In my experience, startups over rely on agencies.
Don’t get me wrong—agencies can be fantastic for one-off, timeboxed work. Projects like designing the company logo or building a one-off tool are great fits for agencies. They’re discrete pieces of work with a clear start and end. While they may be important, they probably won’t make or break the company.
But too often startups rely on agencies for their most important work.
Outsourcing your marketing, product design, or the building and maintenance of your product to an agency is almost always a mistake.
These activities are key parts of your business that mean the difference between your company suffering an early death or succeeding beyond its wildest dreams.
If you don’t have these competencies within your company now, you need to find, hire, or build them. No agency will ever care about your success as much as you do.