Starting an agency and need your first creators
The cold start is the hard part. That is the part we can help with.
The short answer
Starting a management agency is mostly a chicken-and-egg problem: creators want an agency with a track record, and you cannot build one without creators. Pout meets more creators than it can take on, so we introduce some of them to other agencies — including new ones. Being new is not what rules an agency out. Vague terms, no plan for what you will actually do day to day, and a contract a creator cannot leave are what rule an agency out. If you can be straight about what you offer and put it in writing, tell us what you are looking for and we will tell you honestly whether we can help.
Being new is not the problem
Every agency worth working with was new once. What we are weighing up is not how long you have existed — it is whether a creator will be better off with you than without you.
- A clear answer to what you will do for a creator in their first month.
- Someone actually responsible for each thing you offer, even if that someone is you.
- A written agreement a creator can read, understand and leave.
- Commission you can explain, worked out on something you can show them.
- An honest account of what you have not done before.
What ends the conversation
Not a judgement on ambition. These are the things that make a creator worse off, and we would rather say them now than after an introduction.
- Asking for the account login, or for payouts to route through you.
- A contract with a long lock-in, or a fee for leaving that is not agreed up front.
- Promising a creator a specific income.
- No written agreement at all, or one you cannot show us.
- Any suggestion that age checks are optional.
What a first creator needs from you
Attention
Your first creator is the one who will tell other creators what you are like. Slow replies and vague plans are what they will describe.
A written plan
What you will change, in what order, and how you will both know whether it worked. It does not have to be elaborate — it has to exist.
Honest reporting
Even when a month goes badly. Especially then. A creator who trusts your numbers will stay through a bad month.
Tell us what you are building
Including the parts that are not finished yet. A real person reads every one.
Thanks — your enquiry is in.
A real person will read it and reply by email, either way. If it looks like a fit, we will come back with questions about how you work before anyone is introduced.
Questions new agencies ask
No. We ask what you can do for a creator, not how many you already have. A new agency with a clear plan and fair terms is a better home for a creator than an established one with neither.
No. Individual managers are welcome. What matters is that your agreement with a creator is in writing and fair, and that you can actually do what you say you will.
How you work day to day, who does what, what your agreement with a creator looks like, how commission is worked out and how someone leaves you. If you have not written an agreement yet, say so — that is a normal place to be starting from.
Yes. We tell a creator who you are and what you do, honestly, and they decide. Hiding it would not work for long anyway, and it would be the wrong way to start.
Then it is worth saying so. We would rather talk to you again in two months with your terms written down than introduce someone now and have it go badly for both of you.