Verve, twice-named European Design Agency of the Year, has a near 20-year history.

So naturally it’s a wonderful place to start our fourth season of Design Next, with the title ‘Failures and Fortunes’. No business that’s been going for two decades has done so without highs, lows, learnings and stories to tell along the way.

Roman Stikkelorum has spent that time building his Amsterdam-based agency alongside his two co-founders. With a client list that includes Miro, Supermetrics, DataSnipper and Flutterwave, you would be forgiven for thinking that the agency history has only been paved only with success. But actually, they’ve seen huge change in that time: an agency repositioning, new target sectors, and even a new name.

Six years ago Verve rebranded itself, not as a creative flex alone, but as a declaration of intent….

“We thought: what kind of company do we want to become? And then: act like it.”

The team switched to English-speaking internally and externally, began hiring people from around the world, and dropped their old name. More than ten nationalities now work at the studio.

The results arrived quickly. Within a year, 70% of revenue came from international clients. Roman describes it as the best rebrand Verve has ever done.

The award that changed nothing, and then changed everything

Verve won European Design Agency of the Year for the first time in 2018. The team celebrated properly: awards collected, photos on stage, phone calls to loved ones. Then, as Roman puts it, “reality kicks in and no one gives a shit. It’s crickets.”

One person noticed, though. Then they sent through an RFP. Verve won the pitch and to rebrand Miro, and delivered the full project in just eight weeks. It became a flagship project that propelled their success even more.

Roman, like many creative leaders, still has a love-hate relationship with awards. Internally they force a studio to stop and celebrate (already something which most are bad at). Externally he remains unconvinced that clients care. The fortune in this instance wasn’t about the award itself, but came from the person who was paying attention and needed a new brand that couldn’t be ignored.

One of Roman’s hottest takes is that separating product teams from brand teams inside technology companies is a mistake. Take Miro as a great example. We’ve all experienced the brand in the same way; being invited to a board, having a play around, and introducing yourself to the brand via its product before you ever see it on a billboard. “The user experience actually is the brand,” he says. “And vice versa.”

Many organisations still silo the two teams; Roman’s advice is to treat your rebrand holistically, working with small, senior groups who can decide the next direction as one unit. Too many voices? Well, a camel is a horse made by a committee.

The most pivotal failure-and-fortune story in the episode is also the most recent: three or four years ago Verve sold their business, to join a group of agencies made stronger together. Structurally, it works, with complementary agencies stacking together like modular blocks to serve bigger clients.

What didn’t work was the effect on how the business was run. “We were running the company more and more like an Excel sheet.” Management meetings became more about forecasts than about quality of work.

Earlier this year the founders bought their shares back. Verve is independent again, and Roman described how the energy returned almost immediately. His conclusion is a useful one: sometimes a business needs to do irrational things that don’t add up in a spreadsheet.

Two decades in, and the company is being re-founded again – and we’re excited for what’s next.