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, — Dmitry
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.