Every week, I advise founders on how to hit $10k MRR. On Tuesdays, I share my consulting notes from those private sessions. Learn from their mistakes so you don't burn your own cash.
Stop building a SaaS tool. Build a fake agency instead.
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Hey Reader, A founder I spoke with last week put it bluntly: "Traditional marketing agencies are in complete denial." They're charging monthly retainers to press buttons in tools their clients already pay for, while the client does the actual thinking. And somehow, the clients keep paying. Here's what the agencies haven't figured out yet – and what most SaaS founders are also missing. The biggest AI opportunity right now is not a better dashboard, a smarter workflow tool, or another seat-based subscription. It's software wearing an agency's clothes. YC called it earlier this year. The highest-leverage AI play is a software company that looks and sells like an agency. Not a tool that requires the client to do the labor. An outcome the client simply receives. Here's why this matters for you: Tools create friction. Every tool you sell requires onboarding, adoption, training, and ongoing effort from your buyer. Most buyers don't want that. They want the result. Agencies create dependency. Traditional agencies are slow, expensive, and built on human labor with linear capacity. They can't scale without hiring. The hybrid model wins. Build the AI system internally. Sell the outcome externally. You look like an agency. You operate like software. One founder I know spent six months building an AI-powered outreach system. He didn't package it as a SaaS product. He built an agency around it – running campaigns at 10x the volume and a fraction of the cost of any human team. He's not selling access to a tool. He is the outcome. And he's quietly eating traditional agencies' lunch. The Clarity Filter Insight The biggest AI opportunity isn't a better tool – it's a fake agency powered by real software. [Share on LinkedIn] [Share on X] Audit what you're actually selling. If your pitch requires the buyer to do labor after signing, you're selling a tool. Ask yourself: what would this look like if I just sold the outcome instead? That reframe might be worth more than your next six months of feature development. Speak soon, P.S. Don't write code for a product nobody wants to buy. I built Traction OS to give you the exact 60-day roadmap, sales scripts, and validation templates you need to hit your first $10k MRR without guessing. From complete scratch or with an existing MVP. |
Clarity Filter
Every week, I advise founders on how to hit $10k MRR. On Tuesdays, I share my consulting notes from those private sessions. Learn from their mistakes so you don't burn your own cash.
Hey Reader, Alex had a great demo call with Billy, a marketing manager at an e-commerce brand. Billy asked good questions. Billy seemed interested. Then Billy went quiet. Alex assumed the product wasn't good enough. It was. The pitch was the problem. Alex was selling: "this tool does your email retention work for you." Billy heard: "this tool could do your job without you." That is not a sales pitch. That is a threat. Here is what most B2B founders miss when selling to employees rather than...
Hey Reader, A client came to me frustrated. They had the right targeting. The right demographics. E-commerce decision-makers, correct job titles, correct company sizes. Their LinkedIn ad campaign looked perfect on paper – and it was producing almost nothing. I wasn't surprised. Here's the thing nobody in your marketing agency will say out loud: LinkedIn's ad algorithm is years behind Facebook. It lacks the deep behavioral and intent data that makes paid social actually work. When you run a...
Hey Reader, A founder asked me last week how to respond to someone pitching a Shopify quiz app – 10x more expensive than existing competitors, no unique technology, no obvious edge. He expected me to help him dismantle the idea. Instead, I told him: I don't care about the idea. Here's the truth most early-stage founders don't want to hear: your product quality is almost never your real competitive advantage. You can have a worse product at a higher price and still win – if you have...