Agency Feature: The Starter Labs

Who are we?

The Starter Labs in a nutshell, is a digital solutions company. From online advertising and social media management to branding and tech development, we offer brands comprehensive solutions to further their growth.

Rehan Dadachanji and Kartik Khanna founded the agency in 2016 with the objective of helping brands grow digitally. Our expertise, be it in the field of Digital Strategy, Branding, Design, or Tech Development, are all tools to achieve a brand’s objectives, be that visibility, brand building, sales, or a combination of them.

Our team comprises of uber-talented folks with diverse skill sets, backgrounds, experiences, and thought-processes. Our work environment is a collaborative one and we like everyone to be involved with multiple aspects of the business, which helps not only their growth but also the overall impact for a brand as there are more heads actively involved in each campaign.

What's in the name?

Honestly, when we founded the company, our focus was on working with startups and new up-and-coming companies. Hence, the word “start”. However, down the line, a lot of bigger brands were extremely eager to work with us and we realized we were able to help them a great deal more. Why labs? Because we love finding the right solution to meet a business’ objectives. Plus, we think it sounds very cool!

What we do?

We build all our plans and campaigns around a brand’s objectives and end goals. We often start right from naming a brand and designing its logo and building their website to executing digital marketing plans, be it via Social Media, Google, or 3^rd party platforms. The Starter Labs does pretty much everything digital that we believe will positively impact a company.

Also Read: Agency Feature: The Design Bay Studio

Why we do it?

We got into the industry because we truly believe we can make a difference to a lot of companies out there who are looking to grow. Before founding the company, Rehan worked at McCann Erickson (one of the top 5 ad agencies worldwide), Coca-Cola (New Delhi), and then BookMyShow. Kartik on the other hand was directly involved with a lot of Startups – playing major roles in their digital, tech, and business development wings. Combining their experience and expertise, they saw huge value in creating a company that actively works closely with brands to help them grow. At The Starter Labs, we consider ourselves to be an extension of the client’s team and not an outside agency.

When we see that we have created business impact for a client - be it via increased awareness, leads, or sales, we know we’re doing something right and are spurred further on!

How we evolve?

We actively set some time aside every week from our “regular work” to understand new and upcoming trends in the market. Fortunately, a lot of brands we work with are happy to experiment with this and so we ensure that we stay two-steps forward, all the time! A key to doing this is to make sure people on our team are always inspired to learn more and are open to learning from and teaching others.

Social responsibility in social media

There are two sides to this – one is our relationship with our brands to ensure we are socially responsible and the other is us using our expertise to do good for society. With regards to the brands we work with, we ensure that we don’t use “click-bait headlines”, slander any other company or brand or mislead our followers in any way. Honesty and transparency go a long way in establishing brands.

We also take great pride and pleasure in working with two commendable NGOs – Ummeed Child Development Center & the NK Dhabhar Cancer Foundation. Both these NGOs have been doing phenomenal work and making a huge difference to society. We plan to collaborate with a couple of more companies doing work like them.

Need of the hour

A lot digital laws are in the gray area right now; especially do to with copyright photos, videos, music etc. It’s only early days though, and we’re sure these creases will be ironed out in due course.

Another need of the hour is for agencies to work with brands as a team and not just as “vendors”. This creates a better environment for both parties and generally helps a brand grow.

We learned the hard way

Finding good people to join you is not always easy! We extend a lot of responsibility to our team members, so recruiting right is a huge priority for us.

Did we just share that?

One of our client’s employees once sent a selfie of theirs and asked us to “make the photo look better”. When we forwarded the brief to our designer, he thought we were joking!

They work with us

We have worked with companies which were just ideas in an entrepreneur’s head to big companies like BookMyShow and Crown Vet. From up-and-coming F & B joints like Flax and Purple Wok Co to award-winning fitness brands like Nitrro to numerous companies in the e-commerce, FMCG, pharma, and real estate companies, we have worked with a ton of small and big brands across sectors. And we wouldn’t have it any other way!

Also Read: Agency Feature – Three Fourth Solutions

Industry as we foresee

More tech, more tools, more use cases, more fun! The B2B aspect of digital is slowly picking up as well and more companies are seeing the value in digital marketing for B2B businesses.

A day without Internet

Fortunately, our Internet service providers are on the 6^th floor of our building, so a day without internet will probably be a day spent knocking on the doors of their office! Bet, you haven’t got that one before.

Lastly, are you hiring?

Yes, we’re always on the lookout for good talent across several departments!