So I’m trying to learn ways to become financially free before I turn 25, and I was alr ready planning to do dropshiping and want to also do a marketing agency, Ik you don’t start as a agency right away you have to build clientele and like I’ve been asking ChatGPT on how it works and it’s just confusing on how to start, can you guys that have a successful agency tell me how you guys started and how to be successful in this industry?
im a freelance web designer and ive been living on upwork for 2 years. finally got fed up competing with people charging $8/hr and decided to try cold email
first 3 weeks were honestly terrible. wrote some emails that looking back were way too long and way too much about me and not enough about them. got like a 1% reply rate and most of those were people telling me to go away
then I actually put some time into learning, watched some stuff, read some reddit threads, and rewrote everything. shorter emails, better offers, more specific targeting. now im sitting at about 3% reply rate which I know doesnt sound amazing but when youre sending 500 emails a day thats 15 replies and out of those I usually get 3 or 4 people who want to talk
my setup is pretty basic. apollo for finding leads, instantly for sending, puzzle inbox for keeping inboxes.
ive closed 4 clients in the last 5 weeks for a total of about $14k which is more than I made in any 5 week stretch on upwork ever. not life changing money but the trajectory is there and I feel like im building something instead of just competing in a race to the bottom
biggest thing I learned is the offer matters way more than anything else. when I was emailing people saying "I do web design" nobody cared. when I switched to "I reviewed your website and found 3 things that are probably costing you leads, want me to send over what I found" people actually responded. same skill, completely different framing
happy to answer questions if anyone else is thinking about trying this. its not magic and its not easy but its working
Since we hit 18 clients, I already felt we were missing things. Back then it was some adjustments, answering some clients, but nothing big.
now, a month ago we reached the mark of 20 clients, but I feel everything is falling apart. We're working in full capacity and we're not even able to reach the expectation of the clients. And the worst part is I can already see the churns coming next month.
Talked to other agency owners and most of them went through the same thing, but everyone had a different answer for it. Now I don't even know where to start.
Any idea/framework that could be helpful?
Hey guys,
I'm a growth/marketing person with 4+ years in B2B SaaS (fintech, healthtech, edtech). I do content strategy, SEO, AI search optimization, landing pages, and go-to-market stuff.
Looking to connect with technical founders who are building in stealth or early stage. I want to come in as a cofounder on the growth side and build something big together, not as a hired hand or a consultant.
Based in Bangalore, open to remote. DMs open.
Curious how other agency owners handle this in real life:
Client emails go quiet, approvals stall, and a few days later you realize a thread slipped, then you’re scrambling to catch up or smooth things over.
What’s your process that actually works long‑term?
• Do you use labels/folders?
• A shared inbox?
• CRM/helpdesk?
• A daily/weekly review system?
Questions:
(If you have a specific Gmail workflow you swear by, I’d love to hear it.)