We talked to Steve Weiss, founder of MuteSix, a performance marketing agency that is now part of iProspect and Dentsu. Steve tells us how he was borderline homeless when he started learning Facebook ads to promote his standup comedy with jeans in LA, why he invented a holiday called National Dry Cleaning Day for one of his clients, how a vacation convinced him to make his first hire, and how sneaking into a Facebook party in Las Vegas eventually led to his company's acquisition.

Jesse Pujji is Co-founder of Ampush, and Jon Oberlander is CEO of Ampush. Jesse and Jon tell us how they scaled their agency to $25 million in revenue in five years, why Jesse decided to step down as CEO, and how he chose Jon to replace him, how they utilized their 427-person-strong alumni network, why discovering your zone of genius is so important, and why they like their team to always be on a light, uncomfortable learning curve.

Tim Ringel is Founder and CEO of Meet the People, a 500+ person agency group that started in late 2021. Tim tells us why working at a boring job at a German bank inspired him to become a startup founder, why he believes in-housing comes in waves, why he gives all of his employees equity, why he believes agency should go after the next 500 companies after the Fortune 500, how to build a great culture in large organizations, and why he believes agencies will never die.

We talk to Tim Ash, founder of TimAsh.com. Tim tells us about the pros and cons of being 10 years ahead of key marketing trends, why working with clients sometimes feels like marrying an insane person, why one of his clients turned down a clear $17 million optimization opportunity, what his time as a child in the Soviet Union taught him about account management, and why he believes ageism is a problem in online marketing.

Janel Laravie is Founder of Chacka Marketing, a performance marketing agency based in Tampa, Florida. Janel tells us about some of her unusual, but effective hiring questions, why she thinks Zoom calls are beautiful, how the ugly side of business prompted her to start her agency, how her agency work directly led to 50 new jobs in a small Ohio town, and what exactly Chacka means. Sadly, it’s not a reference to the ‘70s TV show Land Of The Lost.

Alex Porter is CEO of Location3, an 80-person Denver-based agency that helps franchises with their online marketing. Alex tells us how he went from snowboarding bum to CEO, how he overcame digital advertising skepticism in the franchise space, why he wants to make sure his clients’ kids can go to summer camp, why he applies his company's core values to clients, what a TSS budget is and why it's so important, and why he takes tart cherry supplements

Joe Lakin is a partner with Victory Enterprises. Victory does online marketing for political campaigns and social causes and is based in Davenport, Iowa. Joe tells us why he calls his clients guaranteed to go broke startups, the similarity between a startup’s founder story, and that of a politician, how his agency helped defeat Steve king, the controversial longstanding Iowa Congressman, and why he values being Midwestern nice. I also share a story about a guy who told me back in college not...

David Canington is co-founder of Ardent Creative, a web design and creative agency based in Fort Worth, Texas. David tells us how past jobs as a car salesman and Christian rock musician influenced his career, why he believes process is more important than the product, why he hires for fit over talent, why he calls back inbound leads within five minutes, and why a prospective employee showed up for an interview in an apron and sent the office fresh cookies.

Isaac Rudansky is founder of Adventure Media Group, a 40 person performance agency based in New York City and Philadelphia. Isaac tells us how his challenges selling his impressionist art led him to discover online marketing, why he covered his ceiling with tinfoil in the name of marketing education, what he means by idiotic optimism, the difference between giving everyone a voice and valuing experience, how content marketing has fueled his growth, and how he responded when a client called...

Lance Loveday is the founder of Closed Loop, a performance marketing agency based in Sacramento, CA. Lance tells us why he decided to build his own technology, what it means to have an anti-fragile organization, why he believes in the power of no, how assuming the best in people reduces his stress, and how he evaluates candidates based on the GWC methodology from the Entrepreneur’s Operating System.

Marty Weintraub is the founder of Aimclear. Marty will tell us his novel approach to winning new business at conferences, what prompted him to embrace Facebook ads more than a decade ago, how and why he eschewed the big city to start his agency in Duluth, Minnesota, and how he transitioned from being a New Wave rock star in the 1980s to selling Dolphin sound CDs at Target in the 9os to eventually building a performance marketing agency.

John Gargiulo is co-founder of Ready Set, a leading performance creative agency. John tells us how six microseconds can make or break a Facebook ad, why he has a full time shipping and logistics coordinator, why he’d never take on Apple as a client, what drop shading is and why its a red flag for him, how he plans to scale to 3,500 people and maintain his culture, and how AirBnB reinforced its culture when employees swiping their badge to get into the office.

Eric Facas is founder and CEO of Media Cause, a digital agency focused on serving nonprofit and social good clients. Eric left a comfortable job at Google to start working on nonprofits. He tells us how he originally gave away his time for free, how he has embraced Bill Gates’ giving pledge, even though he is a self-professed thousandaire, why he tries to fire himself from jobs, why he limited his team members to no more than 30 hours of client work a week, and his strategy behind hosting...

Frank Lee is co-founder of Real Eyes Digital, a fast-growing social media agency based in Santa Monica, California. Frank spent almost two decades working at companies like Facebook and Yahoo before starting his agency in 2020. In this episode, he talks about his agency's unique "graduation" program, through which he transitions his clients in-house, he tells us about the four stages of partnership, why he wants to be more like a speakeasy than a Times Square billboard, and importantly, how...

Adam Lovallo is founder and CEO of Thesis Testing. Adam tells us why he hates account managers but loves reading the TikTok API documentation, how he happily pays out more than one million dollars a year of referral fees, why he shares 100% of his financial information with his entire team, why the most popular metric digital agencies share with their clients is deceptive, and why your agency should be profitable from day one of the business.

Daniel Pearson is founder and CEO of Bamboo, one of the world’s leading mobile commerce agencies. Bamboo is almost eight years old, has 70 team members and has helped scale juggernauts like Uber, DoorDash and Coursera. In this show, Daniel opines on why fast-growing companies should never choose just in-housing or just agency support, why growth marketers should probably leave their jobs more frequently than they actually do, what it means to be in “Hero mode” at Bamboo and how too much Hero...