Eric Boggs 🐏

NOW LIVE: Episode 26 of Open Residency with Matt Gray 🎙️ Matt Gray has helped thousands of founders turn content into profitable audiences. In this episode we go deep on audience building, lead magnets, and the systems required to turn attention into revenue. Enjoy 🧠 Full episode with Matt Gray here: https://lnkd.in/g8SF-CkU 


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If "Pre-Seed" investors ask for traction, they're not Pre-Seed investors. If Seed investors ask for equity in your Pre-Seed, they're Pre-Seed investors.

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Gamma + n8n + GPT-5 is kind of wild... It basically turned into an AI presentation engine that pulled in $47K in deck services last month. 🤯 While agencies charge $3K–$5K per deck and take two weeks… this thing spits out investor-grade presentations in *11 minutes.* No designers. No PowerPoint prison. No revision hell. 🙏 Here’s the workflow in plain words: → Client fills a form with 5 things: topic, audience, goal, brand colors, deadline → n8n fires off a GPT-5 run that builds the entire narrative architecture → Gamma renders a polished, investor-ready deck instantly → System auto-exports to Drive, drafts the client email, logs everything in Sheets → Every output is tracked so delivery is literally instant And the whole stack runs 24/7 while you sleep. 😴⚙️ Why it feels unfair: → You generate 50 variations while competitors build 1 manually → Each deck costs pennies, you charge $500–$2K → No designers slowing anything down → Quality looks Fortune-500 level → Delivery happens automatically through pre-written emails One consultant used this to productize their entire firm. They jumped from 4 custom decks a month to 40+. Same workload… just scaled by automation. 📈 The real shift is psychological: You’re not selling “presentations.” You’re selling *presentation infrastructure* that compounds.

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Agencies that only know how to “run accounts” are going extinct. Tech is catching up fast, but the future isn’t agencies vs. tech. It’s agencies with tech. They will converge. The smartest operators I know are already blending strategy, creative, and data. They’re building systems that make human decisions more accurate, not replacing humans. The agency of the future won’t be a service. It’ll be a strategic engine powered by tech.

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You can turn $100,000 into a $50 million business through acquisitions. This is closer to capital allocation than traditional entrepreneurship. Here's the deal structure. First, the capital stack. You buy a business the same way you buy a house. Equity in, bank covers the rest. With SBA loans: 90% loan, 10% equity. A million dollar business might require $100K to $200K down. Target companies with $1 to $3 million in earnings. Go to sellers that are NOT at market. Brokered deals are competitive and sellers want cash at close. This only works off-market. Here's what you propose: Seller keeps 20% equity in a new entity. Asset sale, their company moves into newco, they keep running it at fair market salary. You write them a check for 60% via bank loan. Remaining 20% is a seller's note: 10% straight note, 10% performance earnout. From the bank's perspective, you created 40% equity. The truth? It's really only 20%, and it's the seller's. Your money in? Approaching zero. But you own 80% of Enterprise Value. Why would a seller agree? Tell them: my goal is to make your 20% as valuable as the 80% we're giving you today. What are the odds you double the value on your own in 3 to 5 years? Now stack earnings. $2 million average per company. Buy 10 just like this. $20 million combined earnings under one entity. Centralize marketing, accounting, HR, governance at HQ. You bought each at 4 to 4.5x. A $20 million earnings business sells for 7 to 7.5x or more. That's multiple expansion, just by combining them. Close the first one. Negotiate the next $100K for the next business. Then newco sells to PE for 7, 8, 9x your $20 million in earnings. That's the path from $100K to $50 million. If you're considering buying a business in the next 12 to 24 months, we built Acquisition Lab for exactly this. walkerdeibel.com

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People often ask about difference b/t agencies & our fractional team models: Here's a few key differences: 1) We work with partners across various verticals vs having 1 in-house team. This allows for vertical expertise (i.e. service biz get a Google Ad person with home service expertise, while a cannabis dispensary gets a Google Ad person w/ cannabis experience). This allows for flexible bandwidth as well (i.e. we don't just have 1 internal Google Ad person who could become overwhelmed). We work with plumbers, dispensaries, multi-unit franchisees, HVAC companies, B2B cannabis groups, SaaS tools, THC bevs, etc & each team looks different than the other. 2) We're flexible on scoping & projects. For example; we just closed a deal where client needed small support hours for Shopify, HubSpot, cold email, strategy, etc & we were able to pinpoint a specific level of service / support that not only met their needs but their budget. This can scale up or down very easily. 3) We work with a lot of the best agencies because sometimes they are the best fit. For example; we just hired Sandra Bergman, CLMP™for a consulting project for a dispensary client. This is because she fit their needs. We can bring a lenses of not only knowing all the good agencies but knowing WHEN to recommend one + get the added benefit of rolling her services into other deliverables (SEO + website) vs just working with her on a stand alone basis. 4) We embed; we don't just deliver. A fixed scope with clear deliverables is important; but there is a gap. Many small businesses need an ever-changing set of things, from design, to minor website edits, to async comms on global strategy; etc. And we try & bake in some grace for these items to allow for the variance & unknown that comes each month. This is done by sharing a Slack or Basecamp project together. We can work real-time on things as they arise. 5) We are business owners also. No offense, but many agency owners are agency owners only. Being able to bring experiences to our clients from owning multiple businesses can help provide a powerful POV to the conversation. I truly believe our model is a great hedge against hiring a generalist FTE for your org. For 50-75K a year; we can bring a lot of evolving resources to the table.

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Referrals are the most dangerous growth strategy for agencies. Not because they’re bad. Because they make you think you have a system when you don’t. I see this all the time with agencies doing $100k–$1M. Leads come in easily. Deals close without much effort. Pipeline feels healthy. So nobody builds real infrastructure. No routing. No automation. No clean CRM. No predictable acquisition system. Then referrals slow down. And suddenly… Calendar is empty. Revenue feels random. Sales team has nothing to work with. Founder starts panicking about ads. This is where most agencies realize the truth: Referrals don’t scale. They hide broken systems. Once you want consistent revenue, you need: • structured lead capture • proper follow-up automation • clean pipeline visibility • one backend that handles volume • a system that works without luck Predictable growth doesn’t come from more referrals. It comes from infrastructure. If your agency is past $100k and referrals still drive most of your pipeline, you’re not scaling. You’re coasting. How much of your revenue still depends on referrals right now?

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When Dave Pickles and I started TTD, we wanted to create a platform that was more transparent and more aligned with buyers. We wanted to create closer alignment with brands and agencies. We were one of the few DSPs that didn’t focus on disintermediating the agencies. I stand by our choice to partner with agencies. I stand by our choice to be transparent, even though I think we at times have been too open (as I shared at Marketecture Media last week). Over the last year or two, things have gotten much harder for agencies. Lately it seems that there are those who want to wave the flag of transparency publicly, but run from it in practice as they arbitrage in the inefficiencies of programmatic. Or in the most ironic programmatic practice, principal-based buying. (More on this next week. I know…I’m such a tease.) It bothers me when leaders of non-transparent business models are critical of those of us who are setting the bar—especially when they advocate for moving dollars to more opaque platforms and transaction methods. As Terence Kawaja said to me last week as we sat backstage at Marketecture, the long arc of programmatic, like any market, will inevitably bend toward efficiency and competition. Those who succeed will be those who embrace transparency and offer clients competitive, objective value. Thankfully, almost all of our clients, including the world’s largest brands and agencies, share this point of view. TTD has not “failed" any audit ever. Ruben Schreurs, CEO of Ebiquity plc, assured me today that he was unaware (until after published) that his firm would be quoted or used in any articles about TTD. Relatedly, we will not disclose the bills of all of our clients and partners to one of them simply because they assert ambiguous audit rights.   Working with our clients, we always welcome objective and rigorous analysis of our processes, fees, and the value we deliver for clients.

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