CASE STUDY: START-UP
We love working with clients at all stages, from start-ups to well-established shops. When a company is new, owners often choose to handle accounting themselves, in the hopes of saving money. This case study is about a client who outsourced their accounting to Syzygy 6 months after opening. This client found that having the additional financial support in the beginning allowed them to focus on getting jobs and growing the business.
The Client
The client is a non-union production company that has recently opened shop. Helmed by industry vets, the client produces global campaigns and content for a multitude of Fortune 500 companies, celebrities, and well-known brands. When they decided to start a new venture, they knew that partnering with the right team to manage their finances was essential.
The Beginning
The owners had experience running other successful production companies and knew they did not want to spend their time managing the company’s day-to-day accounting. From previous experience, they knew that finding a competent partner to oversee this function and provide financial guidance was a key component to building a successful production company, so they brought SYZYGY onboard 6 months after they launched.
Our clients have access to our wide professional network, providing referrals to resources for payroll, tax, insurance, business affairs, and union and labor compliance, as well as banking relationships that allow for waived bank fees.
“Syzygy gave us perspective and the ability to balance our financial needs while providing good resources. They were helpful in finding the right partners for payroll, banking, and credit.”
The Process
Producing great work is important, but being great to work with is just as critical. During the startup phase it is critical to get the right partners—and process—in place. Creating a positive experience for agencies, freelancers, vendors, and crew is key to building long-term relationships that will enable a production company to scale quickly and with stability.
“A lot of owners trivialize the processes that go into being a good production company. SYZYGY has allowed us to be a good production company by following up on all of the other aspects of being good to your partners, the vendors, the crews. On the flip side they ensured we got money when it was due and made sure we were collecting money we were owed.”
By engaging a third party from the outset our client was able to buy themselves time to focus on growing their business, while SYZYGY managed the rest. With piece of mind the client has quickly scaled to $5 million of annual billings in under two years, and while the start-up phase may have been challenging (they always are!), their vendors, freelancers, and clients would never have guessed it.
In the early stages, positioning the client with the right mix of partners was crucial to building an operations and production infrastructure they could lean on as they grew.
“Having a trusted CFO allowed me to focus on sales and growth and allowed SYZYGY to focus on making sure the company was stable from a process standpoint.”