Be Found Online (BFO)
Dan Golden's agency started as a side project. For several years it was called Be Found Local, and Dan ran it while he still had a day job. A partner he was already doing a lot of business with had worked alongside him for so long without formally combining that they decided to merge companies. The combined business launched in January 2009, and the firm later became Be Found Online.
The early business was a paid search agency. Dan describes the first year as bringing in a few hundred thousand dollars, and the firm was run by a team of about five people who took on whatever work came in. In his words, "we went where the food is," saying yes to anyone who wanted to pay for internet marketing. Over time the team followed the audience from search into display, social, and mobile, and it added a writing staff and freelancers. Dan reported roughly $7 million in revenue for 2015 and set a 2016 goal of $8 to $9 million.
The source does not describe a specific first customer or outreach method. Early growth came from inbound demand: prospects who knocked on the door and asked for internet marketing. Dan also built visibility through thought leadership, with work featured in Forbes, the Huffington Post, Search Engine Journal, and Mashable, and by writing on the BFO blog.
BFO shifted its focus from top-line growth toward profitability. Dan said net revenue, not gross revenue, drives the team's paychecks, and the company set a target of 12% net margin for 2016. A year-long "perfect client" project used surveys and financial analysis of every client to decide which accounts were worth keeping, and the firm began turning down work and considered shrinking its client count. Dan also explained why BFO avoids building its own software. He argued that agencies building proprietary tools tie clients to a platform that is rarely best in class, so BFO uses established vendors such as Marin Software, Kenshoo, DoubleClick, and Optimizely instead. The host noted that many successful SaaS companies came out of agency models, but Dan was not convinced that path fit BFO.
As of the 2016 interview, BFO had about 50 full-time US employees, around 20 to 30 contractors, an office in the UK with about 18 people, and staff in Singapore. It had 60 to 80 active clients, and clients typically signed for at least 12 months. Dan estimated monthly top-line revenue at about $600,000, and the company spent roughly $50,000 per month on software, which it largely passed through to clients.
- •Keeping the business in the agency model, rather than building proprietary software, let BFO use best-in-class vendor tools and avoid locking clients into a platform that would lag behind.
- •A minimum 12-month contract norm and an explicit client-fit review produce recurring revenue that is more predictable than project-based agency work.
- •Shifting the success metric from top-line revenue to net margin signals a business that can fund growth from profit rather than from client volume alone.
- •Years of thought leadership, press coverage, and blog writing built credibility that supported inbound demand as the firm grew.
- 1.Pick an agency service where you can grow by following audience behavior, then expand into adjacent channels as the market moves.
- 2.Require a minimum contract length, such as 12 months, so client relationships last long enough to recover acquisition costs.
- 3.Review every client's financial and fit data regularly, and be willing to turn down or drop accounts that do not fit your best work.
- 4.Pass software and tool costs through to clients where possible, and use established vendor platforms instead of building your own.
- 5.Publish consistently on a company blog and pursue press and speaking opportunities to create inbound leads.
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