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The Majority of Creative Businesses Don’t Fail. They Just Never Know Their Number.

Economic Insider Staff on July 2, 2026

By: Jessica Reed

The financial blind spot that quietly kills independent agencies, production companies, and creative studios before they ever get the chance to grow.

There is a question that most founders of small creative businesses cannot answer, and that inability is usually the beginning of the end. The question is simple: what is your overhead number?

Not revenue. Not billing. Not the total invoice sitting in a client’s accounts payable queue. Overhead. The fixed floor of what the business costs every single month to stay alive, before a single hour of work is logged or a single client pays a cent. For most agency founders and independent creative professionals, that number exists somewhere in a spreadsheet nobody has looked at in three months, or not at all.

Conor Firth, CEO and Founder of Art First Business Services, has spent years watching this play out across the advertising agencies, production companies, and independent creative consultants he works with. AFBS provides CFO-level financial advisory exclusively to creative businesses, a niche Firth largely built himself after years as CFO across mid-sized agencies operating in multiple countries.

His starting point with most new clients is not a spreadsheet audit or a tax review. It is a simpler question. “What’s keeping them awake at night?” he says. “Is it the unpaid invoices? Is it the cash that’s potentially going to run out? That’s what you need to know every month so that you’re not waking up in the middle of the night going, oh my God, there’s this thing.”

That absence of a clear financial baseline, Firth argues, is not just an inconvenience. It is the root cause of most of the cash flow panics, missed payroll moments, and sudden capacity crises that characterize the first two years of a creative business. And it is almost entirely preventable.

The number nobody tracks

The founding logic of most independent creative businesses is built around creative output and client relationships. Someone leaves a large agency, brings a contact list and a strong portfolio, wins a first client, and starts working. The money comes in. The money goes out. It mostly seems to balance.

What rarely gets built in the early phase is a 12-month forecast tied to a real understanding of fixed costs. Salaries or owner draws, software subscriptions, professional services, workspace fees, insurance, contractor minimums: added together, these produce a number that should function as the business’s operating compass. Every new client engagement, every pricing decision, every hiring call should be measured against it.

Without it, decisions get made emotionally. A project that feels well-priced may actually represent a loss once overhead is allocated against it. A month that feels profitable may be quietly building toward a shortfall three months later when quarterly tax obligations come due. A business that looks healthy on paper, with two or three large clients and consistent billing, may be one client departure away from being unable to cover its fixed costs for 90 days.

The advertising industry makes this worse in a specific way. Client relationships in creative businesses are notoriously volatile. Accounts that represent millions in annual billing can be terminated with 30 days notice, sometimes less. Agencies that have staffed up to service a major account can find themselves holding payroll obligations that no longer have revenue behind them.

The trap inside the win

There is a second pattern that gets almost no attention in conversations about creative business finance. It is what happens after a founder lands a significant client.

The instinct, understandably, is relief. The pipeline problem feels solved, at least temporarily. The team focuses on delivery. The founder focuses on the relationship. New business development, which was the consuming priority for months, quietly moves to the back of the agenda.

It is, Firth argues, the single most common structural mistake creative founders make, and it is not really a financial mistake at all. It is a momentum mistake with financial consequences that arrive months later.

A creative business with two or three significant clients and no active pipeline is not a stable business. It is a business that is one conversation away from a revenue crisis. In the advertising world, where client relationships can shift overnight based on internal politics, budget cycles, or a new marketing lead who prefers a different agency, maintaining new business development is not a growth strategy. It is a survival strategy.

The financial discipline required to keep the pipeline moving while servicing existing clients is one of the areas where outside advisory tends to have the most immediate operational impact. When a founder is not also functioning as the CFO, the bookkeeper, the HR department, and the business development lead, they have more capacity to actually run the business they set out to build.

What CFO-level thinking actually means for a small agency

The term fractional CFO has become widely used across the startup and small-business world, often describing services that are closer to bookkeeping or basic financial reporting. For creative businesses specifically, the gap between those two things is significant.

Bookkeeping records what happened. A CFO-level function looks at what is going to happen and shapes decisions around it. For an advertising agency or production company, that means building revenue projections that account for the seasonal nature of client spending, identifying the right moment to bring on a contractor versus a full-time hire, structuring fee proposals that accurately reflect the cost of delivery, and flagging cash flow exposure before it becomes a crisis.

It also means being present in conversations that most accountants are not equipped to join. Procurement negotiations with large corporate clients, scope of work structuring, fee recovery on out-of-scope requests: these are moments where a creative business either captures value or gives it away, and they happen in every client relationship, repeatedly.

Firth built Art First Business Services around the recognition that creative businesses have specific financial needs that generalist advisors are not built to serve. His background spans the art world, agency CFO roles, and the day-to-day operational reality of running creative businesses across multiple geographies. The other part of the equation is simpler: he understands how creative founders think, what they find intimidating, and how to translate financial complexity into decisions rather than documents.

The forecast as a management tool

Of all the financial instruments available to a small creative business, Firth consistently returns to the 12-month forecast as the one with the most immediate practical value. Not because it predicts the future accurately, it rarely does, but because the act of building it forces a founder to confront assumptions they have been avoiding.

What does the business cost if no new clients come in for 60 days? What does the revenue picture look like if the largest client reduces scope by 30 percent? What happens to cash flow if three invoices are paid 45 days late, which is entirely normal in the advertising industry? A forecast does not answer these questions with certainty. It makes them visible, and that is the more important thing.

For the wave of creative talent currently building independent businesses, that visibility is what separates those who scale from those who plateau or disappear. The creative work may be exceptional. The client relationships may be strong. But the business only survives if someone is watching the numbers with the same attention the founders bring to the brief.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only and is not intended as legal, financial, or professional advice. While we strive for accuracy, we make no representations or warranties, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability, or availability of this information. Use of this information is at your own risk.

Central Banks Dollar Holdings Survey Signals Reserve Allocation Shift

Economic Insider Staff 2 on July 2, 2026

A new central banks dollar holdings survey found that, for the first time, more monetary authorities expect to reduce their U.S. dollar reserve allocations than increase them over the next decade. The findings, published by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), indicate that reserve managers are reassessing portfolio strategies while expanding gold holdings and integrating artificial intelligence into investment operations.

Key Takeaways

  • More central banks expect to reduce U.S. dollar reserve holdings than increase them over the next decade.
  • The OMFIF survey marks the first time respondents have shown a net preference for lowering dollar allocations.
  • Gold remains the preferred reserve asset for near-term allocation increases.
  • More than two-thirds of surveyed central banks plan to expand artificial intelligence use.
  • Survey participants collectively oversee approximately $10 trillion in assets.

The Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum released a survey showing a notable change in how reserve managers expect to allocate their foreign exchange assets during the coming decade.

According to the survey, more central banks now intend to reduce U.S. dollar holdings than increase them. OMFIF said this is the first time its annual survey has recorded a net preference for lowering dollar allocations among respondents.

The survey gathered responses from 90 central banks, sovereign wealth funds and public pension funds responsible for managing about $10 trillion in combined assets.

Participants identified political risks associated with the U.S. dollar as an important consideration in future reserve management decisions. The findings also coincide with continuing discussions among policymakers and financial institutions about the long-term role of the dollar within the international monetary system. Readers following broader monetary policy developments may also be interested in inflation data pushing back rate cuts and how economic indicators continue to shape policy expectations.

Despite the survey’s findings, the U.S. dollar remains the world’s primary reserve currency and continues to occupy the largest share of global reserve portfolios.

Survey Methodology and Participants

OMFIF surveyed central banks, sovereign funds and public pension funds from multiple regions.

Together, these institutions oversee approximately $10 trillion in assets, providing insight into how public investors expect to position reserve portfolios over both the short and long term.

Why Are Reserve Managers Reassessing Dollar Holdings?

Survey respondents pointed to political risks surrounding the U.S. dollar when explaining their longer-term allocation plans.

The report also found that 79% of surveyed central banks and 60% of public funds believe the international monetary system is moving toward a more multipolar structure.

Although reserve managers expect to diversify their portfolios, respondents did not identify a single currency capable of replacing the dollar’s dominant international role.

The survey found growing interest in reserve currencies outside the traditional group of major holdings. Some central banks reported plans to increase allocations to the Norwegian krone, the New Zealand dollar and the British pound.

Respondents also maintained plans to expand holdings of the euro and the Chinese renminbi. However, they noted that structural challenges continue to limit the appeal of both currencies as larger reserve assets. Even so, nearly all respondents viewed the Chinese yuan as an effective tool for portfolio diversification.

Factors Influencing Reserve Allocation Decisions

Reserve managers continue to evaluate multiple considerations when determining reserve allocations, including liquidity, diversification, geopolitical risks and long-term financial stability.

The survey indicates that diversification rather than wholesale replacement remains a key feature of reserve management planning.

How Are Central Banks Managing Foreign Exchange Reserves?

Gold remains one of the strongest areas of interest among reserve managers. The survey found that 82% of central banks currently hold gold within their reserve portfolios.

Looking ahead one to two years, gold ranked as the asset that respondents were most likely to increase. A net 30% of surveyed institutions said they intend to expand their gold allocations during that period.

The report described gold as moving to the center of reserve management strategy for many central banks.

Artificial intelligence is also becoming a larger part of reserve management operations. More than two-thirds of central banks surveyed expect to increase AI integration in the near term.

The report found that no advanced economy central bank expressed satisfaction with its current level of AI use, while only 9% of all surveyed central banks reported being content with existing implementation. Current applications primarily involve data analysis and back-office operations.

The survey also identified a significant difference between developed and emerging economies. More than 89% of central banks in developed economies currently use AI, compared with 44% of central banks in emerging markets.

Historical Role of the U.S. Dollar in Global Reserves

The U.S. dollar continues to serve as the world’s principal reserve currency.

The survey notes that while reserve managers are considering broader diversification strategies, respondents did not identify another currency with sufficient scale and liquidity to replace the dollar’s central position in global reserve management.

What Could Changing Reserve Allocations Mean for Global Markets?

Reserve allocation decisions by central banks can influence demand for sovereign bonds, reserve currencies and traditional safe-haven assets over extended periods.

The survey suggests that reserve managers are broadening portfolio diversification while maintaining exposure across multiple asset classes.

Gold attracted the strongest short-term interest among reserve assets, while smaller reserve currencies also received increased attention from respondents.

Among public investment funds, infrastructure and real estate ranked ahead of other asset classes for planned allocation increases over the next one to two years.

Nearly 60% of public funds surveyed said they expect to increase exposure to physical assets. The survey also found stronger interest in emerging markets. Thirty-eight percent of public funds plan to increase allocations to emerging economies, compared with 27% in the previous survey. By comparison, interest in increasing allocations to developed markets declined to 25%, down from 47% a year earlier.

Despite broader diversification plans, respondents continued to identify the United States and China as the most attractive investment markets, citing their positions within the global artificial intelligence sector. Investors evaluating long-term portfolio resilience may also find value in high-net-worth risk management as diversification strategies continue to evolve across asset classes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did the latest central banks dollar holdings survey reveal about U.S. dollar holdings?

The OMFIF survey found that, for the first time, more central banks plan to reduce U.S. dollar reserve holdings over the next decade than increase them.

Why do central banks hold foreign exchange reserves?

Central banks maintain foreign exchange reserves to support financial stability, manage currency operations, meet international obligations and maintain confidence in their financial systems.

Why are some reserve managers reducing U.S. dollar allocations?

Survey respondents cited political risks associated with the U.S. dollar and broader diversification objectives as factors influencing future reserve allocation decisions.

How could changes in reserve holdings affect global financial markets?

Changes in reserve allocations can influence long-term demand for reserve currencies, sovereign debt and traditional reserve assets such as gold, although diversification does not necessarily imply replacement of the U.S. dollar.

Ike Onuoha Says Many Media Companies Are Built Backward and Here’s the Infrastructure Model He’s Using Instead

Economic Insider Staff on July 2, 2026

By: AMRAI PR CLUB

The Culture X Capital founder on why he treats media not as a content product, but as a scalable business infrastructure, and what that distinction means for anyone trying to build a media company that actually compounds in value.

Ask Ike Onuoha what kind of company he’s building, and he won’t say “media company” first. “Media is the layer people see. It’s not what I’m actually building,” he says. “What I’m building is infrastructure, a system that produces commercial assets reliably, episode after episode, instead of a personality that happens to have a camera pointed at it.” That distinction, between a media product and media infrastructure, is the core of how Onuoha approaches Culture X Capital, the platform he founded at the intersection of culture, business, and opportunity, and he thinks it’s the single biggest thing most media founders get wrong.

The Problem: Media Companies Built on Output, Not Systems

Onuoha’s critique of the broader media and content industry is specific: most companies in this space measure success by output (episodes published, content calendars filled, follower counts climbing) without ever building the underlying system that makes each unit of output more valuable than the last.

“If every episode you produce starts from zero (new guest, new pitch, new hope that this one performs), you don’t have a business, you have a content habit,” he says. “A real system means every session you produce makes the next one easier, more valuable, or more fundable. If it doesn’t compound, it’s not infrastructure, it’s just activity.”

This is why Culture X Capital’s first session was built the way it was: not as a single podcast episode, but as a proof-of-concept engineered to produce multiple commercial assets (premium interview content, short-form clips, behind-the-scenes material, and a sponsor-facing reel) from one recording. “That’s not a production choice, that’s an infrastructure choice,” Onuoha says. “I wanted the very first thing we made to demonstrate the system, not just demonstrate that I can host a conversation.”

Why He Built the Business Model Before the Content Calendar

Most media businesses, Onuoha argues, build an audience first and try to retrofit a revenue model later (sponsorships, subscriptions, licensing) once the content has already trained that audience to expect something free. He took the opposite approach with Culture X Capital, designing the platform to be sponsor- and investor-facing from its very first session.

“If you wait until you have an audience to figure out how the business actually makes money, you’ve already lost a year, sometimes two, and you’re negotiating from a worse position because now you need the deal more than they need you,” he says. “I’d rather have fewer viewers in year one and a business model that already works than a big audience and no idea how to convert it.”

His Framework for Founders Building a Media Business

Onuoha is specific about the operating principles he’d hand to any founder trying to build a media company designed to scale, rather than a personal platform that depends entirely on him:

• Treat every session as a multi-asset production, not a single deliverable. “If one recording only produces one output, you’re leaving most of the value on the table,” he says. “The same hour of footage should generate interview content, short-form clips, and material you can put directly in front of a sponsor.”

• Build curation as a repeatable process, not a personal instinct. According to Onuoha, a media business that depends on the founder’s personal taste for every guest decision doesn’t scale. He’s built explicit criteria (does this guest’s trajectory prove the platform’s thesis) so the selection process can eventually run without him in the room.

• Make the commercial logic legible to outsiders, not just intuitive to you. “Investors and sponsors can’t evaluate a vibe,” he says. “They can evaluate a system. If you can’t explain, in plain terms, why session two will be as valuable as session one, you haven’t actually built a business yet.”

• Design for the company to outlive its founder’s daily involvement. Onuoha is direct that this is the test he holds himself to. “If Culture X Capital only functions because I personally show up, I haven’t built a company. I’ve built a job for myself. The infrastructure has to work whether or not I’m the one in the room.”

What Makes This Different From a Typical Media Startup

Onuoha is careful to draw a line between Culture X Capital and the wave of personality-led media brands that dominate the current creator economy. “A lot of what gets called a media company right now is really just one person’s brand with a production budget attached,” he says. “That can be a great business for that person, but it’s not infrastructure, and it’s not what I’m trying to build.”

Instead, he points to the underlying systems (guest curation criteria, multi-asset production, sponsor-facing packaging built in from session one) as the actual product. “The rooms are the output people see. The system behind the rooms is the business,” he says. “If I’ve done this right, someone could eventually run that system without needing me to personally curate every single guest.”

Where the Model Goes From Here

With a second episode already confirmed, Onuoha is treating each new session as a stress test for the underlying system rather than simply more content. “The real question after episode two isn’t whether people liked it,” he says. “It’s whether the system produced the same quality of commercial assets without me reinventing the process from scratch. That’s the only metric that tells you if you’ve built something that scales.”

The Piri Law Firm Makes the Case for Restraint in Legal Marketing

Economic Insider Staff on July 2, 2026

By: Georgette Virgo

When people search for legal help, they often hear the same kinds of promises: strong representation, personal attention, and results. The problem is that when every firm sounds confident, it becomes harder to tell what actually sets one apart.

In this high-stakes situation, The Piri Law Firm offers a different entry point into that conversation: in legal work, restraint may say more than exaggeration ever could. Instead of relying only on big claims, it puts more weight on restraint, credibility, and knowing when careful language says more than a bold promise. For clients, that raises an important question: what should matter more, what a law firm says, or what supports it?

The Business of Saying More

The legal industry does not reward caution in its marketing. Legal firms compete for attention, and attention often goes to the clearest, boldest, and often most emotionally satisfying message. That is not unique to law, but it creates a particular tension in this field. Legal matters are rarely simple, outcomes are never assured, and even strong cases can turn on facts that are not obvious at the beginning. Yet the market often pressures firms to sound certain even before they study the facts.

That pressure helps explain why so many legal messages drift toward overstatement. A firm may feel compelled to sound decisive at first contact because ambiguity is harder to sell. Clients who are stressed, hurt, or uncertain do not usually want a lecture on nuance. They want relief. They want someone to take charge. The trouble is that big promises can blur the difference between confidence and performance. A firm may sound sure of itself long before it has said anything especially useful.

The Piri Law Firm pushes against exactly that kind of flattening. It warns against hard-sell language, legal-advice tone, and promotional claims that outrun the evidence. They believe that, beyond grandiose marketing, clients still prefer serious, careful framing.

In that sense, restraint is not an accidental byproduct of the firm’s communications. It is part of the standard that the account is supposed to maintain. The absence of inflated language is doing its work.

What Restraint Actually Signals

Restraint in legal communication can be misunderstood as hesitation. At The Piri Law Firm, it means something else: discipline. For Michael Piri, immigration and personal injury lawyer and the founder of The Piri Law Firm, it means not promising outcomes no lawyer can ensure, not turning a complicated case into a slogan, and not speaking as though every legal problem follows the same path. That approach may sound less forceful at first, but it often gives clients something more useful: a clearer sense of what can honestly be said.

That standard comes through in one of the firm’s clearest lines: “We only sign clients we can actually help.” The value of that statement lies in its limits. It does not try to suggest that every case belongs with the firm or that every problem has a simple solution. In areas such as immigration and personal injury, where facts, timing, and risk can vary widely, that kind of restraint can make a firm sound more credible, not less.

The same applies to another of the firm’s statements: “We can handle cases that other firms have failed at or refuse to take on.” That line works best when read carefully. It is not a broad claim that this firm is better than every other one. It is a narrower point about the kinds of matters the firm is prepared to engage. That distinction is important. For The Piri Law Firm, restraint is not about sounding timid. It is about saying only what can be supported.

The firm’s clients notice that difference. Many of its past clients, including those in the Latino community the firm serves, are not simply listening for confidence. They experienced a lawyer who is direct about the risks, the facts, and the limits of their case. The firm does not rush to say too much, which leaves a stronger impression than one that tries to sound certain from the start.

Why That Matters More Than Ever

There is a practical reason this issue matters now. Many clients encounter law firms the same way they encounter everything else: through websites, search results, short-form impressions, and a handful of verbal cues that stand in for deeper understanding. Under those conditions, style can overshadow substance. A polished message may create a sense of security before the client has any basis to judge whether the firm’s actual approach is a good fit for the case.

That is why legal restraint can function as a form of credibility. It interrupts the pattern clients have come to expect. Instead of offering instant certainty, it offers a more bounded, more realistic frame. It does not promise victory. It signals a posture toward the work. That is the difference restraint often makes: it shifts legal communication away from outcomes that cannot be guaranteed and toward standards that can be described honestly.

Striking the Right Balance

Legal restraint, in Piri’s view, is not about dismissing every firm that makes strong promises or suggesting that confidence is always misplaced. It is a reminder that clients should look more carefully at what stands behind those promises. They should also look at the credibility built through client testimonials, a clear record of service, and the seriousness with which they assess all the facts presented to them.

That is where The Piri Law Firm tries to strike its balance. For the Latino community it serves, the goal is not silence or hesitation, but judgment, knowing when restraint is necessary, when reassurance is appropriate, and how to speak with both honesty and conviction. In a legal market full of competing claims, that balance may be one of the clearest signs of a firm that wants to be believed for the right reasons.

Disclaimer: The content in this article is provided for general knowledge. It does not constitute legal advice, and readers should seek advice from qualified legal professionals regarding particular cases or situations.

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