This month we sat down and caught up with Maddy Corbin, CEO of MC&CO, a creative agency helping clients with Social Media Management, Branding & Content, and Digital Advertising.
Corbin creates content that is aesthetically pleasing and relatable and provides social media content tips to her viewers. While being in the blogging and creative world since high school, she opens up about her take on entrepreneurship and navigating the business world. With over fifty-seven thousand followers on her personal Instagram, she is scaling a business team while maintaining her own social image. Did someone say… boss?
Erin Holler: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Maddy Corbin: I am the founder of MC&CO, which is a digital branding and social media agency based out of Indianapolis. It’s very new. I’ve been in this industry for seven years now. The business came to fruition this last year. It’s been phenomenal so far.
EH: What makes you most happy?
MC: I think what makes me the happiest is trying new creative projects and learning more about myself.
EH: What is your creative process when you’re making your own content for your own social media vs making it for a client?
MC: I feel like on both sides of the content world, whether it is for business or for personal, I want it to come across as a personal story. The way that I try to do content for myself is almost like I am giving my audience and the viewers my eyes. Everything is from my perspective. When I’m making content for clients I want it to come from their eyes, or somebody on their team. I try to have my content dip into what I’m doing, the things that I’m making, and my creative process. Versus when I’m doing stuff for the clients, I want the final product to be pretty and aesthetic.
EH: When do you feel the most creative?
MC: I feel like when I’m given a lot of creative freedom I put out some of my best work. When I’m working with clients, an event, or a specific project, there are more creative limitations because it’s what they’re looking for. But when they’re creative and trust my process I want to throw something in there that might be a little bit different. I might want to bring on some people that you wouldn’t necessarily think about. I feel like that’s when I produce the best work. As I’ve slowly been building this team I have been able to bring on people from all over the world, and the work has tripled.
EH: How did you get to where you are today? What inspired you to take this leap of faith?
MC: When I was in high school, I ran two businesses. So the business world is very familiar to me. I find that I feel the most like myself when I take these kinds of jobs and I figure it out. I’ve learned that some of the best things that have ever happened to me, whether that be personal or professional relationships, have always happened when I took the jobs that I was the most scared of. It actually happened after 2020, I was laid off from my nine to five and social strategy. I’ve been in this role, I’ve done freelance, but then for six months, I could not get any job. I couldn’t get a freelance job, I couldn’t make a single dollar, and I ended up door-dashing for money to be able to pay for groceries. I had to get a lot of help from my parents. It was when I reached out to Ciroc about the new year party and they asked me to do that campaign that I posted on TikTok and it went viral. That’s why I even have an agency now, because of one viral TikTok.
EH: That’s awesome. I feel like going viral on TikTok always feels unexpected, but for so many people it’s been such a blessing in their lives.
MC: When I look at the life I am living now, versus a year ago when I was in a deep depression… I can’t fathom how I’ve taken so many leaps of faith. I made so many bounces in my career. Then I ended up in this place where it felt like the lowest of lows. Now, when I look at where I’m at a year later, it’s crazy. It’s because of social media; that is why I’m able to instill in clients or as an influencer the power of social media because I saw it from my own personal world.
EH: What advice would you give yourself either a year ago or to small creatives in Indy that have the same passions as you?
MC: I would say the biggest power that I’ve ever seen in my career was building a personal brand. No matter what I do, or what venture I start, that personal brand follows me. That audience is there with me through whatever I’m doing. Having something like that to be able to fall back on—that’s also like your identity. I feel like it’s been a safety bar. That’s made me feel more confident in everything that I’ve done, because I know I can use my audience as a tester. I had started thinking I wanted to do an agency style when I was unemployed. I made the logo and everything, but then I couldn’t get the work. I would spend four hours a day going out to businesses, starting conversations, buying their product, and making a name for myself.
EH: So this goes back to your viral TikTok, I know you briefly mentioned it, but you’ve been influencing for some time now and you mentioned in high school you had a business, and you have your blog. Do you think that because of where you are today, it’s been zero to 100? Or do you think the audience you have been building for some time has helped your viral TikTok?
MC: I think it’s a combination of doing what I’ve done for so long and being so young, taking the risks, and realizing this is what I found. These are the things that were killing me the most, I had the audience, I had influencing, I had these things, but I still had nothing. It was really hard to get back into it. I didn’t have campaigns. I couldn’t bring on freelance clients. And then, it ended up with a TikTok going viral. Now it’s snowballing. People see one cool thing, and then they want their event done. Or they see wonderful social media and they want that. Or they see the results of an ad campaign, and now they want it. So I think it’s a combination. I think trust is instilled in people that are interested because they know that I’ve done it for a long time. I think it was also a result of something going viral. I think it’s the perfect relationship between the love of doing it for a while and knowing what I’m doing.
EH: What has been the most challenging part of being a creative freelancer financially?
MC: I know how to do the work. I know how to share content. I know how to make people happy with their work. But when it comes to the financial side of it it’s a different ballgame that I’m playing. I feel like every day I’m learning more about it. I’m learning about the proper business expenses. I want to play my cards more carefully, because I have a team that I need to fulfill financially first. Being in a position where I’m the leader, and I am somebody that all of my team goes to, I don’t have a person to go to like they have me. So it’s also assuming a position where I am a good leader, but I’m still a good creator. Now I am a mentor to the newer girls who come on the team who don’t have the experience. It’s finding my footing in the role of CEO, and I know that I can do the work. But I’ve never been this kind of CEO before. I would say that’s probably been the hardest part: still providing really good work while also figuring out what I’m doing every day.
EH: How do you set boundaries for yourself? Think about work-life balance. I feel like tons of people struggle with that, especially in today’s age.
MC: Since I’ve been freelancing for so long and I’ve been in this entrepreneurial world, I spent the four years that I would have been in college working all day, every day. I didn’t have a social life, I didn’t have a college experience, and I really didn’t have that many friends. I feel like that was good at the time because now I’m able to separate things a lot easier. Now I really try to keep it nine-to-five when I work. I get my weekends off. I recognize that I put together better work when I’m able to set boundaries, and I’m able to have time to relax. It took a couple of years of working really hard, working constantly, to then realize that I actually wasn’t putting out really great work because I was over-exerting myself. It was finding a balance between what works best for me.
EH: Any last advice?
MC: I think one of the biggest things that held me back from any venture that I have done is what people would think about me. I’ve never been afraid of starting a new venture, even if it is the most random thing, like a home decor dropshipping business, the blogging world, or mentorship program, or now an agency. With all those things, I didn’t go fully in because I was worried about the perception that people would have about me or what they would say about me. When I got to ground zero and I had nothing, I decided I don’t care what anybody says, because I’m doing this for me. Now I’ve been the happiest with my work. At the end of the day, people are always going to have things to say whether it is positive or negative. In this world of entrepreneurship, especially if you’re going after something you’re passionate about, you just can’t care. It’s a hard thing to learn, and I know just saying that people are like, “Yeah, okay.” But truly, if you can wake up and practice intentionally not caring about what people say, I feel like you’ll be so much happier in your world, your work, and what you’re pursuing.
