In 2009, I was introduced by an acquaintance, Elisa Harris, to a contact of hers, Philip Moross. They had been talking for a while about creating something together; Philip having invested in Air Edel and film scores, Elisa having run her own agency, Sound2, for some years.
I was starving for some career fulfilment. I was working as an innovation consultant at Fujitsu and I was a square peg in a round hole. It was a massive organisation with more than 40,000 employees. As an entrepreneur and business owner from a young age, I was frustrated, unproductive and unfulfilled. I had not been happy professionally since I closed my sonic branding agency in 2006. I had a hankering to be my own man again, to try to succeed my own way.
“Indecision costs more than wrong decision”
Philip, Elisa and I met and talked about the music business. He had his views about the opportunities in publishing and film scores. I had mine that had been forming over the full course of my working life. I was certain, beyond all personal doubt, that an opportunity existed to build a music ‘planning and buying’ business. The company would combine the planning processes developed by me and Paul Fulberg at Sonicbrand (and practised by Elisa at Sound2) with music licensing services at scale, enabled by Philip's publishing infrastructure at Cutting Edge Group.
Looking back, I had no right to be so certain we would succeed, and the model didn't quite play out the way any of us thought it might. But I think it was my lack of doubt that helped to persuade Philip to risk his capital to help Elisa, Paul and me found what we called Cutting Edge Commercial.
After about a year Philip took me on full time. We had proven our ability to win business (first Barclaycard, then Mecca Bingo) and we broke even over about 18 months from start-up. We made a profit every year from then on.
This first period was incredibly fertile and creative. We built our proposition and set about meeting as many clients as we could. It was a pure numbers game, with Elisa and me schlepping all over London and then New York, touting for business from branding agencies, healthcare agencies, ad businesses and clients. We rebranded for the first time to CEC Music, and David Marcus and Esther Lane joined us along with Tom Player, Tom Evens and Gala May.
“Land and expand”
Around 2011 we moved into the Momentum office in Rosebery Avenue and the business continued to grow. Our mantra was ‘land and expand’: first get a gig, no matter how small, then upsell and cross-sell any additional service we could. Our work for Nescafé sums it up. Our first gig was recording the sound of a spoon stirring a mug. We turned this into a sonic branding exploration, then a massive music licensing project, and ten years later we were still consulting and creating for Nestlé as a direct consequence.
Land and expand means you always make a sale, no matter how small: ‘all or something’ instead of ‘all or nothing’. But it means you have to deliver. No complacency. It created a culture of growth, of striving and of significant pressure. I regret some of my pressure responses; I was at times overly aggressive. But I don't regret the approach.
Through Momentum we partnered with offices in New York and Los Angeles, changed our name to Worldwide Harmony and started a relationship with McCann London that would prove pivotal.
“How much and when”
In 2012 we moved into McCann in Herbrand Street and inserted ourselves into the production flow of one of the world's great agencies. We rebranded for the last time to become CORD Worldwide. We now had music licensing and composition at scale. We won the ITV rebrand and significant work with Nestlé, Toshiba and L'Oréal, and watched the billings grow. Weekly company meetings were dominated by two questions: how much, and when?
“Fail fast”
We opened offices and ventures that taught us more than they earned: New York, Los Angeles, Spain, India, Paris, the Nordics and more. Together they cost perhaps £500k. Balanced against this, we billed well in excess of £30m in ten years, paid around £17m in wages and bonuses to around 80 people and delivered overall trading profits of around £5m. CORD Poland remains a source of great pride.
In 2014 we moved into our own Kingly Court office and I fulfilled one of my life's ambitions: to run a Soho agency. In 2016 we created the Shell Make the Future music campaign and won Clios, and I fulfilled another. My remaining ambition was to sell the company. In 2018 we sold it to Keywords Studios plc.
“Stop worrying about where you wish you were and focus on where you actually are”
My chief regret relates to our corporate structure, which wasn't quite right from the start, and we were too slow to fix it. Not one person employed by CORD ever invested a penny. That strength, the elimination of personal risk, became our weakness, as many of the people who built the business missed out on large chunks of personal success as it thrived. That said, the vast majority of the money we made went to the staff, and the investors did well.
We had a distinct culture that reflected our values. Loyalty characterised our successful people. A desire to win, to ‘land and expand’, to get ‘all or something’ in any deal and to try anything once meant that we had life-enhancing experiences. For me, work was fun, and I can hardly remember a day when I didn't look forward to coming to the office.