How the entrepreneurs behind Verb built a rapidly growing agency from scratch

In 2018, armed with only their bank accounts and credit cards, Shannon Jones and Yadira Harrison had left their roles at an experiential marketing agency with the goal of truly making inspiring and different work. They calculated that they could keep their business afloat for 100 days before they’d need to do something else. Three days later, they signed Nielsen, Amazon and Lyft.

Fast-forward to now: Shannon, Yadira and the 85-person strong Verb team is regularly turning out headline-grabbing work that leaks on Reddit and breaks on TMZ.

This top-of-line work includes the Hello Seven Millionaire Summit 2024, back for its second year after 99% attendee satisfaction in 2023. Shannon and Yadira architected the summit alongside visionary founder and author Rachel Rodgers. Held in Puerto Rico, it brought together IRL Hello Seven’s diverse and inclusive community to network and learn financial and business advice.

Here's another one: the launch of seven 'Airbnb Icon' experiences in one week, including the now-famous floating Up house. After the launch of over 15 'Only On Airbnb' activations and the wild success of Barbie’s Dreamhouse in 2023, Verb was tapped for more. In summer of 2024, Verb successfully launched The Up House, The X-Men Mansion, The Inside Out House, Edna’s Mansion from The Incredibles and the Feid Tour Experience. From The New York Times, The Today Show, TIME and CNN to Designboom and Dezeen; everyone was sharing Verb’s hard work launching the Icons as a new Airbnb product offering.

The numbers speak for themselves. While contacts with clients were being rapidly let go in 2023, Verb maintained 100% of their staff and hired an additional 50 team members. In 2024, the agency is tracking for 320% revenue growth.

Doubling down

The way Shannon and Yadira create an authentic team truly sets Verb apart, with an internal culture that not only allows employees to thrive, but to excel in their fields.

During 2023, when projects were being canceled and then reinstated during a period of high turnover across the industry, Verb doubled down on internal culture, maintaining the small-agency, everyone-fits-inside-one-car culture while adding new team members. Having no layoffs in 2024 helped ensure that the team would see the other side of the uncertainty.

Verb has never operated with hierarchy or titles in mind. As shared by Yadira’s former executive assistant (now member of the creative team) Alex Rodberg, “Yadira invited me to contribute my ideas for a new project. Despite my initial apprehensions, Yadira saw something in me that I didn't recognize in myself – a potential to think outside the box and bring fresh ideas to the table.”

Verb has never had to create DE&I goals. From its roots in 2018, diversity has been an innate component of the agency. The team spans four generations, with senior leaders as young as 26. When a prospective client asked to see resumes and portfolios for the entire Verb team, Shannon and Yadira pushed back. Verb doesn’t require that information for hiring (one team member used to work for Beyonce. Who needs more of a resume than that?). They did, however, ultimately collect resumes out of curiosity and found that many of their team members had advanced degrees in other fields.

As of March 2023, the team is led by a minority-majority, with women and people of color at the helm. Verb has created a space where code-switching is dropped at the door, and all are safe to express and present themselves as they truly are. As Kindra Meyer, Verb’s recently acquired executive creative director attests: “Shannon and Yadira have quietly, just by their nature, created a revolution at Verb. They built from a foundational need to create a space they could empower others and open doors, the antithesis of what they experienced in the industry.”

Through creative expertise and vision, Shannon and Yadira have proven their ingenuity and forward-thinking as entrepreneurs. That has never been more evident than when looking at the work created in the past year. At the helm of Verb, this duo is raising industry standards in creativity, execution and commitment to excellence.

Today, six years on and tracking to at least triple year-on-year revenue while growing their outstanding team, Shannon and Yadira are facing the biggest challenge many entrepreneurs face: the business is not just theirs anymore. The new leadership team is looking to rebrand Verb and take the company past the referral-only model. But that’s also the mark of a great business — one where everyone feels ownership and wants to bring out the best in themselves and others. “The green is staying though, that’s all I want,” said Shannon.

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