Learning operations & hiring, the tech-enabled agency model, Bangkok, ...

Hey!

Whenever someone vanishes online for a while it usually means that either things are going bad or things are going really well. For me it was the latter.

I’ve been super busy building our agency. We’ve been growing fast and eventually did hit the point where we were struggling to keep up with everything. So we stopped taking on new clients for a while to make sure we can deliver amazing results for existing clients and figure out how we can grow further.

Building the machine while also operating it are effectively two fulltime jobs, so there was no time left for writing, or anything else really.

But now the machine is finally running smoothly again and we’ve hired some amazing people to help us operate it. I’m mildly optimistic I will have some time again every morning to write.

Even though they were stressful, the weeks since my last update have been incredibly fun because I learned two completely new skills “hiring” and “operations”.

Hiring & Operations

I’m obviously still a complete beginner but there’s always something magical about the first weeks of learning a new skill.

One thing we did well is to start with a dollarized time audit. For a week, Ryan and I wrote down every few minutes what were doing. Next we categorized the tasks we’re spending time on using dollar values. In particular, we focused on finding tasks we really should be doing ourselves (“$1k+/hour work”). Then we brainstormed how we can do whatever is necessary to spend less time on everything else ($10/hour, $100/hour work).

But other than that, pretty much made every hiring mistake you can make but quickly managed to turn things around. The short version is that you should do pretty much the opposite of what everyone on Twitter is saying.

In particular, don’t hire cheap offshore VAs. They will cause more problems than you’ll be able to fix and as a result, you’ll have more not less work on your plate. And cultural differences are a very real phenomenon when it comes to working culture.

But why then is everyone and their grandmother raving about cheap offshore VAs?

Usually because of some hidden agenda. Either they’re running a recruiting agency, are affiliated with one, or want to sell their “how to hire VAs” course.

The lesson for me is that, especially in the beginning, it’s smarter to hire amazing western-educated talent. Yes, you’ll have to pay a lot more but they need no micro-management and will be able to get shit done even if not everything is documented perfectly (which in the real world never is).

Previously we were worrying a lot about operations and how we could make things more bulletproof. Now things are running smoothly with only a super minimalistic operational structure in place.

We’ve switched from Trello to ClickUp. It’s ridiculously buggy and slow but seemed like the only option flexible enough for our needs. Most similar tools are 100% focused on project management while we’re not really doing projects but working with clients on an ongoing basis. And what’s also cool about ClickUp is that we can not just use it for task management but also to build internal tools.

Speaking of internal tools…

The tech-enabled agency model

Our original plan was to use our agency as a testing ground for software ideas that we can then turn into products. Now we do have several internal tools that we could easily turn into solid SaaS businesses.

But I now think that would be pretty dumb. The more people are using these tools the less effective they become. They are giving us a very real edge. So it makes a lot more sense for us to just use them internally to drive better client results.

Also when you’re building internal tools you don’t have to worry about all the boring stuff like authentication, security, load times, fixing bugs caused by weird user behavior. This stuff makes no meaningful difference in what you can achieve with the tool but is responsible for like 90% of the time required to ship it.

SaaS revenue is cool but so is agency revenue. And at least right now, doing everything I can for our clients paying $2k+/mo seems smarter than worrying about the needs of SaaS users paying, say, $49/month.

Running a tech-enabled agency is such an underappreciated business model.

We’re building software tools like a SaaS founder would, but instead of making them publicly available charging $X/month, we leverage them internally for our clients charging $XXX/month.

And you don’t have to be a superstar coder to make the tech-enabled agency model work. Like I said, all the really difficult stuff doesn’t matter when you’re just using the tools internally. When you’re just building for your own needs, you can 100% focus on making the tools maximally useful without worrying about anything else.

Hustle Week 2.0

At the start of the year, Ryan and I did a Hustle Week. We rented an Airbnb in Barcelona and working in person together had a huge impact on our business. Since then our business has effectively 10’xed.

Now with everything we worked on during the past few weeks, it feels like our business is finally ready to 10x yet again.

So the timing couldn’t be any more perfect that our second Hustle Week is about to start. This Friday I’m meeting up with Ryan in Bangkok where we will work together for two weeks (April 21 - May 5).

If you’re in the area and want to meet up, shoot me a message!

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Cheers,

Jakob