How to choose an agency as a startup without wasting your time and money

If you’re a startup founder picking a creative or marketing agency, the biggest red flag is someone walking into the room and showing you a Coca-Cola campaign.

Coca-Cola is irrelevant.

You’re not Coca-Cola. You’re an early-stage startup. Your problems are completely different. Coca-Cola has brand equity, infinite budgets, and global reach. You need ROI, growth, and clear messaging that converts visitors to users or buyers - yesterday.

Here’s what to actually look for, based on how I’ve done it in the past:

1. Ask yourself: Do they show me what’s relevant without me needing to ask?

If an agency proactively shows you work they’ve done for tech startups, you’re already in a better conversation. If you have to dig and ask, they’re not a fit.

At Freska, I told every agency that our front page was our biggest revenue driver with a 5% conversion rate. Some still came in and pitched Coca-Cola video portfolios. That’s not just tone-deaf. That’s a waste of time.

→ If they don’t tailor their examples to your needs during the sales process, they won’t during the actual project either.

2. Relevancy over prestige. Every time.

Big-name clients on their pitch deck? Great for their sales, useless for yours. What matters is whether they’ve helped startups like yours - same stage, same budget, same funnel complexity - hit actual growth goals.

At Freska, we paid less than €10K for a video campaign and something like €10K for rebranding. I had to optimize conversion on top of their visual ideas, but the ROI was clear: those videos brought in over €1M+ in new ARR in just a few months. That’s what relevance looks like.

The agency we picked delivered 8 video variations in few days of shooting, followed by a few days of editing. One of the video variations above.

3. Systemize, don’t babysit.

Especially for sales materials: if you’re doing enterprise sales, you’ll need customized decks. You don’t want to reinvent them every time.

What worked well for us at Icebreaker.vc portfolio companies was to list out recurring patterns across decks, and then have an agency build a 20+ slide modular master deck. It becomes a template. Your team can then modify it fast.

→ Buy a scalable asset, not a shiny one-off.

4. Don’t make your product team own branding.

Your PM or product lead is likely already underwater. If your instinct is to “just ask" - don’t. You’ll burn them out.

What I’d do:

• Vibe code the website in-house for control and speed.
• Buy a structured, editable sales deck from an agency as a fixed project.
• Let SDRs or junior marketers localize/customize from there.

You save product time, get sales moving, and avoid endless agency retainer loops.

5. Clear your expectations early.

Spell out what matters to you - metrics, messaging goals, tone. If you’re optimizing for conversion, say that. If the agency isn’t listening or adapting even in the first meeting, walk.

Startups don’t have the time or money for vanity work.

You need an agency that:

• Knows your stage.
• Understands your constraints.
• Builds for conversion, not awards.

And you need to lead that process with brutal clarity.