Lieben says the best operators pick the easiest clients
The week's argument over pre-product-market-fit clients ended on who gets to serve the accounts that need the least help.
Michel Lieben weighed in on the running argument between Eric Nowoslawski and Kellen about whether agencies should take on pre-product-market-fit clients, and landed on the part neither side had said out loud. His framing is that client selection is what scales an agency, and that the result is a sorting problem.
"the folks most equipped to help struggling businesses, are busy helping businesses that don't need that much help", Lieben wrote, calling the exchange a very insightful debate for agency owners.
the folks most equipped to help struggling businesses, are busy helping businesses that don’t need that much help
How it started
Will, posting as @willbutlergtm, described the downside of being genuinely good at GTM rather than just throwing data into Clay. Most of the work, he said, becomes custom projects for companies that have not solidified product market fit, and the operator is then tasked with solving that. He called it quicksand.
Nowoslawski's reply was blunt. If you are so cracked at GTM, why are you taking on pre-PMF companies as customers. That earlier position drew pushback from Kellen, and Nowoslawski expanded it over two long replies.
The equity line
Nowoslawski defines a pre-PMF company as one that has not figured out who its customer is and how to best serve them. His argument is that an agency taking no equity is being paid to solve a highly critical part of the business which is ultimately the founder's responsibility, and that hiring fractionally to fix it is irresponsible on the founder's side. He says he has dozens of sales calls behind the claim that he would refuse that work.
He is careful to separate the agency case from the employee case. Joining a pre-PMF company full time with upside is what he did when he joined Clay the first time. Running an agency is different. He points to ClickUp and Reddit as customers to show the upmarket move is something he has actually done rather than just recommended.
He also went out of his way to say the disagreement is not about ability. He told Kellen directly that he thinks he is very talented, respects his work, and that the same talents would have more impact upmarket.
For people sending, this is a pricing question before it is a talent question. If a client has no repeatable buyer, no volume of sends fixes the reply rate, and the work you are actually doing is discovery. An agency that cannot say no to that work can at least stop pricing it like a sending engagement.
it's like quicksand
I think you're great, you should go upmarket.
Know what is landing before you burn another domain
One email a day. Under three minutes. What the operators found out yesterday.