I co-founded and run a portfolio of agency businesses called Barrel Holdings. Here's some background. In 2003, I met my co-founder @seiwookkim at Columbia University. We went on to collaborate over the next 20+ years on various ventures. Barrel Holdings is our current focus.

My co-founder @seiwookkim and I have a podcast. We talk about agency business, agency M&A, and other agency-related things learned in 20 years of working together. Check it out here: New episode drops every Tuesday.

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Vibe code and find out. Started getting a series of charges from OpenAI last night. Went to check on it. One of my vibe-coded apps (via Replit) probably had OpenAI API keys easily accessible/not protected. Saw that someone was using it to run all kinds of requests. Luckily

This is a drum I'll never cease to beat for agencies: the things you do today has big implications on how your business plays out 3-6 months later. One of our Barrel Holdings agencies built really incredible deal flow momentum coming into 2025 and got swamped with projects.

Which of these agency businesses would you want to buy:. - Agency A: 1 client paying $10 million/year.- Agency B: 10 clients paying $1 million/year.- Agency C: 100 clients paying $100k/year. This is a trick question because when it comes to buying agencies, there's a lot more to.

If you've had experience turning around an agency, taking over a negative cash flow situation & bringing back growth, I'd love to chat with you. At Barrel Holdings, we are talking to dozens of agency founders each month who are starting to think about selling or actively.

W-2 stability vs. agency ownership upside: which path would you choose?. Before we dive in, an interesting framing of W-2 vs. agency ownership:. Investor Howard Marks writes that there are only two ways to participate financially in an enterprise:. - Lend capital (debt) → fixed.

There’s a 600-acre park very close to me that I take my kids to every now and then. There’s never more than 5-10 people whenever we go there. Sometimes I swear we’re the only ones there. It used to be a private estate that was donated to the county. The owner combined a bunch

What agencies are we excited about acquiring at Barrel Holdings?. When we began our search in earnest last year, we started off broadly, taking calls with many types of agencies. Over time, we've narrowed down our criteria and have a better idea for the agencies we want in our.

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Exploring growth potential for a struggling $3 million/year agency. In our Barrel Holdings agency acquisition search, we've come across numerous agencies with tight margins. We ask ourselves what the likely paths are to grow profits. In many cases, we don't see a clear path

Announcing a new agency from Barrel Holdings (sort of). From 2012 to 2022, designer & entrepreneur @danmall ran SuperFriendly, a unique agency that worked with the world’s best companies to help them leverage design systems and create innovative products. After a

A snapshot of an agency's production function 5 years ago and what's stayed the same. I was looking through some old Barrel materials to help surface some project management training materials for our other Barrel Holdings agencies. I came across this sheet from 2020 that our

Then and now, you might not like it. Legal stuff:. - Back then: futilely Google some things, get confused, reach out to lawyer, get back complex legalese explanations, invoiced hefty hourly bill and wonder why it took so long, chalk it up to "necessary expense", still ignorant.

When it comes to collaborating with other agencies, there are two types I think many agency would benefit from partnering with. Those two are: complementary agencies and “big sibling” agencies. Complementary agencies don’t directly compete with you but instead offer services

Each of our Barrel Holdings agencies have their own unique challenges but some topics are relevant to all. We shared this slide during our quarterly meeting a few weeks ago. Beyond the evergreen topic of driving revenue growth through new opportunities (lead gen), we touched

Here's a short post on the weekly outreach habit and how that's worked for us over the years:

Revenue generation habits to drive more leads and wins for your agency. Spoiler alert: This is not a magic bullet that'll instantly produce X leads in Y days. I think of such promises as empty or ill-gotten gains at best. The stuff I'll share is so basic that maybe you'll

Are agencies gruesome businesses?. In his 2007 shareholder letter, Warren Buffett writes about great, good, and gruesome businesses. He described a great business as one with a "moat" that made it hard for competitors to copy. He cited low-cost producers like Costco and GEICO or

Recorded lowest temp in my gym last night - 27 degrees, was single digits outside. 🥶. Bundled up and got a lift in (leg day!). Dumbbells were so cold, had to wrap handles with towels to hold them, lifting gloves with cutoff fingers not enough. Not exactly looking forward to

The benefits of controlled churn at an agency & doing it the right way. As your agency grows, you may find that some clients, while once a great fit, no longer align with your direction. Your budget criteria may have changed, your services evolved, or your ICP narrowed,