Why we stopped running ads for people, and started teaching them.

Hi, I'm Josh.

Hedgehog turns 11 this December. I started it with my sister, a copywriter. I'd just moved down from a marketing job in Sydney, I was pretty green, and she wanted to start an agency. So we did.

We grew fast. Too fast. At one point I had 11 people working for me, I was way too young for it, and I'll be honest: I hated it.

Agency life is churn and burn. You bring clients in, fit them into a cookie-cutter system, and keep the 40% or so it works for. The rest leave annoyed and hop to the next agency. No one likes their agency, and most agencies don't love their clients either. There are good agencies out there, and they suit some businesses. It just wasn't a world I wanted to build.

So I scaled it right back and became a consultant, a business of one, working one on one with business owners. Somewhere in there I worked out what I actually loved: teaching people how to do it themselves.

Nobody cares as much as you do

An agency is paid for a set number of hours. They're not going to jump in at the end of the month and rework your campaign because something feels off. You will. You know your customers, your offer and your voice better than anyone you'll ever hire.

I also kept seeing businesses renting their marketing. Renting the expertise is fine, that's what you pay for. But too often they were renting the ad accounts, the landing pages and the data too. Three years in, they'd leave and be back to zero. So the first thing we tell people is to own everything. When someone says "I'm so busy, can you just set it up for me?", the answer is no. You set it up. I'll walk you through it.

It's easier than it's ever been

Meta and Google aren't as hard as they used to be, and AI now does a lot of the heavy lifting. We've built a team of AI agents that help you plan, make your ads and pages, and read your numbers each week. It took me most of this year to get it right. Every time we train someone and launch their campaigns now, the results beat what I expected.

But AI on its own makes slop. Things still need a human to look at them, and that human should be you. So we teach you how it all works first, then how to get it done faster with AI. If you'd rather leave AI out, everything still works without it.

So now we train

Everything happens inside your own ad accounts, so you're on the tools from day one. In 1-1 training the goal is live in two weeks and independent by eight. And you're never on your own. Teddi, my 2IC for the last three years, and our trainers have all spent at least ten years in Meta and Google Ads. No juniors, and no handballing you to someone you've never met.

If you want to give it a go, explore free for 7 days first. If you'd rather talk it through first, book a chat with me. No hard sell. I'd just love to help you run your own ads.

P.S. Our number one line inside the team is "perfection is the enemy of progress". Your first ads won't be perfect. They'll be live, and they'll be yours.