The ultimate guide to agencies: building, growing, and monetizing a service business

In this Trends.vc Report, we talk about predictable revenue, building scalable products, niche agencies, cold outreach and more.

🔍 Problem

Companies need to solve short-term problems, access on-demand expertise and scale fast.

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💡 Solution

Agencies offer tailored solutions with high lifetime value.

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🏁 Players

Design Agencies

• Solveo • Launch smarter and grow faster
• Outstandly • Game art design
• OpenPurpose • Premium design services

Content Agencies

• Hiperion Marketing • SEO-optimized content, audits and backlinks
• Fractl • Acquire more customers from organic search
• Draft • Technical content

Marketing Agencies

• Studio CO2 • Digital marketing for product campaigns
• Delverise • Managed growth solutions
• Tetriz • Growth hacking for SaaS

Recruiting Agencies

• A Team Overseas • Hire executive assistants for startups.
• Movevirtual • Hire virtual assistants for design, support and marketing
• RemotelyTalents • Find remote talent in marketing and eCommerce

Development Agencies

• Optemization • Builds custom workspaces in Notion
• Flow Ninja • Building websites with Webflow
• Airdev • No-code development services

Lead Generation Agencies

• clique.agency • Google Ads optimization
• CyberLeads • Reach out to companies who raised funds
• Belkins • Book meetings with B2B leads

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🛠 How to Build Agencies

• Use cold outreach to get new clients.

• Gaurav Sharma used cold emails to grow Attrock.
• Jakob Greenfeld and Ryan Doyle run Sales.co. They cold-emailed businesses with custom videos.
• Justas Markus and Tomas Laurinavicius run GetFound XL. They did content audits and cold-emailed prospects the results.

• Build your agency on top of an ecosystem. Use network effects to your advantage.

• Infiraise offers Odoo consulting services.
• ThinkFuel offers HubSpot development services.
• Represent offers Shopify and Sanity development.
• Nuanced Media offers Amazon marketing services.
• Duck Design offers web development with Webflow, Tilda and more.
• White Label Coders offers WordPress and WooCommerce development.

• Build a full-service agency. Become a one-stop shop for all client’s needs.

• Bear In The Hall is a full-service creative agency.
• Jives Media is a full-service digital marketing agency.
• The Shelf is a full-service influencer marketing agency.

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🌱 How to Grow Agencies

• Build in public to earn trust and stay top of mind.

• Nick is building Baked Design in public.
• Wildish & Co. shares branding work on Instagram.
• Our Own Brand is active on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
• League Design Agency shares design work on Facebook and Instagram.
• Brett Williams shares lessons on building Designjoy in public to $1,500,000 ARR.
• Alex West is building Cyberleads. He shares progress, revenue and customer success.

• Share case studies. Build confidence in your ability to solve problems.

• Overskies share case studies on branding services.
• AMP Agency shares case studies on marketing and advertising.
• OneAgency shares case studies on design, development and content marketing.

• Offer lead magnets to get contact details of prospective customers.

• Comrade offers a free marketing audit.
• KlientBoost offers a free marketing plan.
• Hibu offers a Facebook reach calculator.
• AtticSalt offers an ebook on brand design.
• JetRockets offers an ebook on picking a software development partner.

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💰 How to Monetize Agencies

• Charge per hour to offer clients flexibility. Let clients pay for what they use.

• Medsolve charges per hour for medical marketing services.
• Redwerk charges per hour for software development services.
• Iceberg charges per hour for HubSpot implementation services.

• Charge per project to earn predictable revenue.

• EPAM charges per product development project.
• JetRockets charges for designing and building software projects.
• Shakuro charges for design, development and branding projects.

• Share your price upfront to simplify the buying process.

• The Career Coach has career coaching programs with clear prices.
• EZ Rankings has digital marketing and web development packages.
• clique.agency shares clear prices for the Google Ads management services and audits.

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🔮 Predictions

• We’ll see AI-enabled agencies. They will use AI agents and generative AI to automate work.

• Verblio offers AI-augmented content creation.
• Draft which has AI-powered writing workflows.
• Brave Bison uses AI for research and creative work.
• Jakob Greenfeld and Ryan Doyle test AI agents at Sales.co.
• NoGood uses AI to build psychographics and offer marketing services.
• Eric Siu runs Single Grain. They use generative AI to work on SEO and content.

• Agencies will become more niche. This will help to lower competition.

• WeTeachCRO helps to boost conversions.
• Optemization builds custom workspaces with Notion.
• The Amore Agency helps to market OnlyFans models.
• Amazowl offers marketing services for Amazon sellers.
• Divine Persuasion Studio helps churches build strong brands.

• Agencies will build internal tools to boost their performance.

• Gosling Media has Gosling360 for managing work.
• The Shelf has a proprietary influencer marketing platform.
• Kevin Geary runs Digital Gravy. It made Frames that powers their design sets.
• Power Digital built nova Intelligence which uses AI to help make the right decisions.
• Lasting Dynamics built Roundrush, a workflow management tool. It is free for clients and partners.

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😠 Haters

“Advising is a better business model than building an agency. Higher margins and lower mental overhead.”
You’re right. Margins are higher and client management is easier when you’re an advisor.

“Agencies are hard to scale.”
While agencies scale by hiring, you can build scalable products to offset this. Find a problem you can solve at scale with SaaS or a digital product.

“Managing an agency is hard. Managing a remote one is harder.”
Build processes and master communication. Unreliable communication amplifies the risks of async work.

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🔗 Links

1. From Indie Hacking to Owning an Agency • The thread behind this report.
2. Building a Report on Agencies • The tweet behind this report.
3. How to Get Customer Testimonials • 6 ways to ask for testimonials from your customers.
4. How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency • How to build and grow a digital marketing agency.

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📁 Related Reports

• Unlimited Services • Offer design, development and marketing work without a complex buying process.
• Software Development Services • Help clients focus on their core competency while you do the coding.
• Fractional Executives • Offer a fractional executive on an as-needed basis.
• Consulting • Guide clients and sometimes implement solutions.
• Productized Services • Offer a service for a fixed price with a clear scope and timeline.

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