesn'tmean you should.
It's hard to say no toopportunity sometimes, but we
build that discipline over time.
That's a really compelling thingthat you shared of just this
idea of out, something that youdo all the time, but still
outsourcing it.
Imagine, right.
I'm sitting here thinking, well,we built websites and we
would've never reallyconsidered, I mean, we talked
(17:31):
about it, but we, I knew wenever would've gonna do
something like that, likeoutsource our website.
In hindsight, I, I kind of agreewith you.
You're just too in it.
Lora (17:39):
Well, not the technical aspect of it, right?
Because the technical aspect, ifyou're really good at it, why
outsource?
But the whole kind ofpositioning and how you need to
show up for people and where youfocus, I think an outside
perspective is.
Russel (17:50):
All right.
I like breaking that downfurther.
Get someone to help you out ofyour own kind of blind, take the
blinders off on the strategypiece, but you can still do the
execution at the end of the day.
And if you can't find time to dothe execution, then maybe you,
you got some bigger problems youneed to address in your
business.
All right.
That's some good advice.
I love that.
Where do you think you'veevolved the most, uh, as a
business, um, over, over theyears?
(18:12):
Or is there any kind of like, Imean, obviously we talked about
just kind of this transformationwith the team, but any other big
pivotal moments that you feellike really defined where you're
at today?
Lora (18:21):
As an agency, we were in a B2B Tech agency when we started,
so learning the technicalaspects in deep tech, right?
Understanding infrastructurecloud, networking, telecoms.
It's not something that comeseasy or natural to people, so we
had to learn it.
I think the moment we realizedthat we need to invest in it and
having the patience to do so andkind of embrace a product
(18:41):
marketing function was the otherthing.
How would a product marketerthink about that?
Is always kind of after thepositioning is the next thing.
Those were super important.
Staying nimble and kind ofadapting to what's happening.
Um, you know, It's interesting,even to this day, if you look at
the AI tech that's out there,you would question whether
there's a future for design,there's a future for content.
(19:02):
I do believe that there is.
AI is going to continue toaugment, but there's absolutely
no substitute for this key humaninsight that we have and empathy
that we have, and if you reallyknow something well, um, and you
can connect it and connect allthe dots.
I'm yet to see AI do this, um,in these kinds of situations.
That was the other point ofseeing ChatGPT and, and kind of
(19:22):
embracing and saying toeveryone, just use it.
Let's just incorporate it.
Let's not just be afraid of it.
And sometimes, you know, um,criticize your own work, upload
it to ChatGPT and say, if I wereX, Y, Z and needed to critique
it, where, where the, um, the,the soft spots?
That was the, the next pivot ofthe moment, but I think the tech
aspect and the product marketingaspect was a huge pivotal
moment, maybe 12 years ago, thathelped us kind of double down
(19:46):
into deep tech.
That's what we do.
Russel (19:48):
Okay.
I love that aspect of, you know,really just getting, getting
your fingers and hands dirty inyour industry and I guess really
become, not just the subjectmatter expert of your service,
but subject matter expert ofthat industry, it sounds like.
Lora (20:02):
You absolutely have to meet.
You can't do it otherwise.
Sometimes people would say insecurity, you can learn it.
Well, good luck.
Maybe you can.
But, uh, it's a, it's such anevolving and such a complicated
field, and it's a, it has acompletely different beat than
DevOps, than IT, than datascience.
You just can't just, you know,make the jump and say, I'm good
at it.
You have to be seeped in it.
Russel (20:22):
Can't fake it.
What did that process look likefor you?
Did you go shadow people in thefield for a day?
How did you take on thatlearning curve?
Lora (20:28):
All of the above.
But I think the most importantthing is first you need to do
your homework and then you needto talk to the experts and get
their take on it.
'Cause they will take you frompoint A to point C a lot faster,
but you have to do the hustleand not expect that someone's
gonna pour the knowledge.
The same thing with AI, but Ithink talking to the people who
know what's going on in thoseplaces, super key.
Russel (20:48):
Yeah.
I'm a big fan and, and pushing alot of the folks that I work
with today to go get thatprimary data.
Let's not make any assumptionsabout any past that we're
thinking about going down.
Go to the sources, get theprimary data, ask'em what they
want, ask'em what they feel, ask'em a whole lot of other things
along the way.
As you kind of said that, I can,you need the expertise first,
the kind of the initial researchso you can ask the good
(21:10):
questions, but then they can,that can carry you from point A
to point C so much faster.
I love the way you put that.
Lora (21:15):
And then talk to the customers, right?
Whoever your customer is, like,you have to understand their,
their worldview.
Don't ever assume that you knowit all.
As soon as you think that yougot it, that's where you become
obsolete.
Always have like, at the back ofmy mind, I always can learn here
and have an open mind.
Russel (21:31):
I thought you did know it all, Lora?
Lora (21:32):
Still learning.
Listen, lifelong learner, thefirst one to, to admit it.
Russel (21:36):
Yeah.
I think in this space, if you'renot, you're, you're, you're
going, you're just not gonnamake it, I think at this point.
The way I feel it, especially AIis only accelerating this, that
every day that goes by, thisgets noisier, more complicated,
more complex, um, all and, andadd people to that mix, uh, that
are equally kind of be befuddledand trying to keep up with it
(21:57):
all in.
We've just got a reallycomplicated concoction here.
Um, well, tell us like, What'sthe future look like?
What are you thinking for thelong term for Scratch?
Lora (22:05):
I think that the long term is doubling down on what the,
our space, which is again, I'm,I'm glad that we're in deep tech
'cause it's less affected thanother, than other sectors.
I'm more interested in, uh,climate tech and we're investing
in this, even though it'sdifficult times because it's not
getting as much funding.
We have doubled down on it andcontinue to do that on the good
(22:25):
side of tech and, you know, um,we'll just be there to support
people as much as we can.
and then the Industrial space issuper interesting for us, and
then I don't think we're gonnaever be a big, big agency, but
um, we're just stocked as a teamand we said, uh, we want a
hundred percent team retentionbecause if we don't want them,
and then why have people workwith you?
We just wanna make itmeaningful.
The same thing, where we cancontrol it, a hundred percent
(22:47):
client retention.
I guess going back to basics andjust running a good, solid
business.
Russel (22:52):
Anywhere you go in life, I feel like it, you can just
always, if you just go back tobasics, you're probably not on
the wrong path.
If you just focus on thefundamentals.
Life lesson.
Lora (23:00):
It's really great to hear that you say that.
It's soothing.
Russel (23:04):
It continues to just ring too true.
You can apply that to sports.
You can apply that seems like toanything.
you know, It's interesting, I,I, I've kind of, it's come upon
this thought of, you know, abusiness is like, every single
day it exists, naturally getsmore complicated.
No different than as a treegrows, branches go different
directions and, um, thingshappen on that tree.
We have to trim it downconstantly and, and focus on the
(23:24):
basics and the fundamentals.
Otherwise we'll get a big,gnarly, um, bush that I probably
got one out here in front of myhouse.
Lora (23:30):
You need to leave some of the branches to grow as well,
right?
It's a little bit of a balance.
Russel (23:35):
Yes, yes, yes.
You can't trim it to nothing.
You can't lop off the top, uh,and expect it to grow, but, um,
it, it grows, it grows betterand prettier if we, if we trim
it in the right way.
Lora (23:46):
If we take the right care of it, right?
Russel (23:48):
Yes.
We need to bring a, we need tobring a gardener in here for
some subject matter expertise tohelp us align this from a, a
business analogy, uh,perspective.
Lora (23:56):
Exactly.
Russel (23:57):
Something, you know, you kind of mentioned there, just
kind of looking at the futurethat was curious about, as you
said, focus on climate tech, isthat just something you're
passionate about?
Is that what you see as a longterm opportunity?
Lora (24:07):
The entire team is super passionate about.
If you think about like, um,eventually tech gets to a point
where doing the right thing isthe easiest thing to do.
Hopefully we can get to the samepoint with climate tech, where
you don't have to think aboutthe fact that it's climate tech,
that it's doing great for theenvironment.
I think we're gonna get there.
We'll have to get there.
That's something that the entireteam is passionate about.
(24:28):
We've done, uh, a lot of non,uh, profit work as well, uh,
supporting different causes onthat side.
I think we'll continue to dothat.
Russel (24:36):
Just for the, the folks including myself, uh, at home,
that maybe don't even understandwhat climate tech is, what
consists of climate tech?
Lora (24:42):
It's a growing, uh, uh, set of technologies, but I'll
give you one example.
ChatGPT, some of these largelanguage models need a lot of
compute power in order to trainthe models and then to use the
models.
You can even see like OpenAIchanging their subscription
levels because they figure outthat even the 200 a month is not
enough and they're gonna charge2000, 12,000 for their GenAI
(25:03):
options.
That's because there's a lot ofcompute.
That means that there's a lot ofbig servers that, these graphic
processing units from Nvidiamostly, but more and more from
AMD and Intel and othercompanies.
These chips need to be cooledand the way we've cooled the
chips, so far, is with air andwater.
Guess what?
That's a precious resource thatis impacting the environment,
right?
(25:23):
And now there's newertechnologies like liquid cooling
technologies that actually cancool these, um, these servers
in, in a perpetual motionwithout ever involving air and
water.
So Imagine, it's aself-containing mechanism
without impacting theenvironment.
You can even take it to thelevel where it starts producing
electricity that it needs sothat there's less electrical
(25:44):
footprint.
That's a good example of climatetech and, um, an area where
we're working.
Russel (25:49):
Very cool.
I mean that, I felt like I justparticipated in a mini moment of
Mr.
Rogers show where, I dunno ifyou ever watched Mr.
Rogers by chance in the daywhere, where he would go to, uh,
a, a crayon making factory orsomething like that and just
tell you how it worked.
Now I feel like you just didthat for everyone about, uh, a
little piece of climate tech.
We learned more than just agencystuff today.
(26:09):
I guess I'll just leave you withone other last big question,
Lora.
Are entrepreneurs born or arethey made?
Lora (26:14):
I think both.
You have to be born with a bug,um, but the bug is not enough to
become an entrepreneur.
You have to work at it, but ifyou didn't have it in you, you
probably shouldn't try it.
Russel (26:23):
Okay.
All right.
Most likely born, but you gottabe made.
Lora (26:26):
Yes, both.
I stand by both.
It's a compound answer, butit's, I, I believe it.
Russel (26:31):
You know, it's so funny that everybody feels like it's
cop out, but I actually, youknow, one, there's no right or
wrong answer by any means, but,um, it, it's probably like all
things that, that answer, focuson the basics and the answer is
usually somewhere in the middle.
If people want to know moreabout Scratch, where can they
go?
Lora (26:45):
They can find me online.
I have this, uh, unique lastname, um, Kratchounova, but the,
the first name is Lora.
That's the easiest way to findme on LinkedIn.
Feel free to connect with me oron our website, which is
www.scratch mm.com.
Russel (27:02):
Beautiful.
Awesome.
Thank you so much for taking thetime outta your day, Lora, for
sharing so many wonderfuldetails about the power of
positioning, uh, the power ofprimary data and doing market
research, and even sharing us alittle bit about what's going on
in the world of climate tech.
Really appreciate you taking thetime to share that with us
today.
Lora (27:19):
It was great to be here.
Thank you, Russel.
Russel (27:22):
Thank you for listening to An Agency Story podcast where
every story helps you write yourown, subscribe, share, and join
us again for more real stories,lessons learned, and
breakthroughs ahead.
What's next?
You'll want to visit anagencystory.com/podcast and
follow us on Instagram at@anagencystory for the latest
updates.
Lora (27:45):
Each year we, we, especially since COVID,'cause
first we were obviously inoffice and then we went all
virtual and then we tried to gettogether multiple times a year
to make sure that we're spendingtime together.
One of our summer, um, outingswas on a private island in
Connecticut.
We rented it for two days and wehad it to ourself.
Russel (28:03):
Okay.
What occurred?
What did you do on this privateisland for two days?
Lora (28:06):
That shall remain, uh, confidential.
No, but we had fun'cause it wason the lake so we could, you
know, obviously jump in thelake, swim and then you can do
all sorts of things on, on theisland as well.
It wasn't a huge island, but,um, it was fun.
Russel (28:22):
This is my first top secret story.
So intriguing.
Gosh, leave it on a cliffhangerhere.
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