matt

ai warmonger - @leadascnsion

[matt @mattmonclair]

@Zephyr_hg this looks sick gamma

[matt @mattmonclair]

@NoahEpstein_ outreach, was building one myself but curious to see 👀

[matt @mattmonclair]

if you're not already doing 6 figures trying to scale your agency is how you go from profitable to broke in 6 months

AI work is bimodal: either a $15/hr VA can prompt it, or you need someone with a PhD. there's no middle tier.

that $120k "AI specialist" you hired? they're either overqualified or faking it.

every AI agency founder hits this moment:

you're doing $40k/month in revenue. working 70-hour weeks. you think "I need to scale. I need to hire."

so you post on Twitter: "Looking for an AI engineer. Must know Python, prompt engineering, and LangChain."

you get 50 applications. you hire someone for $120k.
three months later you realize:

80% of what they do could be done by a $15/hour VA with good ChatGPT prompts

the other 20% requires understanding transformer architectures at a level they definitely don't have

there's no middle. the "AI engineer" role as advertised doesn't exist as a stable position.

and here's the part that kills agencies:

your actual competitive advantage was never your "methodology" or your "proprietary framework"

it was the 300 hours YOU personally spent understanding one client's Byzantine data infrastructure. their SAP system from 2007. their Excel sheets with macros written by someone who retired in 2015. their Salesforce instance that three different consultants have Frankensteined together.

that knowledge doesn't transfer to employees. it dies in their brain when they leave for the next opportunity.

meanwhile your margins are imploding:

Revenue per client: $8k/month
Your salary (founder): $0 (you're "reinvesting")
New hire salary: $10k/month
Recruiter fee: $24k upfront

Their first project: they need 40 hours of training. from you. the person who has no time.

the agencies actually printing money? still 1-2 people. charging $10.000+ and have a waitlist to onboard more clients.

they're not trying to scale. they're selling their personal scar tissue at premium rates and saying no to everything else.

your "scalable agency" is less profitable than just being an expensive consultant.

act like it.

[matt @mattmonclair]

@NoahEpstein_ MCP

[matt @mattmonclair]

nobody building an AI agency posts their failures because we're all in a mimetic bubble pretending the unit economics work

privately? we're all terrified we're building on quicksand

i've been in 9 founder group chats this year.

public Twitter: "Just closed another $50k deal! AI agencies are the future! 🚀"

private Signal at 2am: "bro I think I'm cooked. client just asked why they're paying me $10k/month when ChatGPT Team is $60."

the entire discourse is performance art.

everyone's signaling competence to attract clients.

nobody's sharing actual numbers because the numbers are terrifying:

6-month average client lifetime (they wise up or go in-house)

40% margin after you factor in API costs and support

zero proprietary moat (your "custom solution" is 600 lines of Python anyone could replicate)

we're all larping as successful while privately updating our resumes.

the most honest content would be shutdown announcements with real revenue breakdowns:

"We did $500k in revenue. $380k in costs. Spent 18 months building. Couldn't raise. Couldn't exit. Here's the Stripe dashboard. Here's what we'd do differently."

but that doesn't happen because:

admitting failure hurts your reputation

the next gig might be... starting another agency

everyone else is pretending to win so you have to pretend too

it's game theory all the way down.

the uncomfortable truth: the probability scores on those contrarian takes aren't measuring how TRUE they are.

they're measuring how SAYABLE they are.

everyone knows the clock is ticking. nobody's incentivized to say it out loud.

except maybe here. right now. when the algorithm's not watching.

the best founders aren't the ones crushing it on socials.

they're the ones who saw this coming, extracted maximum value, and pivoted before the music stopped.

the rest of us? still pretending we're building something permanent while the floor dissolves beneath us.

saved to drafts. will never post. algorithms punish honesty.

[matt @mattmonclair]

most AI agencies are just reselling OpenAI's API at a 15x markup and calling it "strategic consulting"

your client pays you $8k/month for what costs them $200 if they did it themselves

nobody says this part out loud because it doesn't close deals.

but let's do the math:

Your client's invoice: $8,000/month
Your actual API costs: $200/month
Your "value add": wrapping it in a nice UI and answering Slack messages

this isn't innovation. it's markup.

and it works. for now. because:

their IT department moves like continental drift

nobody in procurement has time to learn what an API actually costs

you're solving a real problem (their ChatGPT subscription isn't enough)

but the second they do the math, and they will, your entire value proposition collapses unless you can defend it with genuine proprietary infrastructure.

can you defend it?

because you're a 3-person agency running on Vercel and Supabase, praying OpenAI doesn't change their terms of service. you don't have proprietary infrastructure. you have a thin wrapper and good vibes.

the honest positioning nobody will ever use: "we're a temporary arbitrage opportunity with a degrading margin profile"

why it's temporary:

IT departments are catching up (slowly, but inevitably)
Claude Enterprise just launched better integrations

Your $200k annual contract is one procurement review away from becoming a $2k SaaS subscription

the market pretends agencies add "strategic value."

clients tolerate you because you move faster than their internal teams.

that tolerance has a timer on it.

you're not disrupting anything. you're occupying the space between "too painful to do internally" and "painful enough that IT gets budget priority."

that space is closing.

the successful founders know this. they're just not posting about it on here

[matt @mattmonclair]

@miniarchillect speed above all

[matt @mattmonclair]

@natenkgwn glory be

[matt @mattmonclair]

@VanceE motion is motion

[matt @mattmonclair]

@rumilyrics that’s how the liabilities get weeded out

[matt @mattmonclair]

@nishimiya amen brotha

[matt @mattmonclair]

@NoahEpstein_ love the reframing, definitely a great way to stand out from competitors - amplify me johnny

[matt @mattmonclair]

@_ProfitPath ordering estrogen rn

[matt @mattmonclair]

@EXM7777 too many people are focused on polishing another tool thats gonna "solve all their problems"

just fucking execute

[matt @mattmonclair]

now this is the fuckin blueprint on how to follow up on a lead

pure disregard for putting on a face and acting nonchalant

shoved his feelings to the side and ends up closing the deal because of PERSISTENCE

[matt @mattmonclair]

if you're in the internet money space you either played sports or video games or both

have never seen a theater kid bot make it in this space

but ive seen countless ex pro gamers or great athletes

guess its just a gene you inherit to be overly ambitious and willing to bet on urself

[matt @mattmonclair]

this was all FOR FREE as well

easiest data scrape i've ever seen

18% call → convo
33% convo → booked

make sure to follow + rt so you can steal it for yourself

[matt @mattmonclair]

winning boils down to simply being able to handle losing for an extended period of time

then finally you end up winning as a by-product

[matt @mattmonclair]

if being in a relationship before you win is more important to you than the win itself

ngmi

you can get a girl whenever you want

there’s a very small window to succeed in the way you want though

speed above all

[The Wheelie Investor @WheelieInvestor]

Having a girlfriend is a disadvantage if you are a founder/entrepreneur/money oriented person

If your single, 100% of your brain power goes to what your building

If you have a girl, you have to put up with all the BS and at the end of the day, you are distracted

You can call this cope but at the end of the day, it’s true