Good morning,
Hereâs what youâll find in todayâs DTC:
1ď¸âŁ The key to scaling an agency: find a community and build your own playbook Â
2ď¸âŁ How to use Claude on a more advanced level and automate workflows
Youâre reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: Jack Nâ Jill, Dunkinâs Diamonds, and Honey Flow. đ
âStop Looking For A Playbook For Your Agency (It Doesnât Exist)
Hey! Itâs Jeff, co-founder of DTC and Pilothouse.
I've been talking to a lot of agency owners inside our community Agency lately, and it keeps reinforcing the thing I've come to believe most strongly about running a business like ours: there is no playbook.
Although Iâm talking about agencies in this piece, I wanted to share it with you because I think the lesson is applicable to DTC brands too.
Do your research, talk to people who are doing what youâre doing, and donât take every piece of advice as truth for what will work for your brand.
Hereâs what I shared with my fellow agency founders. Reply back and let me know if this resonated with you.
When we started building Pilothouse (our performance digital marketing agency), we built it in pretty much pure isolation. We came from the affiliate media buying world, so we knew a bunch about running paid media campaigns, but knew zero about how marketing agencies actually work. We didn't know people in the agency space, had no background in it, and frankly just kind of figured it out as we went.
Through a bunch of luck, some skill, and some really good timing, it worked. Way better than we thought it would. We grew from 2 people to 150 in 3 years. It was wild (a story for another time).
But as we grew, the problems started piling up. The things that got us to where we were werenât working anymore.
We tried to fix it ourselves. Without any outside input, we ran around in circles. Overcomplicating everything, second-guessing ourselves, constantly battling internally to find the "best" way to do something. Without outside context, we just lived in our own echo chamber.
We tried to hire the playbook. We brought in people who'd done it before. Agency veterans, outside consultants. We figured we could hire the people who'd already solved the problems.
The good news: we got a bunch of different opinions on how to solve things.
The bad news: we got a bunch of different opinions on how to solve things.
It's not that anyone's ideas were bad. They'd solved massive problems at the agencies they came from. But everyone's solutions came from a bigger system that worked at their agency.
When we tried to transplant those pieces into Pilothouse, they never really fit. Our system became a hodgepodge of different opinions and tactics.
The real unlock was realizing something that, in hindsight, feels really simple: every single agency is different.
Copy-pasting exact systems and playbooks from consultants, gurus, whatever... it rarely works, because those systems only work in the context of the agency they came from.
It wasn't that bringing in outside opinions was the wrong move. It was that we needed the context of how other people solve problems, not their specific answer.
I was talking to someone recently who does very similar work to us.
Similar size clients, similar services.
The way we get our clients? Different.
The way we organize our teams? Different.
The way we execute the work? Different.
And we're both successful. We both have great businesses and do great work.
So my advice is this: context is more important than answers.
Talk to as many agency owners as you can. Not because any of them have your answer. But because all of them have a piece of it.
And when you collect enough of those pieces, something starts to happen.
You hear how ten different agencies handle pricing, and suddenly you know which approach fits yours.
You see how someone else structured their teams, and it clicks that one part of their model would work perfectly alongside something you're already doing.
You're not copying anyone's playbook. You're building your own, informed by all of them.
If youâre an agency owner doing over $1M in revenue and want to chat, you can reach out here.
â3 Claude AI Workflows DTC Marketers Can Use to Save Hours Every Week
Braydon Germain, our resident AI expert from Pilothouse, is back on AKNF to break down how AI is changing the actual day-to-day of marketing work.
This episode isnât about shiny demos or abstract AI hype.
Itâs about using Claude like a real coworker: building skills, breaking work into micro-tasks, automating repeatable steps.
We cover:
âśď¸ Watch on YouTube | đ§ Listen on Spotify
âAmazon seller fees. The retailer will implement a temporary 3.5% âfuel and logistics-related surchargeâ starting on April 17th. Read more â
More B2B Shopify features. Merchants on any plan can now manage wholesale and DTC without plugins. Read more â
No need to steal your boyfriendâs razor anymore. Dollar Shave Clubâs campaign âWeâve Got Your Backâ introduces a new line of womenâs razors and shaving products. Read more â
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DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight and Frances Du. Edited by Eric Dyck.
Please note that items in this newsletter marked with * contain sponsored content.
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