Agency Lessons | Interviews with Founders, Owners, and Operators about Growth and Operations

• Scott Weisman on Twitter
• Scott's agency LaunchPad Lab

00:00:00 - Introduction to today's key topics: Balancing Agency and Software Development, Exploring AI Opportunities, Global Hiring Strategies, Maintaining Remote Team Culture, Using CRM for Growth.

00:02:30 - Discussion on balancing agency work with software development. Key challenges and strategies to overcome them.

00:10:15 - Exploration of AI opportunities. Understanding the potential of AI in transforming businesses and industries.

00:19:45 - Deep dive into global hiring strategies. How to find and attract the best talents around the world.

00:29:30 - Maintaining a positive and productive culture in remote teams. Strategies for managing and motivating a dispersed workforce.

00:40:00 - The role of CRM in business growth. How to leverage CRM tools for enhancing customer relationships and driving growth.

* My Twitter

* Andre Haykal on Twitter

00:02:15 - Agency Offers Evolution Explained
00:07:45 - The Role of Incentive Alignment in Success
00:13:30 - Proven Strategies for Effective Hiring
00:18:50 - Journey of Building a Successful SaaS
00:24:20 - Power of Personal Brand in Business
00:29:55 - Boosting Operations Using Typeforms
00:35:10 - Overcoming Challenges in SaaS Development
00:40:40 - Striking Balance: Brand and Product
00:45:30 - Ensuring Effective Team Communication
00:51:00 - Predicting Future SaaS Platform Trends

• Tom Critchlow's website

• Andrew's company
• Andrew's Twitter
• Jakob Greenfeld's website

00:00:00 - Andrew Pierno talks about his career in venture-backed companies and how he started his cold email agency, Cold Email Studio.
00:02:45 - Andrew Pierno discusses the challenges and lessons learned from running a cold email agency and the importance of finding the right market, message, and timing.
00:05:34 - Andrew Pierno shares insights on how his agency evolved by focusing on content marketing and thought leadership to attract ideal customers.
00:08:27 - Andrew Pierno talks about the challenges faced by agencies in terms of profit margins and how they shifted their focus to increase profitability.
00:11:07 - Andrew Pierno talks about the process of acquiring and turning around businesses, emphasizing the importance of buying businesses with growth potential and a working channel.
00:17:38 - Andrew Pierno discusses the factors that make a business attractive for acquisition, including product, customers, and channels, and the reasons why some people choose to sell their businesses.
00:20:11 - Andrew Pierno shares his approach to finding and evaluating businesses for acquisition, including direct outreach, online marketplaces, and inbound leads.
00:25:25 - Andrew Pierno highlights the importance of timing and exhaustion as reasons why people sell their businesses, and the challenges of competing with other buyers on online marketplaces.
00:28:49 - Andrew Pierno talks about the value of his online presence and audience in raising outside capital and differentiating his agency in the acquisition space.

• follow Michael Houck on Twitter
• Michael's newsletter
• Megaphone Network

- Tibo's Twitter

- Tweet Hunter

The nomad lifestyle (00:00:00) Discussion about the pros and cons of working as a nomad and the preference for having a dedicated workspace.

Starting the podcast conversation (00:00:24) Small talk about their current locations (Paris and Denmark) and setting the casual tone for the conversation.

Past startup experiences (00:02:17) Conversation about previous startup ventures, the mistakes made, and the dreams of building a successful company.

The evolution of Tweet Hunter (00:11:08) The speakers discuss the initial idea behind Tweet Hunter, its main features, and how it has evolved into a scheduling tool.

Challenges in building a scheduling tool (00:13:20) The speakers talk about the initial fear of building a scheduling tool and the challenges associated with it, including the risk of messing up and the need for strict accuracy.

Changes in Twitter's algorithm (00:17:27) The speakers discuss recent changes in Twitter's algorithm, including smaller initial sample sizes, the focus on engagement, and the optimization for mainstream content. They also express concerns about the loss of the core community and the preference for video content on platforms like TikTok.

The Twitter Community (00:22:18) Discussion about the decline of the Twitter community and the search for a replacement platform.

LinkedIn as a Business Tool (00:23:01) The value of LinkedIn for building a business audience and concerns about Twitter's changes and potential account loss.

Tweet Hunter's Success (00:25:29) Factors contributing to the success of Tweet Hunter, including being early in the market, AI advancements, and consistent presence on Twitter.

- Sam's website

- Sam's agency

• Phil is the co-founder and CEO of Missive. (By far my favorite team inbox software)

• Nick Abraham's Twitter
• Nick Abraham's agency
• My Twitter
• My agency Sales.co

Andy Walker on Twitter

Andy's agency Stryker Digital

• Grant's Twitter profile
• Grant's Agency
• Hampton community
• Sales.co agency

• BusinessBrainstorms.com
• Michael's Twitter account.
• Michael's services and businesses are listed here.

• Vikas' Twitter profile
• Vika's business

• Jake's website
• Jake's book

This episode is brought to you by Founder Flywheel. 

• Sagiv's website
• Sagiv's Twitter profile
• Sagiv's summary of our conversation

• Tom's Twitter account
• Tom's website

• John's Twitter account
• John's newsletter

• David's Twitter account
• David's company Eduflow

• Andrew's Twitter account
• Andrew's website
• Andrew's thread on the opposite of the metaverse.

• Tom's Twitter profile
• Tom's website
• Tom's newsletter
• Tom's SaaS Redstone HR

• Tom's Twitter profile
• Tom's website
• Tom's newsletter
• Tom's SaaS Redstone HR

• Xavier's Twitter account.
• Xavier's community.
• Xavier's info product.

• Jordan's Twitter
• Jordan's agency Cobalt Intelligence

Harish is a GPT-3 consultant, founder of MynaOne, and author of the "Definite Guide to building products with OpenAI".

• Get access to Daniel's private Shopify app store database here.
• You can connect with Daniel on Twitter.
• Daniel's website
• He's currently running App Store Analytics ('Google Search Console for Shopify apps').

This podcast is brought to you by Opportunities.so.

• Right now Travis is building Senpai, an asynchronous video platform that allows creators to monetize their expertise.
• Travis is pretty active on Twitter and you should also check out his amazing blog where he's sharing all the lessons from his ventures.

• Alejandro's personal website
• Alejandro's Twitter profile

This podcast is brought to you by Opportunities.so.

• Summary of the episode.
• Peter's website.
• Peter's Twitter account.
• Peter's thread on travel niches are growing like crazy.
  

This podcast is brought to you by Opportunities.so.

• Matt's Twitter Account, 
• Matt's Newsletter

This podcast is brought to you by Opportunities.so.

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Iain's website
• Iain's Twitter account
• Plugin Rank (Iain's SaaS tool for plugin creators)
• Integrate (Iain's WordPress-Instagram plugin)
• WP Trends (Iain's Newsletter)
• WP User Manager (the plugin Iain acquired)
• WPContent.io (Iain's WordPress community)
• WP Rocket (the premium caching plugin that succeeded despite strong competition)
• Freemius (service that makes it simple to sell WordPress plugin subscriptions)

• Keevin's Twitter account 
• Keevin's Newsletter Brainstorms.io 
• It's Under the Radar Newsletter by Rob Sullivan

Andrew's Twitter profile. 

Andrew's idea list

• 3. Design Assessment Platform (enterprise Coderbyte but for UX/UI Designers)
• 4. Speed Runs of Non-Games (GamesDoneQuick but for other digital activities)
• 1. Homeschooling Extracurricular activities (have homeschooled kids socialize more)
• 5.  Piggyback Distribution. Micro influencer marketing. (get  slack/discord/subreddit active community members to 'hunt' your product)
• 2. Be my guest. Play at exclusive member only places (primarily golf clubs to begin)

Summary

• Jakob and Andrew discuss the idea for design assessment platform, like CoderByte, but for UX/UI designers (1:28)
• Jakob and Andrew moves on to the next idea – speed runs of non-games (12:04)
• Jakob and Andrew discuss plans on how to monetize the project / idea (20:09)
• Jakob and Andrew move on to homeschooling extra-curricular activities (22:28)
• Jakob and Andrew discusses the next idea – micro influencer marketing (32:17)
• Jakob asks what the missing link is in the current ecosystem (34:50)
• Jakob and Andrew discusses their experiences in private / public communities (36:17)
• Jakob mentions that there's room for improvement for communities in general (44:41)
• Jakob and Andrew talk about their experience using Circle (46:46)
• Jakob and Andrew then move to the last idea: find a way to play at exclusive member only places like golf clubs (49:53)
• Andrew tells what originally prompted this idea (52:57)
• Jakob mentions how the two last ideas are connected (55:25)
• Andrew decides what idea he want to execute  (57:13)

• Keevin's Twitter account
• Keevin's Newsletter Brainstorms.io
• Sidemail.com

Andrew's Twitter profile. 

Andrew's ideas:

1. Productize my ProductHunt profile as a "Good Luck Charm" because I have the lucky of being user #777777

2. Negotiation Practice or interviewing.io for negotiations (not just salary)

3. Start with a "Why So Expensive" product, and build something around that

4. Collabs GAN (Generative Adversarial Network)

5. Dynamic Price Widget

• Luke's Twitter Profile
• Luke's Newsletter
• David Perell Bot
• Birdy Bots
• Hypefury
• Colony.io
• Urbit
• APIs all the way down

• Aswin's website Learn then Apply
• Aswin's Twitter profile.

Andrew's Twitter profile

Resources we talked about:

• List of 100 business ideas by Andrew
• 7 Newsletter Product Ideas for Indie Hackers by Andrew
• 9 Podcast Product Ideas for Indie Hackers by Andrew
• Better Sheets
• Twitter templates by Andrew
• A tool I built based on the ideation framework shared by Andrew

• Product Byte
• Trends.co
• Trends.vc
• Keevin O'Rouke's profile and Product Byte updates on Indiehackers
• Software Ideas by Kevin Conti
• Rappi app

• Capiche.FM
• My First Million podcast
• Agency Course
• How I built this podcast
• Dickie Bush's Ship 30 for 30 challenge
• David Perell's Write of Passage Course
• https://twitter.com/brandonthezhang
  (his first essay was indeed shared by David Perell)
• The Day You Became A Better Writer by Scott Adams
• Writing Guide by Julian Shapiro
• Fast, Slow
• Notes by Andy Matuschak
• The Krystal Theme for Tiddly Wiki

• Launching on Product Hunt
• Deals for indie makers
• why private communities don't really solve the problems that public communities have.
• Painpoints.io 
• Indie Hackers
• Trends.vc
• IndieDrops.com
• Product Explorer
• Gum Spy
• IndieThinkers.org
• Nesslabs
• https://jakobgreenfeld.com/gut
• Trends.co
• Kaggle
• Peter Askew
• RanchWork.com
• https://www.deepsouthventures.com/i-sell-onions-on-the-internet/