Sam Shepler

I run a portfolio of creative agencies approaching eight figures annual rev. Sharing takes on scaling B2B agencies / productized services.

[Jesse Pujji @jspujji]

This.

I’ve made more from services than 80% of my VC backed friends.

“Don’t let their business be YOUR business.”

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

@Top100Rick Wekopa (both) and Troon North monument should probably be in the there…

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

@TheCraigHewitt Better to learn it young!
(I’m entirely joking 🙃)

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

@jasonfried Incredible piece, if you don’t or can’t get it the new Chopard LUC 1869 is also worth a look, in a similar vein

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

Your Airtable pricing is about to significantly increase

[Federico Simionato @fedesimio]

We've officially agreed to acquire Airtable for $1.285B! 😍

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

@barrettjoneill And it’s almost never calculated correctly… always a lot of “COGS” missing from COGs…

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

Your agency isn’t scaling because your gross-margin is worse than you think and therefore you can’t afford to hire the talent you need to elevate as the founder.

Simple but not easy.

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

@kamilrextin And confidence transfers across domains, but competence doesn’t automatically do so

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

Major evolutionary splits in history:
-> Marsupial / Placental Mammals
-> Humans / Chimpanzees
-> People who can smell AI slop a mile away / Others

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

I've hung my own shingle in one shape or form since 2012. Well over a decade of entrepreneurship. In that time it has become so clear to me that truly success as an entrepreneur is about being the last man standing. Entrepreneurship is a game of last man standing. If you can stay in the game for long enough, things tend to work out.

Don't compare your year three to someone else's year 10. Don't worry about competitors. Most of them disappear. Just stay in the game, keep playing, and good things happen.

Obviously you need to have certain fundamentals.Have good unit economics, not burn out, etc., to stay in the game.

Some businesses fail because they're not run well. Other businesses fail just because you, as the founder, get burnt out. You have to protect your energy and motivation. In addition to cash on hand and cashflow It's your greatest resource.

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

@sreejan_c That's fair. There's also probably some reverse survivorship bias too where the stories you hear are always the worst case

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

The majority of private equity is essentially a Ponzi scheme where small private equity sells to larger private equity and then larger private equity dumps on the retail investors. The sooner you realize this and the hellish experience it is working for a PE-backed company, the better. Better to not have to learn this from experience. It's not something I've ever experienced thankfully but I hear a lot of stories.

Good private equity experiences are out there but they are the exception not the rule.

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

I will also say I love private equity from an LP perspective. I am an LP in multiple private equity funds but I will never sell to a private equity fund myself. It's great to be on the private equity side of the table. Less great to be on the receiving end of the private equity strategy side.

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

When you take money from investors, you are just a bet in someone else's portfolio. They expect the majority of their portfolio to fail and a few companies to succeed and will push you to binary go-big-or-blow-up outcomes. There is nothing wrong with that because that is the game they are playing but is that the game you want to play?

Your business is not a bet in your portfolio. It's your main business. Maybe it would be better to take a long-term view and slowly but surely build something great instead of being rushed to either achieve massive success or blow up completely?

[Jason Fried @jasonfried]

No VC money, no massive enterprise accounts, no sales teams, no growth hacking, no retention specialists ... Just exceptional, self-service, word-of-mouth project management software for small/medium-sized businesses. Just Basecamp.

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

@aahritya Do they buy again, eg 2-3 times over 2-3 yrs?

If so, it's a great business.

All about the LTV

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

Starbucks makes $38B selling cups coffee but you think your agency needs a subscription to hit $1M rev+?

Projects can get you pretty far my guy

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

@joe_zappa @productizeguy Yes as sometimes (often times) the LTV of a client can be higher with selling multiple projects vs MRR.

3x 10-15K projects over 3 yrs... 30-45K LTV

Vs a 3K retainer that churns in 4-5 months... 12-15K

[Sam Shepler @SamShepler]

@aahritya yup, and the universe of service options / delivery options becomes much larger.

There are hundreds of good agency ideas that work if you look through a projects lens.

much fewer agency ideas are truly recurring and it's very saturated