Agency Startups

NoGood is a growth and performance marketing agency founded by Mostafa ElBermawy in 2017 that has doubled in size every year by focusing on word-of-mouth referrals and content marketing. The agency works primarily with early-stage SaaS and DTC brands, delivering exceptional results that drive client retention and organic growth through SEO and the NoGood blog (630% YoY organic traffic growth). Rather than traditional sales tactics, NoGood works directly with clients through experienced growth marketers to define success metrics and deliver measurable outcomes.

Jay Clouse left his tech startup job to start a mastermind group facilitation business to help early-stage entrepreneurs solve common business problems. The business was discovered through Tropical MBA's listener community and featured in a consulting corner episode. No specific traction metrics were disclosed in this early-stage profile.

Ben White's UK-based software development team is seeking a US partner to help them enter the American market and overcome timezone/regional challenges. The team is offering revenue-sharing partnership models to find local collaborators who can facilitate client relationships and market penetration.

NerdPilots is a design and development agency founded by serial entrepreneur Kevin Pereira that grew to $25,000/month by pivoting from a subscription model to project-based work with larger clients. The agency found its best customer acquisition channel through Craigslist daily postings and focuses on bigger projects rather than small subscriptions. Kevin plans to launch TaskJoyy, a SaaS product based on the agency's backend, to help other agencies manage clients and projects more efficiently.

Hawthorne Strategies LLC was a consulting agency founded in 2013 that worked with NFL players to develop philanthropic foundations and awareness campaigns. The business reached $3,500/month in revenue but shut down due to founder overwhelm, lack of scalability, and inability to manage client scope. The failure was driven by insufficient business planning, lack of boundaries with clients, and inadequate financial resources to hire additional staff.

Lucas Lee-Tyson, a 20-year-old college student, bootstrapped Growth Cave, a Facebook ads management agency, starting with just $400 in month one through Upwork. By month two he earned $3,000, and leveraged portfolio case studies and word-of-mouth referrals to become selective with clients. His growth strategy pivoted to inbound marketing through guest posts, podcasts, and webinars to build authority and email subscribers.

Flexy Global is a UI/UX design agency co-founded by Garik Avetisyan in June 2021, offering both project-based and subscription-based design services. Within one year, the team grew to 15 people including 7 full-time designers, generating between $25k-$100k monthly with a goal to reach $2M ARR. Growth came primarily through word-of-mouth from the founders' networks, supplemented by Dribbble and Clutch portfolio visibility, and cold outreach via email and LinkedIn.

Julian founded Embarque, a productized agency for premium SEO content, after discovering the indie maker community in 2018 and realizing the value of his writing and community engagement skills. Starting with zero orders, he grew the business to $12K MRR within a year through community engagement, word-of-mouth referrals, and authentic sharing, eventually realizing that clients preferred recurring monthly packages ($1,250+) over one-off articles.

Dream Client Academy is a marketing consulting firm founded by Alex Albarran at age 21, grown from $0 to $31,000/month in monthly revenue as of February 2020. The business started as a side project helping local business owners with social media advertising while running a food delivery company, eventually becoming the primary focus due to better margins and alignment with Alex's strengths. The firm achieved rapid growth through paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram, generating a 7:1 return on ad spend with a scalable and predictable customer acquisition model.

JD Graffam built SimpleFocus as a design agency serving enterprise clients like Oracle and the U.S. Air Force. Rather than building SaaS products from scratch, he acquired six struggling SaaS businesses with loyal customer bases, fixed their technical debt, and improved support—doubling recurring revenue across his portfolio without spending on marketing. His strategy of acquiring underperforming products with strong retention and managing them through his agency team proved more effective than traditional SaaS launches.

Siege Media is a 110-person SEO-focused content marketing agency founded by Ross Hudgens that has grown over nine years serving enterprise clients like Asana, QuickBooks, and Norton. The agency specializes in recurring revenue-based services around search and content marketing, which has enabled predictability and scalability. Ross shares seven critical SEO tips for SaaS companies covering technical optimization, content strategy, and link building.

Bell Curve is a growth agency founded by Julian Shapiro that positions itself as an in-house CMO for startups, managing entire growth funnels rather than just running ads. Julian learned growth tactics while building Velocity.js, an open-source animation library, where he pioneered unconventional marketing strategies like direct outreach to niche blog editors and influencer collaboration. The agency grew through freelance referrals and now primarily serves YC-backed companies.

Design Joy is a productized design service built and run entirely by Brett Williams as a one-person operation. Starting from a side project in 2017 generating $5-6k MRR, it exploded during the pandemic and after a viral tweet to over $130k MRR (over $1.5M ARR) by 2021. Brett charges $4,595-$5,500/month for unlimited design work on a month-to-month subscription basis, serving 40-50 customers simultaneously through extreme specialization and efficiency.

Quiet Light Brokerage is an online business brokerage founded in 2007 by Mark Daust that helps entrepreneurs buy and sell online businesses (e-commerce, SaaS, content sites, affiliate sites). The firm has grown from 3 to 10 team members and closed approximately 50 transactions in 2018, with average deal sizes growing from $225k in 2013 to $2M in 2018. They differentiate through education-focused content, deep financial analysis, and trust-building with both buyers and sellers rather than aggressive sales tactics.

Andrew Pierno launched Cold Email Studio as a service business to generate quick cash flow after a grueling 5-year exit from a security software startup. Using cold email to target YC founders with offers of free pilots, he booked meetings within 30 minutes and signed 7 customers in two weeks. The business grew from $500/month to $14k/month by April 2021, with a 2021 goal of $50k MRR, demonstrating that service businesses can generate revenue faster than traditional SaaS.

Design In DC is a Washington-based digital design agency founded by Ziad Foty, a former university professor, and Rob, an experienced web designer. The agency grew from zero funding by focusing on storytelling and layered narratives to differentiate itself in a saturated market. With revenue in the $100k-$500k/month range, they acquired customers primarily through intent-based directory listings and organic search, while building a strong reputation that generated referrals.

Blackbelt Commerce is a productized service business founded by Tristan King. The company specializes in generating business ideas for entrepreneurs, particularly focused on productized service models that can be started quickly with minimal capital. Tristan has appeared on the Tropical MBA podcast multiple times sharing ideas and strategies for starting service businesses.

Firegang Dental Marketing is a dental marketing agency founded by Jacob Puhl that operates through an apprenticeship model. Corey Ames was brought on as an apprentice and is now preparing to take over as CEO, demonstrating a unique business succession and talent development approach.

Sarah Kornblet attended a Tropical MBA seminar in 2012 with 44 other listeners and subsequently became a successful attorney specializing in legal services for online entrepreneurs. The episode explores her journey since the seminar and emphasizes how business ideas develop and mature over time.

HireMyMom is a well-established agency founded by Lesley Pyle that specializes in placing stay-at-home parents as remote workers for companies worldwide. The company addresses entrepreneurs' hiring challenges by tapping into a talent pool of stay-at-home parents who tend to make reliable team members, as demonstrated through case studies like Louise Gray (former Sony executive) and testimonials from founders like Kiri Masters of Bobsled Marketing.