Flavio Vidigal quit advertising on a Tuesday. Global ECD position, top of the world, panic attacks every week. He was done.
By the following Tuesday, he realized he still needed to make money. Advertising was the only thing he knew how to do. So he went freelance, thinking that would solve the problem.
It didn’t. “I was still doing the same bullshit, just as an independent creative,” he admits.
That’s when he decided to build Rise New York—not from a place of ambition, but from necessity. Take everything he’d learned in 20 years about what works in advertising, strip away everything that causes burnout, and build something from the ground up.
Year one wasn’t about being a hero. It was about survival. Could he make enough money? Could he find clients who valued creativity over financial metrics? Could creatives actually run profitable agencies, or did you need banks to manage the business?
“There’s no reason why we can’t do this ourselves,” Vidigal says. “We don’t need a bank to manage our business. We don’t need people looking after us like we’re artists who can’t handle reality.”
Why burnout forced the decision
Burnout isn’t abstract. For Vidigal, it was panic attacks, mental health problems, and an epiphany that he didn’t want to do “this bullshit anymore.” Financial firms had hijacked the industry. Creativity—the thing that should drive everything—had become an afterthought.
“I felt like the industry had been hijacked by financial firms,” he explains. “Like, what’s the problem with creativity? We live in the creative industry. Back in the day, David Ogilvy and all these guys—they were creatives and businessmen. There’s nothing against you being a creative guy and also being financially responsible.”
That’s what sparked Rise. Not a business plan, not a vision of becoming an award-winning agency. Just a question: can we make advertising rise again by putting creativity back in control?
What year one actually felt like
Here’s the part nobody tells you: year one felt like the same problems with a different business card.
Vidigal went freelance first, thinking independence would solve everything. It didn’t. He was still working with the same types of clients, doing similar work, dealing with the same frustrations—just without infrastructure or support.
“I decided to kind of open up my own creative boutique,” he recalls. “I didn’t want to call it an agency because I didn’t feel like we were an agency. We were just like a bunch of dudes trying to come up with ideas and pitching our work together.”
Year one was about figuring out: okay, so what actually needs to be different? Not just structurally, but philosophically. What are we keeping from the holding company experience, and what are we leaving behind?
The pivotal realization: you’re responsible now
The moment Vidigal brought on Cristiano Abrahao and started building a team, everything changed. Freedom in spirit, yes. But the second you have your first employee, you’re responsible for that person.
“That reality kick thing was like, all right, this is going to be quite serious,” Vidigal admits. “How can we do it in a fun way so that it stays interesting for ourselves?”
That shift—from “let’s have fun” to “we’re responsible for people’s livelihoods”—forced them to get serious about positioning, business development, and making sure clients could find them.
Abrahao joined because he’d worked with Vidigal before and trusted the vision. He’d spent years going independent as a contractor, choosing projects he wanted rather than being stuck on retainers for work he didn’t care about.
“When I could choose the projects I was working on, I was happier,” Abrahao explains. “Rather than being on a retainer where we had to do all kinds of things, I wanted to use my time doing the most interesting things out there.”
What they wish they’d known before starting
If you’re staring down a corporate layoff right now, here’s what Rise learned the hard way:
Freelancing isn’t the same as founding. Going independent solves some problems but creates others. You still don’t have control over the type of work or clients. You’re just more exposed financially.
Creatives can run businesses. The myth that you need financial people to manage creative companies is exactly that—a myth. If David Ogilvy could do it, you can too. You have to be willing to learn the business side.
Year one is about soul-searching. Vidigal spent that first year doing deep introspection: what did I learn that was good from this industry? What was bad? How do I build something that keeps the good and eliminates the bad?
Responsibility changes everything. The moment you hire your first person, it stops being about you. That’s when it gets serious—and when you have to figure out how to make it work in a way that’s sustainable.
You don’t need permission. The agency world tells you that you need experience, connections, a business plan, investors. Rise proves you need conviction and a willingness to figure it out as you go.
Learn more
Rise New York & Partners
Flavio Vidigal LinkedIn
Christiano Abrahao Website
Christiano Abrahao LinkedIn
Rise New York LinkedIn
Contact: ne****@*********rk.com | ho****@*********rk.com | +1 347 341 2367
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