Killer Visual Strategies

THE ACCIDENTAL AGENCY

It's fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure."

—Bill Gates

In 2010, during the final weeks of June, I designed my first infographic. I had just left the comfort of a six-figure job in marketing for the unpredictable world of startup life. I had worked at startups before, but this was the first time I was truly venturing out on my own with nothing to protect me but a slim safety net of savings.

While my then–business partner and I had been working on launching our business for much of 2009, we had both continued working full-time jobs to keep us afloat. But in June of 2010, I took a leap of faith and quit my day job running search marketing for a directory of colleges. It was the first time that I could realistically dedicate my full attention to our business at the time, an e-commerce software-review service called ZippyCart.com.

ZippyCart was one of many websites we owned, and it was our most successful. We had launched it in 2009 and grown it to a sizeable monthly income as a review and affiliate website. Our goal was to create a handful of other affiliate websites and use content marketing to grow their audience.

I was extremely excited about what was possible within our planned business model. A world of opportunity was in front of me, but financial security—and the peace of mind that came with it—had been thrown out the proverbial window.

I had been the breadwinner of my household. Two years prior, I'd ...