New series: How to build an agency | Life on Mars

We’re launching a new Life on Mars series: How to Build an Agency, a practical, transparent guide for freelancers, micro-agencies, and growing studios. We’ll cover everything from picking a name and services, getting your first client, contracts and NDAs, and building a portfolio, to harder topics like crisis management, pricing, hiring and firing, founder dynamics, and keeping long-tenured teams motivated. Episodes will mix solo deep dives, voices from the MarsBased team, expert guests, and community Q&A, slotted between our regular interviews. You’ll also see more in-person recordings from our Barcelona studio (while we keep remote interviews for global guests). 

Inspired by friends in the industry (Infinite Red, Thoughtbot, Pivotal Labs, Mobile Jazz, Codegram), this series distills 10+ years of agency lessons into actionable episodes you can apply the same day.

Send us your questions in the comments or via our social channels, and we’ll include them in upcoming Q&A episodes.

Support the show

🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome everybody.
I'm Alex, ceo and founder ofMarsBase, and in this episode
I'm announcing a new series ofepisodes for the English version
of the Life on Mars podcast.
That's right.
We started the Road to CTO thesuccessful Road to CTO series of
episodes both in the Englishand Spanish version of the Life

(00:29):
on Mars podcast before thesummer and they have driven very
good metrics into the podcastthat they've been pretty
successful and we're loving itso far, and so we are thinking
of doing something new.
As you might have seen already,we have been recording more and
more episodes in person, whichdoesn't in and of itself mean

(00:50):
that the remote podcast will goaway.
On the contrary, we willmaintain the same kind of format
that we had before, purelybecause some people we can't
interview in person in BarcelonaThink of the CEO of Ghost when
we had him a few months back, orwhenever we will have DHH from
Basecamp, or when we had the CTOand CIO of Zynga back in the

(01:14):
day, right so these kind ofpeople I don't think they will
be coming to Barcelona in thenear term, so that's why we will
keep doing some remoteinterviews near term.
So that's why we will keepdoing some remote interviews,
but, whenever possible, we arerecording the episodes in person
because we have found a verynice location, a very nice setup
, a podcast studio in the centerof Barcelona.

(01:36):
We are loving the vibe, we'reloving the people and you have
seen with the podcast of DavidPoblador, ex-spotify, that we
had this setup, this background,this environment that you will
get to see in many, many moreepisodes.
Sometimes we will record fromthe offices of the people we are
interviewing.
Right, it was the case of JordiMinó or the founders of the

(01:59):
Hotels Network.
That works too, because they'resuper generous and their
offices are cold.
So why can't we take up on thisoffer?
Right?
So we will be keeping theremote interviews for some of
the episodes.
We are still keeping Road toCTO in both Spanish and English,
but only and exclusively forthe English feed of Mars-based

(02:23):
podcast, life on Mars.
We'll be launching a new seriesthat it still doesn't have a
name, but what we'll be coveringhere is how to build an agency.
Right, we draw inspiration fromthe podcast Building Infinite
Red, which is, as a matter offact, one company I admire, and
we've been close to them inrecent years when we've met them

(02:45):
in person in the US, andobviously that's one of the
companies that we drawinspiration from, like we drew
inspiration from ThoughtBot backin the day, pivotal Labs,
mobile Jazz here in Barcelona,our friends at CodeGram, so
other companies that we drawinspiration from.
But I know there are tons ofpeople out there that they want
to draw inspiration from us orthey have already been doing

(03:06):
that.
We work with micro agencies, wework with freelancers, that
they somehow they look up to usand when they work with us or we
meet regularly with them, theysay, oh, we copied this from
your style, we did this becauseyou also did it.
Or you know from your style, wedid this because you also did
it.
Or you know, we have seen yourhandbook, which is, by the way,

(03:31):
publicly available on GitHub,and we have implemented these
rituals that you do and stufflike that.
So that fills us with a lot ofpride and I'm really happy that
this happens.
And, as a matter of fact, Ihave like two or three
conversations every week withentrepreneurs and freelancers
and agency owners that they wantto learn more from us.
You know, maybe it's a newventure from somebody who's more

(03:52):
experienced than us but hasn'tcaught up with the changes in
the industry and he's been doingproduct for many, many years.
He wants to go back to services, or somebody who's reinventing
the company or pivoting, orsomebody is launching like kind
of like a venture studio or acompany builder and stuff like
that.

(04:13):
I think that the kind of advicethat we'll be sharing here will
be equally interesting for smallagencies, big agencies, solo
agencies like freelancers, ormicro-agencies, 2-3 people only,
generalised agencies, boutiqueand specialised agencies,
marketing agencies, videoagencies, development agencies,

(04:37):
eventually.
So I think that I'll try tomake the content as general as
possible, so, but with veryspecific details on how we did
this, with good stories,anecdotes, and maybe bringing in
also some like other peoplefrom the company or some guests
that will help to explain this.
Oh, remember when this happened, this project.
So we bring in this person.

(04:58):
We will be launching theseepisodes in the middle of the
other episodes, so it's not likewe're stopping everything else
and now we'll have only 10episodes like this because I
think it wouldn't be relevant toour community.
On the contrary, I think thatas the questions come in and we
have a few lineup already, we'llbe recording the episodes right

(05:18):
.
What will I be covering inthese episodes?
Things that happen in the dailylife of an agency, right Like
from the very beginning, whichis choosing the logo, choosing
the name, choosing the servicesyou want to offer, going for
your first client, drafting yourfirst contracts, making your
first hire to something moreintermediate, like surviving a

(05:44):
crisis or firing a person orchanging your value proposition,
or how to bootstrap on the longterm, how to add new portfolios
to the website or new servicesyou might want to offer, to more
like advanced level content,like after 10 years, how to
manage the motivation andperformance of the people with

(06:07):
the longest 10 years in thecompany.
How to how to survive like theperfect maybe not the perfect,
but like a very good mentalhealth scheme as a founder right
, our personal crisis and stufflike that.
Or how to survive the losingyour biggest client.
Or how to talk your way out ofuncomfortable situations like

(06:29):
acquisition talks or approachesby your biggest customer right
and stuff like that.
Or whether you have to departfrom the company or part ways
with one of your co-founders andstuff like that, which hasn't
happened, will not happen,hopefully, but I think that
we've got plenty of experiencein previous companies and

(06:51):
friends' companies that we areable to explain this.
So, all in all, if you want tosend some questions, send them
through our social mediaprofiles linkedin, facebook,
instagram or our email, uh, olaat marspacecom or through my
personal accounts.

(07:11):
I'm fairly uh accessiblethrough the previous um the
previous social networks Imentioned and uh send questions
that can be in just textile orvideo.
Um, we'll be recording someepisodes.
They will have a question ortwo.
Some episodes there will belike a compendium of q?
A, basically, and some episodeswill be like I'm going only to

(07:36):
speak about contracts today, ornds, or writing the portfolio
for your website, or remote workor asynchronous work and stuff
like that.
So stay tuned If you want tohear more.
The next episode will alreadybe one of this.
Make sure you like andsubscribe to this channel.
And because we're very close tomeeting some of the metrics

(08:00):
that YouTube gives us to promoteus farther, we, as a matter of
fact, we surpassed the 500subscribers, which is something
very, very good and it makes usvery proud.
And until that happens, I'llsee you in the next episode.