Impulso’s Nano Stasiak on founding and scaling a marketing agency

With so many marketers wanting to open up shop, Marhub.ca sat down with someone who has. Nano Stasiak, founder of Impulso Media, reflects on the strategies and challenges of building a successful marketing agency focused on DTC brands. Over the past five years, Impulso has evolved from a specialized performance marketing firm into a full-service agency, navigating the complexities of remote culture, team growth, and creative expansion. Stasiak shares insights on the importance of specialization, the balancing act between full-time staff and freelancers, and his approach to fostering collaboration in a remote environment, offering valuable takeaways for emerging agency owners.

What did you learn about growing a marketing agency in the last five years?

At the beginning, specialization and making sure that you learn as much as you can about one industry is key.  Our agency really focused on e-commerce and direct-to-consumer brands.  That way, we were able to really have our specialization in that space and truly set that foundation for our business, have the confidence to really fulfill those services really, really well, rather than stepping outside of that and trying to fulfill all marketing services for all sorts of industries or necessities.  

Specialization within one expertise really sets that foundation.

After we got foundationally confident with more of the performance marketing side of things, we were able to then increase our SKUs, our offerings, our services.  And that’s where we started to lean more on also offering the creative and the production. 

Which one’s easier when it comes to servicing clients as an agency: performance or creative?

Creative, because you’ re not held to a certain result or have to report a ROAS in general.  So I’d say creative is a little bit easier.

What were the challenges going from a performance agency to creative, and having that more amorphous type of work in your business?

We were doing a lot of the work for the first time, so we didn’t necessarily have all our processes. There was a lot of learning in terms of all the expenses that go into certain projects, as well as having a database or a network of being able to hire subcontractors. It took some time to build that network and that expertise to really put out the product that we wanted to be proud of.

Now, as a mid-sized agency, how would you weigh the importance of full-time staff versus hiring a really good roster of creatives who are freelancers, contractors? How do the two interact?

When building a business long-term, you always want to be able to hire in-house. And the goal is to provide that growth for team members and provide that vision and career growth. You want to build as much as you can in-house for the long-term.  But at the same time, you’ ve got to be able to stay nimble and you’ ve got to be able to work with subcontractors and work with your team for them to be able to work with subcontractors.  

Something we always do is try to do some projects as contractor work, which can then turn into full-time.  For example, a copywriter committing to a certain number of hours per week, working as a subcontractor for two to three months, and then they end up coming on full-time.  That’s an ideal scenario.

As you scale up and hire full-timers, how do you personally build culture?

Mostly, I just try to be myself, and I don’t necessarily have to plan those things. Being myself, taking care of the team, making sure that I’m there for the team when needed, and keeping things fun and different.  

It’s really just the type of attitude that you come into work every day really builds that culture, especially when you operate only online. 

And finally, I think keeping the communication high is the biggest way that we keep that culture.

Is it a disadvantage sometimes, being a primarily remote agency, when you compete with agencies with the office and full-time staff in Toronto?

I’ d say on the business development side, it’s definitely something that needs to, that will eventually be put in place.  I think it legitimizes the business a lot more when they do have that physical presence and that ability to invite a potential client or an existing client over for a quick lunch or coffee, I think, would be incredible.  So I think less on the servicing side of things, but on the business development side.  Okay.  I think it definitely plays a role.

In-person versus remote work has become a pretty politicized topic. Where do you stand in the debate?

I like in-person, actually. I think five days a week mandated might be a little aggressive, but I think there are lots of studies where it proves that in-person collaboration is stronger than online.  So, I think that no matter what, that needs to take place—whether that’s two or three times a week in office. 

A big problem with working online is that you tend to only communicate when you need something. “Hey, can I get this?” or “Have you done this?” You’re usually in need of something in that communication—it’s always someone needing something from you. 

That means you’re missing out on that little bit of micro-engagement communication when you’re at the office, when you get to know someone outside of just when you need something from them. I think that’s really important and can affect the way that team members collaborate with each other. 

So, a lot is being left on the table in terms of collaboration potential with just working online.

What does it take to move from being a boutique agency working with relatively smaller clients to landing AOR deals with massive brands?

I think it takes a lot of time in building reputation in order to land those Fortune 500, blue chip clients—the one spending millions on an agency a month or a year. It comes down to the expertise of your team. Usually an agency that is two or three years in with their team members might not have the expertise required to service and bring that number value to that blue chip compared to that big agency. 

It just takes time and building that team where you can show off that, “Hey, these members have done X, Y and Z with these other brands!” So, I think it takes blue chip experience to get blue chip results. Yes, it is kind of a chicken before the egg problem.

You’re from Argentina, and you travel around a lot, working from other places. What’s the vibe in Toronto when it comes to agencies, creatives, and the entire marketing industry?

There’s a good industry, especially for e-commerce. There are a lot of agencies and decent events if you go if you go hunting around. So overall, there’s lots of opportunity in Toronto, but at the same time there’s always room for more—more room for everyone to win and more people to meet each other and help each other out. So, always room for improvement!

Did you notice a big difference in skills you needed to succeed at the beginning, compared to right now?

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Lots of learning on the leadership side, all right.  The skills on management and leadership are those skills that I’ve absolutely had to learn more over the last few years.

And a lot of that comes from experience—like, managing people and literally just communicating. It’s anytime that there are problems or miscommunications and things like that. Especially when we’re online, you can’t really tell someone’s energy unless you talk to them.  

So, I’ve learned to always say, “Hey, let’s just jump on a quick huddle,” and we talk it out. If not, messages can be really subjective in the way people read them. 

There’s been a lot of just practicing communication, and encouraging that throughout the whole organization.