Co-Founder + Chief Brand Officer at Obvi | Forbes Featured

Ankit has for most of his career carried a renowned achievement to which his work continues to add to that achievement year after year. Ankit has gone on to craft the vision, brand elements and even build brand assets for nearly 20+ brands in his 7 year tenure as a designer, which has amassed to nearly 9-figures in sales for all the brands combined.

Ankit’s impact on the different brands he has creatively directed has been one that is everlasting, but his impact on the industry is what sets him apart to be a creative director with a lot of recognition behind his work. Ankit’s work with Obvi today brings him to an elevated role where he not only gets to drive the creative vision of the brand but also manage the voice and story of the brand. Ankit’s day to day may encompass creating the brand assets for Obvi, but his long term vision is to tell Obvi’s story to every potential consumer through his work.

Ankit Patel

eCommerce enthusiast | ex-Bigblue | 👇 Follow for daily tips: your brand from 1 to 10M€ in revenue (Detective Box, ROWSE...)

Back in 2022 I was media buying for ecommerce brands.

This where I discovered the industry's hidden growth barrier.

It wasn't poor targeting or insufficient budgets holding brands back. It was the relentless demand for fresh creative assets that no freelancer or in-house team could satisfy.

I watched promising campaigns crash after initial success because creative production couldn't keep pace with testing needs. Designers got overwhelmed. Performance suffered. Growth stalled.

This frustration led me to create Statiq - a design subscription service built specifically for high-growth ecommerce brands.

Our approach is refreshingly simple:
- 100+ designs monthly
- 72-hour turnarounds
- Performance-focused creatives

We've delivered over 20,000 designs for brands spending $100K+/month on ads, helping them match their creative output requirement without expanding their internal teams.

On LinkedIn, I share my journey scaling Statiq and the insights gained from working with the fastest-growing ecommerce brands in the industry like AG1, Jones Road Beauty and HexClad.

Follow me.

Simon Robert

I love overpaying for everything. It's one of the smartest business hacks that no one talks about.

Most founders negotiate salaries down. I negotiate them up.

Here's what typically happens: A candidate comes in with a number. Most founders think "Great, they're undervaluing themselves. Let me lock in the savings."

I do the opposite.

For example, if someone asks for $50K and the role is worth $85K, I tell them: "This is an $85K role. That's what you'll get."

Why would I voluntarily pay more?

Because people perform at the level they're paid to think at.

Pay someone below market, they deliver below-market work. They're already looking for the next job. They know you got a deal.

Pay someone what they're actually worth? They fight for you. They feel valued. They know you see their potential.

Here's my philosophy: I try to overpay everyone above market.

Why?

→ Great people stay and deliver exceptional work

→ Average people either level up or self-select out

Your reputation attracts more A-players who know you'll treat them right

The math is simple: One exceptional person at $150K outperforms three mediocre people at $50K.

Going into January, I'm not looking at revenue. I'm not looking at profit. I'm looking around asking: do I have tremendous people leading teams?

Because if you're not willing to overpay for great people, you're not serious about winning.

CEO @Statiq | Performance design agency | Clients include AG1, HexClad, Jones Road Beauty & 100+ more

We recently had our worst month in six months. So I made a $60,000 bet with no guarantee it would work. Three weeks later, we closed more deals than ever.

October: Biggest revenue month ever, but I knew we were heading into a wall.

November: Down 15-20%. Bad month. Exactly what I predicted.

Early December: I had a vision for a re-angle. I needed to go all-in on paid to prepare for Q1.

So I set our Meta budget to $60K. We were going to spend it all.

This was a six-figure move with no guarantee it would work.

But here's what happened: 

→ Tremendous amount of leads 

→ Five-figure retainer deals closing from our Meta ads 

→ Fast-tracked the entire Q1 pipeline

Most agencies would've pulled back after a down month. Cut spending. "Survived" until things improved.

We did the opposite.

Why? Because I had capital to lose. Not from paying ourselves huge salaries. From running lean and saving aggressively.

If we'd been in spending mode personally, we wouldn't have had the capital to make those moves.

You can't take big swings if you're spending everything you make.

I want to work at Statiq for the next 10 years. It's my favorite job.

That means staying paranoid about spending. Living below our means. Building capital so we can bet big when it matters.

Everyone talks about "betting on yourself."

But you can't bet if you've already spent the chips.

We just ran an ad that says we’re looking for "$5M/mo spenders only." My team called it career suicide. It became our highest-converting campaign ever.

Last month, my team showed me our new campaign concepts.

Professional. Safe. The usual agency stuff: "We create high-converting ads for DTC brands."

I killed them all.

"What about this instead?"

I pulled up this image: A nightclub entrance. Two bouncers. Velvet ropes. And a sign that says "$5M/mo spenders only."

Dead silence in the room.

"Simon, that's insane. Only 0.0001% of advertisers spend that much on Meta."

"Exactly."

My CMO pulled me aside after the meeting.

"We're going to lose 99% of potential clients with this. You're literally telling them not to work with us."

She was right. And that's exactly why we had to do it.

We had a choice:

Be good at talking to everybody. Or be exceptional at talking to our exact ICP.

The $5M/month spenders don't need another agency. They need THE agency that only exists for them.

The agency that gets why their creative production is fundamentally different from someone spending $50K.

When you're awfully exclusive, you don't compete. You're the only option.

Most companies are terrified of being this exclusive. They think it's bad business.

Then they wonder why nobody closes.

Your competitors can fight over everyone else.

We'll take the 0.0001% who see this ad and immediately know we're built for them.

That's not limiting your market. That's owning it.

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Over the past year, I’ve seen the inside of dozens of creative agencies. Every single one of them will be bankrupt in 2 years if they don’t understand this simple truth: 

You're not competing with other agencies anymore. You're competing with one designer + Nano Banana.

Last week, one of my designers using AI produced what took our entire team 3 days to make last year.

Here's what's actually happening:

95% of agencies today are still craftsmen. 

One designer owns the entire process. Quality is inconsistent. They can't scale beyond the founder. They're charging $15K for work that AI will do for $50.

The 1% who survive will be factories. 

Fragmented specialized roles. AI plus human quality control. Infinitely scalable systems. Charging $5K but producing 20x the volume.

At Statiq, we already made the shift:

We killed the old model where one designer does everything. 

Now we have concept generators creating ideas at scale. AI producers are generating hundreds of variations. Designers assembling final assets. Both AI and humans check quality.

Result? One client spent nearly $1M on Meta for a single static ad.

The agencies that survive won't be the most creative.

They'll be the ones who understood first: In the age of AI, your business model is your competitive advantage.

I used to clear my entire calendar to save unhappy clients. Turns out, I was accidentally killing my company by listening to our customers.

During the early days at Statiq:

Clients would call upset. Performance is down. And they're thinking about leaving.

I'd go into full panic mode: crafting recovery plans, offering refunds, fixing everything.

Sometimes we saved the relationship. Sometimes we didn't. But either way, I was playing defense.

The problem I didn't see:

While I was in the weeds saving one account, I was ignoring the systemic issue creating 10 more problems.

I'd heroically save one client.

Meanwhile, three more would quietly leave because of the same underlying product issues.

Net result: we were still losing clients. Just slower.

What I do now:

I still receive every signal. Every complaint. Every red flag.

If a client is unhappy, yes, I'll jump on a call. We'll apologize if we made mistakes. We'll fix what we can.

But then I do something completely different. 

I sit down and think: what company-level change prevents this from happening to 10 more clients?

This approach cut our churn rate in half in 30 days. We're now working with 8-9 figure DTC brands like AG1, Jones Road, and HexClad.

Being in the weeds feels productive. It feels like leadership. But it's actually avoidance.

The real work is systemic. And you can't see the system when you're drowning in tactical fires.

Our acceptance rate for candidates we hire is 120x lower than Harvard’s. It sounds backwards, but it’s been a magnet for top talent.

I recently interviewed a 40-year-old executive with 15 years of experience. I made them tell me every manager's name, write it down, and describe what each would say about their weaknesses.

They were shocked. I'm 27.

But I've never had a hire not work out.

Here's my exact playbook (stolen from “Who: The A Method for Hiring”):

When I enter a hiring call, I become a robot. No small talk or “getting to know you.” 

I use this script, and I don't deviate.

"What were you hired to do? Who was your manager? What's their name? Please write it down. If I called them right now, what would they say about your strengths and weaknesses? Give me a specific example of that weakness showing up.”

I do this for every job they’ve had. Most candidates don't make it past job #3. 

They tap out. They get uncomfortable because I'm asking them to name their managers and write them down. Because they know I'm actually going to call.

Good candidates? They last the full hour, and they leave completely drained.

Here's what most founders get wrong:

Most founders treat hiring like a conversation. They want the candidate to like them, so they let charisma override the data. By the end, they've convinced themselves they found someone great.

I don't care if you like me. 

I've built a team that scales AI-powered creative to millions in spend without me touching anything because I was willing to be the bad guy for 75 minutes.

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Ankit Patel

Simon Robert

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taplio

The Battle

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Simon Robert

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Simon Robert's LinkedIn Performance

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