5 years of being open: how we built our Little Village

Founder Carolyn Stebbing shares the hits (and the misses) that have defined Little Village Creative over a dynamic five years in business.

It all started with an ending. In the Autumn of 2015, I packed up my life in Sydney and sent it to a small apartment overlooking Chapel Street in Melbourne.

There, armed with just a laptop and an address book filled with the names of every fabulous freelancer I knew, I registered a company: LITTE VILLAGE CREATIVE

Yes, a typo on our very first project – and an expensive one to correct.

I’d like to say it was smooth sailing from there, but the first five years of any business is defined by humps and bumps. How did our little chameleon of an agency ride them out?

We did it just by staying open.

2015. Open for business.

Build it and they will come. That’s what we told ourselves as we put the finishing mint green flourishes on our first ever website. Then, for a brief but terrifying moment, nothing.

Hungry in every sense of the word, we assembled a squad of our talented contributors around a project we called Snack Food Cellar: where fine photography meets fine wine, and very unhealthy food.

We all breathed a sigh of relief and Cheezel crumbs when the real work trickled in, starting with a website for a Sydney-based law firm. 

Whose stunning apartment featured in the photoshoot? Mine? I wish. Our talented designer built it in 3D.

We got our first taste of Xerocon, where we began to share our marketing tips with the accounting industry.

Speaking of firsts, here’s our first ever Christmas Card, the beginnings of an annual tradition we hope never ends.

2016. Open to new ways of working.

At Bartronica in Melbourne, we threw our first birthday bash, pitting friends and freelancers against each other in a gripping battle for Mario Kart supremacy.

2016 wasn’t all a party. What I first mistook for burnout turned out to be full blown glandular fever, an unhelpful diagnosis for anyone with a diary jam-packed with interstate business meetings.

It didn’t stop our Little Village Creative team from delivering the amazing work our clients deserved.

But it did have a profound impact on the way we work. Long before the collective style of agency became popular, I’d craved a more flexible, more sustainable, more open style of working. I knew we didn’t have to emulate a typical ad agency to produce high-quality work. 

It felt right to begin that journey. The first step was to switch our entire operation to the cloud, allowing our teams to work from anywhere. Back in 2016, no one knew just how necessary this would become.

Nearly 18 months in, as our bumpy beginnings gave way to a smoother workflow, I could finally afford to invest in some critical infrastructure – a new pair of shoes.

It was time for the Christmas card.

2017. Open to take on the big guys.

At last, momentum was on our side, and suddenly Little Village Creative wasn’t feeling so little. 

Our year began with some beautiful new websites for clients. It felt fitting to give our own website a take-us-seriously makeover. We were ready to take on the big agencies (like the ones we used to work for).

A pitch for SocietyOne saw us face off against a well-known agency and win. This threw our collective model in the deep end, with our first TV production serving as living, breathing proof that our flexible freelancer model could produce the goods.

It’d been a big deal of a year and we needed a big deal of a Christmas card to celebrate.

2018. Open to new beginnings.

At this point, you may be wondering, “Carolyn, did you even have an office?”, and I’m happy to tell you that in 2018, after two and a half years, our lofty co-working dreams came true.

Moving into Inspire9 in leafy Richmond meant we finally had meeting rooms! A coffee machine! Real chairs to end our orthopaedic suffering!

Our brand new surroundings inspired some of our most diverse work to date – from branding a gin distillery (yes please), to launching a neighbourly tech startup (count us in) to helping a new renewable energy consultancy find its feet (because who doesn’t want to save the world?).

At Xerocon, we tattooed Australia’s accounting community to make AccountKit unforgettable – and I shared my top 5 marketing tips for accountants with industry podcast From The Trenches.

With so much to celebrate, we threw a little birthday bash.

And what year would be complete without a Christmas card.

2019. Open to big ideas.

At Little Village Creative, we love doing – and in 2019 we pulled off some of our biggest dos to date.

We were proud to help launch digital photo album platform Me-Moir.

And to be invited back to Xerocon to produce stand-out stands for AccountKit and NowInfinity.

But nothing says “maybe this thing is taking off” like having your perspective valued by media and industry leaders. It was a pleasure to share my thoughts on how payment delays impact small business with the Financial Review and the ABC.

And to be invited into Xero’s round table review of the annual budget.

And to be a panelist on Academy Xi’s discussion on empowering women’s careers.

And to talk to the Herald Sun about how businesses can provide working parents and professionals with flexibility.

As our client base expanded into the UK, Denmark and Canada, one thing was clear: it was time to bring on some high-level help. In July, help arrived in the form of Efrat Aharonovich, our talented Account Director, who is taking our digital ideas to the next level.

We saw off our year of big ideas with a big long lunch featuring our core Melbourne team.

And we doubled down with a Christmas card.

2020. Open to being flexible.

If you’d tried to explain 2020 to people in 2019, no one would have believed you.

It’s been a turbulent first half, with uncertainty ahead. But it’s driven us to find new ways to add value for our clients.

We’ve given event startup The Rumbl a new brand identity, and media platform The Conversation a hardworking digital lead generation campaign.

Between the beefy strategy work and exciting naming jobs (hey there, Friday Financial), we packed up our tools and moved them into a brand new shiny office at CreativeCubes in Cremorne.

While we’re in birthday celebration mode, we know that’s not the mood across much of the country right now. Lots of fabulous small businesses are doing it tough, through no fault of their own. 

In a downturn, the marketing plan is often the first thing to slip. Yet history shows the brands that persevere in times like these, reap the rewards. Please talk to us if you’re feeling uncertain about how to keep your business in the spotlight.

Here’s to 5 years of being open.

5 years. 700+ projects under our belt. More than 50 talented freelancers in our collective. Dozens of clients, from finance and technology to fitness, hospitality, fashion, non-profit, ecommerce and more.

We’re proud of the work we’ve made. It’s a reflection of who we are: the most flexible, adaptable and resourceful little agency you’ll ever meet.

We’re open-hearted, open-minded and open to tackle any challenge – because we believe that’s the kind of thinking the world needs right now.

Thank you for being with us on this journey.

Xoxo Carolyn and the LVC team