How We Do Business

Name: Sidestreet Media
Address: 187 North Church Street, Spartanburg, SC, 29306, US
Telephone: +18645743811
Price range: $$

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hellosidestreet.com

We have been doing this since 2010, and somewhere along the way the way we work stopped being a set of habits and became a set of rules. These are the rules. They decide how we quote, how we staff, what we take on, and what we walk away from.

Sixteen principles, grouped under four things we are unwilling to trade away. None of it is aspirational. If you are a client and you catch us out of step with any of it, you have every right to say so, and we would rather hear it from you than not.

Continuity Craft & Execution Straight Answers The Long View

A small agency has one real advantage over a big one: it can decide what it will not do, and then actually not do it.

What We Are Working Toward

We keep senior people on the work,

because that is the only version of this business worth running.

We do broadcast-grade work at agency scale,

for clients who would never get access to it otherwise.

We give straight answers,

even when a softer one would close the deal faster.

We build things our clients own,

and can run without us if it ever comes to that.

“Most of what goes wrong in this industry goes wrong in the gap between the person who sold the work and the person doing it. We closed that gap by never opening it. That is not a policy. It is the whole business.”

Joshua Kuhn
Founder & Principal, Sidestreet Media

Four things we will not trade away, and the sixteen rules that keep us honest about them.

Our Business Principles

Principles 01 – 04

The People Who Learn Your Business
Are the People Who Do the Work

Every handoff puts distance between the business problem and the person solving it. That distance is where context disappears, details get missed, and opportunities quietly slip. Most of what goes wrong in this industry goes wrong in that gap.

We built the agency so the gap never opens.

We do not sell with seniors and staff with juniors

The person in your first meeting is the person doing the work, and they stay on it
No account manager layer sitting between you and the people making decisions
When a specialist comes in, you meet them and you know exactly why
We would rather turn work down than staff it with someone learning your business from a brief

We stay small on purpose

Growth that requires a junior bench is growth we do not want
We cap what we take on to protect the model, not the margin
Everyone here is senior enough to be trusted alone with a client
Subcontractors are vetted, named, and accountable to the same standard we hold ourselves to

We work alongside your team, not around it

In-house teams bring us in for what they do not staff for, and we leave them stronger, not bypassed
We are not competing with your marketing director for credit
We document what we build so your people can carry it
We say no to engagements that are really about replacing someone

You get an answer, not a ticket number

Call the number on this site and a person picks up
Questions get real answers the same day, not a status change
When we do not know, we say so and go find out
Nobody on your account is reading from a script

Principles 05 – 08

We Do the Work
to a Broadcast Standard

Our team came out of broadcast. NBC News, ESPN, NBCUniversal, LTN Global, regional television across the South. In that world the show starts at a set time whether you are ready or not, and everyone watching can see whether you got it right.

That standard did not leave when we did. It shows up in a brand campaign for a national manufacturer the same way it shows up in a Sunday morning stream.

Deadlines are real

Air time does not move. Neither do launch dates, court dates, or opening days
We commit to dates we can actually hit, then we hit them
If a date is at risk you hear it from us early, not on the day
A production day is eight hours plus lunch, quoted that way up front, every time

We build for the person who has to run it Monday morning

Church streaming systems get operated by volunteers, so they get built for volunteers
Sites get updated by whoever is there that week, so they get built to be updated
If it takes us to run it, we designed it wrong
Training and documentation are part of the job, not a line item added later

The disciplines have to talk to each other

The team that builds the site should control the traffic going to it
Marketing, web, production, PR, and managed technology under one roof, running one plan
No finger-pointing between vendors, because there is only one of us
Everything performs better when the same people can see the whole picture

AI makes us faster. It does not make the decisions

We use Claude and in-house models for research, SEO analysis, content strategy, and code review
It costs you nothing extra and it makes the work more thorough, not cheaper-feeling
Judgment, accountability, and the final word stay with senior people
Ask us where AI touched your project and you will get a straight answer that does not embarrass either of us

Principles 09 – 12

We Tell You the Truth,
Including When It Costs Us

Trust is not a deliverable. You either get honest answers from your agency or you do not, and you usually find out which at the worst possible moment.

We would rather lose the job than win it on a claim we cannot back.

We tell you what we are not good at

Every shop has a ceiling. We will tell you where ours is before you sign anything
If someone else is the better fit, we will give you the name
Turning down bad-fit work protects both of us
We do not take a retainer for something we would be learning on your budget

We price the work, not the negotiation

Crew rates, PA rates, markups, and pass-throughs are the same numbers for everyone
Pass-through costs are billed at actual cost, with estimated line items shown up front
Overages get quoted before they happen, not discovered on the invoice
No discount that quietly reappears later as reduced scope

We report what matters, not what flatters

Impressions are not results. We report the numbers tied to your revenue
Benchmarks get set before the work starts, not reverse-engineered after
A bad month gets the same explanation as a good one
You can see the raw data any time you want it. It is your data

We say something the first time we see a problem

Raising a flag early is never held against anyone here
An uncomfortable call in month two beats a quiet failure in month nine
If the strategy is not working, we say so and we change it
Crisis work is its own discipline, and the first hour is the one that counts

Principles 13 – 16

We Build Things
That Outlast the Engagement

Engagements end. The site, the brand, the footage, the ad accounts, the systems keep going. We build them so they hold value long after the invoice clears, whether we are still in the picture or not.

We have been doing this since 2010. The relationships that lasted are the ones that were built to.

You own everything we build

Ad accounts, analytics, domains, DNS, hosting, source files, and footage are yours
No hostage architecture, no proprietary lock-in, no exit fee
If you leave, we hand it over cleanly and wish you well
Your data belongs to you, and we handle it like it does

We think in years, not campaigns

The right answer for a quarter is often the wrong answer for a decade
We build brands and systems meant to compound, not spike
A long relationship beats a big first invoice, every time
Not one contract client who has stayed with us at least a year has had a negative ROI

We show up where we live

We have been at 187 North Church Street in downtown Spartanburg since 2013
Public-sector work in our own backyard gets held to a higher bar, because our neighbors are the audience
Local clients get the same senior team as national ones
Being here means we are accountable in person, not just by email

The work has to hold up when we are not in the room

Your reputation is on the line before ours is
Everything we ship should be defensible to your board, your clients, and your competitors
If it only works because we were there to explain it, it does not work
Do it right the first time. There is rarely a budget for the second

Learn More About Us

About Sidestreet

Founded in 2010 in New Orleans, headquartered in Spartanburg since 2013. The story, the team, and the five practice areas.

Values & Ethics Policy

Our human rights policy, our commitments on equity and justice, and the supplier code of conduct every partner agrees to.

Agency Comparisons

How we stack up against the other shops you are probably talking to. Written honestly, including where they win.

Questions About How We Work

Can't find the answer you're looking for? Get in touch

Because the way we work is the product. Continuity, senior staffing, honest pricing, and client ownership are the reasons people hire us, and none of it survives if it only lives in one person's head. Writing it down turns it into something you can hold us to.

They are how we scope, quote, staff, and occasionally fire ourselves from work that is not a fit. If you think we missed one, call 864-574-3811 and say so. That call reaches the founder.

Yes. Anyone we bring onto your project is vetted, named, and held to the same standards on labor, safety, ethics, and data handling that we hold ourselves to. Our supplier code of conduct spells out the specifics.

Regularly. If we would be learning your business on your budget, or the engagement really needs a specialist we are not, we say so and point you somewhere better. That is cheaper for you and better for us.

The principles cover how we do the work day to day. Our values and ethics policy covers human rights, equity and justice, and what we require of suppliers. Two halves of the same commitment.

Joshua Kuhn, founder and principal. Not a support queue, not an account manager. Call 864-574-3811 or email workwithus@hellosidestreet.com.

Hold Us To It.

If any of this sounds like the agency you have been trying to hire, let's have a real conversation about what you're trying to accomplish.

Let's worktogether.