I Had Nothing Left To Lose | Corey Barkach of Drive Creative
Episode notes
Corey’s sitting down in the guest seat for this show to share the real story of building Drive Creative…
Corey and Dan left steady agency jobs to start Drive with no business plan, no money, and one GTM strategy: cold call manufacturers and figure it out.
The early funding fell through, and there were pay periods that came down to the wire. They hired people before they could afford them because they believed they'd grow into it.
Ten years later, that bet paid off: a team that actually cares and clients who treat Drive like an extension of their own company.
Here’s also what was covered:
→ Why Corey and Dan left to start their own agency
→ Building the first client base with cold calls and no plan
→ How Drive protects its culture
→ What poker taught Corey about strategy and decision making
→ Where the company is headed next
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:36 Boss and employee: first impressions
8:10 Why we left to start Drive
11:00 Six figures to a taco truck
14:35 Year one vs now
20:49 The hardest stretch: payroll and Covid
26:56 Getting sober
39:45 Amanda, kids, and what success means
49:04 What poker taught me about business
58:19 The biggest bluff, AI, and rapid fire
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🌐 https://drivecreativeagency.com/
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