The M&A Episode With Zach Stuck
The Zach Stuck returns to Scalability School for one of the most packed episodes to date. Coming off a massive run of activity: selling his agency, Homestead to Verndale, co-founding MarsMen and closing a $27.5M Series A with L Catterton (ofcourse lets not forget becoming a new dad, too).
Zach walks through what actually happened, what it took, and what he'd do differently.
The conversation covers three major arcs. First, the sale of Homestead: how it grew from Zach posting case studies on Twitter to an 85-person agency specializing in paid acquisition and email/SMS retention, why they decided to go to market when they did, and what the M&A process actually feels like when you're in the middle of it for the first time. Second, MarsMen: the origin story of the brand, the subscription-first bet that changed everything, and what it means to go from six figures a month to a nine-figure run rate by obsessing over every detail, from landing page, CRO tests, to cohort metrics. Third, the bigger picture: where agencies are headed as AI compresses margins, why surrounding yourself with people ahead of where you want to be is non-negotiable, and what it means to finally be doing the thing you always actually wanted to do.
Key Takeaways
What it actually feels like to sell your agency and what they never tell you before the deal closes
Why media buying-only Agencies likely only have 18 months left to survive
How Mars Men went from six figures to a $100M run rate in under 18 months (without raising a single dollar until it was already printing money)
Knowing when the right time to raise money is for your brand (Hint: It's not when you need it the most)
The one thing most agency owners never do that would make their business 10x more sellable
Why Zach went from agency life to brand building and how it actually feels to be on the other side
What happens when you hire for vibes and smarts over credentials
Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.comThis episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It’s a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality, they’re offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you!
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email Andrew@foxwelldigital.com
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com
Full Transcript
New for everybody.
Every first sale is new for everyone and it's just as scary for everybody.
I think the biggest thing is just trying to like stay level-headed and hire good attorneys like at the end of the day, like people that are gonna look out for you and really like respect what you do and respect like instead of just, you know, your money as well.
Like we were fortunate to have a firm that I've been working with for a while help us with our deal.
And they weren't just like trying to get on the phone every 30 minutes to try and clock up like their rates and their hours and charge us a bunch of money.
That's where we started to like hit a rhythm.
And there's a certain point of like time and market it of just bringing on the right staff, finding the right people.
Like, I mean, the agency business right now is completely based on people.
Now it's becoming people plus AI.
So I think that staying focused is more important than trying to do a little bit of everything.
The future state of what it looks like, AI adoptability is gonna be all of it.
I think if people are unwilling to do that, they're gonna very much struggle.
I think that most media buying is gonna be automated for a lot of brands the next like year.
The advice from Jordan was like risk, very risk forward.
So I think a lot of brands also sometimes get stuck in the like, it's going okay and good, but it's not great.
And that what gets it to great is that risk tolerance of being to say like, hey, if we change this one thing up in the business, that's gonna have a big ripple effect.
But if that ripple effect could be great or bad, like, am I willing to take that bet?
Like nobody moves as fast as your team.
Like, hey, we need to get, we're gonna test this new offer.
And it's like, okay, the buy box is done.
Like three hours later.
It's like, what do you mean the buy box is done?
Like, this is a, this is an, I thought this was a next week project.
Like, and it would be a next week project, if not a next month project for a lot of people.
Um, and it's just like that, the, the speed of like, well, why, why can't we just do it right now?
Um, especially if it's gonna change the, the economics of this in a substantial way.
Like I've been a brand person that went agency for like 10 years before I got to be the brand person that I've always wanted to be.
Which I'm not like there, I'm not who I always wanted to be yet.
Like I have, I have big goals and big aspirations, but like there's definitely been the intention to go build brands.
And now let's take a listen to the scalability school podcast.
All right.
Welcome to scalability school, new episode and big news.
Zach stuck is back on the podcast.
Unbelievable.
Everybody give a big round of applause for Zach being back.
So stoked to have you.
Um, and we're talking today about a, of which Zach has had a little bit of recently.
And actually it's interesting because Zach bought my agency now.
Um, so, and then he bought, and then Brad bought his.
And I'm just kidding.
So, uh, Brad actually wins it all, but, uh, we're here to, we're here to talk about, uh, obviously all of the things that have been happening with the acquisition of Homestead, all the things that have been happening with, uh, the raise for Mars men, which we can talk about now.
And how many people have copied your ads in the last one week?
It's gotta be in the millions.
How many posts have we seen of people being like, Hey, like I trained this to go with this on all of Mars men's things.
And it's a masterclass.
And here's why I click follow.
I'm like, you didn't do shit.
You just walk through what they did.
My favorite part is the followup to hire their agency in the sub.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
And then I should have gone onto that tweet and they took some credit.
Wouldn't have been for the podcast.
You know, you wouldn't, you know, I feel like everybody was taking credit.
We did get a sales pitch this week of a brand saying that they worked with one of our other, one of my other brands that they don't work with another, you know, they don't work with hollow.
They were pitching Mars and they were like, oh yeah, we work with X, Y, Z and hollow socks.
And I'm like, not, not true.
Busted.
So anyways, that was funny.
That's funny.
That's hilarious.
Well, uh, so a lot's been happening.
Um, there's obviously Homestead was, uh, sold.
Van Group was sold to Verndale.
Shopify Platinum Partner.
Common Thread sold.
Uh, these other ones, there's like a Varfaj.
I don't even know what that is.
You want to talk about that, Brad?
I've just, I was just listing off a bunch of things that I remember that have happened.
Listing off all of these people that have sold.
It just seems like there's a lot of activity.
Yeah.
So there's a lot of activity on the agency side.
Seems to be like there's a lot of activity on the CPG, DTC side.
Groon's literally sold this morning or as announced this morning, Chad's sailing off into the sunset right now.
You know, just printing money.
So yeah, no, I just, there's a lot of activity going on.
But before, before we go any further on that, I just, I think, I think it's important to make a point that I'm pretty sure Wisconsin has like the most pound for pound.
I don't know if that's the way to describe it.
Like DTC power here, right?
Like, okay, here, let me, let me, like you could, you could, great.
You were born somewhere and you moved to California and did something cool.
Well, we stayed.
God damn it.
So, so I just wanted to throw that out there.
That's good stuff.
We can continue on with more important discussion.
Yeah.
I think Marsman has collectively raised more than all consumer CPG brands in Wisconsin.
So, come on.
And I was just, so.
Literally, I was in Appleton yesterday.
I didn't get to see Zach because Zach's, Zach's busy.
But I, I did go to another DTC, DTC darling that I don't think many people know about.
Got to see Viper, Viper, Viper chairs.
Dane, great guy, great place.
They're killing it.
Just like who knew, you know?
That's, that's dope.
I mean, there's a lot out there and a lot.
And here's the thing.
If they are in DTC and they, they know Zach, I'll just say that.
So, because you're, you're, you're the keeper, especially in Northeast Wisconsin of all of those folks.
All three of you.
Yeah.
So there's obviously been a ton of activity.
I think what we want to go into today is like, let's just talk about each of these things independently.
Right.
Let's talk about Homestead.
Named after the street you grew up on 2019.
So how did you, did you grow this to sell it?
Like, what was the whole idea behind selling it?
Like, what was the, like, you know, I, cause I remember when you, I actually looked back and I have an invoice from Stuck Digital.
Yeah.
Which was pre this.
Yeah.
But what sort of made you, and what do you think were the keys to success in, in, in getting it to the point where it is?
Yeah.
I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot to be said, so I'll try to keep it as short and sweet as I can.
I mean, I think, yeah.
Sole founder of the agency in the beginning, it was, you know, kind of, uh, fruitful coming out of, you know, me posting like one or two case studies on Twitter that then turned into a bunch of leads that then turned into too much business for me to manage, which then turned into an agency.
So, I mean, that all happened in like a 30 day span, which was pretty cool.
Um, it was my first like freelance client, um, that we were able to grow quite a bit and we were able to stack some wins with that.
But I was the CEO of the company for the first four years.
Um, and in our first year, Riley Trotter came in, who, uh, came in as, uh, head of Google very quickly became my CMO very quickly then became my business partner.
And then, uh, took over for me as CEO when I was kind of in the spot where we had already, you know, a handful of, of client wins under our belt.
That was during like kind of the, the, the big run-up of, of HexCloud.
Um, that was like the year that they went from, it was like, I don't know, 40 million to 150 and 150, like 300 plus.
And during that year, it was like, okay, I kind of want to try this on my own.
And that's where, that's where hollow kind of got started.
So, I mean, candidly, like getting it to that point, I mean, we were, when I stepped away to when we sold the company, we were about, let me think, about 25 employees.
About a third of the revenue.
Um, is that right?
That seems right.
Um, and, and yeah, so I mean, like there was a ton of growth after Zach, me stepping out as CEO.
Um, and that's candidly, like that all comes from Riley doing a great job in initiating, you know, a lot of push on just the, you know, the agency continuing to like develop and grow.
There's been a ton of changes in the marketplace.
So we continue to try and set ourselves out as like a premium agency, not a cheap agency, not this agency that hopefully you come in and churn and burn clients out.
And we actually really give a shit and try really hard to succeed for the clients.
And then, you know, we had the opportunity to bring in an awesome person who's Jacob Sappington, who really like candidly helps build out this infrastructure of like the retention offering for the agency that, I mean, very grateful to him and what he was able to help us do.
And, you know, we, we had some like ups and downs over the last few years, uh, which were, you know, mostly derived by the market more than I think the team or anything like that.
But we, we got to a point like two years ago where we were, we were considering selling the agency, um, and then had a little bit of a downturn for a short period of time.
And so we kind of like went back to the drawing board and just said, Hey, what does this business need to look like to sell and to sell for an outcome that we're all stoked about?
And that's when we really doubled down on the retention offering.
And I think that what set us up for success to sell is like, we got very, very good at one offering that had less impact on daily performance of the, of, of a brand.
So I think we, we were driving incremental revenue and we were driving, you know, returning customers back.
And this is kind of when the whole shift from people being like, Hey, I can only focus on, I can only think about Facebook ads and look at in platform rows to like, I have to look at my business holistically and I have to understand the financials of my business.
Like this happened two, three years ago in like DTC X Twitter space.
And that was kind of right when we made that transition to being like, Hey, we're, we're going to be a retention agency, not just an acquisition agency.
Focus on just paid and creative for paid.
And that became more than half of our business.
Well, when we sold, I mean, we, when we sold the company, we had 85 employees, um, and have 85 employees still, we still manage, you know, a great, great opportunity and great outcome with Verndale.
And they kind of said, Hey, you know, don't, nothing to change here.
It's going great.
So like keep running it as is.
And yeah, I mean, I think your question about like what kind of prompted us to sell the company, we had a really, really good 2025.
Um, that really teed us up to say, Hey, we can just keep doubling down or we can, or we can go to market.
And for me still being the majority owner, um, and shareholder of the company with, with the brands and kind of where the brands are at today, I was kind of ready to, to kind of get that first, get that first bag, uh, if you will.
And so, yeah, I mean, it was, it was a decision across like myself and Riley and then our, our, our junior partners, um, Kelly and Jacob.
But I mean, it just made, it just made a lot of sense.
It seemed like, you know, there was some things that could be really good for agencies, which is like all the AI stuff.
It also could be really scary for agencies.
We had a really good year.
Um, it felt like we were really getting in a good groove with our service offering and our retention.
Like our retention in 2025 was better than it ever was any previous year.
So I think that all of those things led to a couple of short conversations with a few different, you know, agencies or buyers.
And we really enjoyed the conversations with Verndale and they seemed like a good fit and they just acquired VanGroup.
So we, we've, you know, always looked up to VanGroup's work on the, on the website of things.
So just felt like a good, good opportunity.
So that kind of gets us to today.
The way that the deal was structured was very favorable to us as the seller.
And so, yeah, we're, we're really excited, but nothing really changes.
That's the great thing about Homestead is like, I've been out of the company, not in the day to day for over a year now.
And Riley has been running things with Kelly and Jacob by his side.
And so we just kind of continue business as usual.
Agency is still growing.
Like we were growing through the process of the deal happening, which always is good for like, you know, a deal hopefully closing.
So, yeah, nothing but, but, but good stuff from our end.
How did the, how did the service offering change throughout the years?
Otherwise, like email was, email retention was kind of the big unlock maybe in the more recent years, but I know you guys went through a couple of different phase transitions otherwise.
Yeah, I mean, like you go all the way back to the beginning and it was a revenue share structure where we basically did everything.
I mean, that was just kind of like my, I mean, it was just me to start, but it was my ability to kind of surf across like emails, those, add some creative work.
And so for the first year, I mean, we were, we were a revenue share structured agency where we'd get, you know, a single digit, small single digit percentage of the revenue.
And if we had, we had a lot of upsides, you know, we had clients that, that were paying us, you know, 20, 30, $50,000 a month if we could grow them at a rate.
And we had a certain point where like that started to break.
And I think that was reasonable for that to start to break because people were like, we built, we helped them build businesses big enough that they could build internal teams and stuff like that, which, you know, never had hard feelings about that and understood it.
But we, we then realized that we had to make it more sustainable or clients and the retention of clients would be more steady versus these like big moon shots where we could take a brand from, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars a month in revenue to millions a month in revenue.
Less than six months and get a big paycheck for a few months and then they would churn.
So that really was the transition.
And then, I mean, over the last year, it's been year and a half.
It's been very steady.
It's been like paid ads.
So doing the media buying across all the channels that are standard, ad creatives, and then landing pages is kind of like a one-off offering.
And that kind of playbook of like, cool, we can, we can bring in a pod for creatives.
We can bring in a pod for landers and we can do all the, the, the day-to-day media buying and kind of helping with like the forecasting of how to, to, to allocate the spend.
Seemed to be kind of like the sweet spot.
It kind of allowed us to do that.
And then most of our clients, the majority of our clients utilize Homestead across both paid acquisition and retention.
So that was the other thing too, right?
So it's like when you don't have control of both, you might be having a really rough week for, for paid, but then you can put an extra effort on the retention side, send an extra text, send an extra email, do some extra things to try and like, you know, pump up numbers.
So yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, like our email and SMS offering is pretty straightforward.
Hasn't really changed for the last year and a half outside of like all the cool things that the team has built, which are all these like AI tools that allow for, you know, better open rates, better tracking.
Like we can do a lot more where we can like pull in like dynamic products into things.
We can do a lot more when it comes to deliverability that we've been able to kind of like open up an offer for our clients, things like that.
At no extra, you know, cost to our clients, which has been great.
But yeah, the real, the real like baseline of the offering hasn't changed a ton.
Obviously a lot of people are going through, going through the process of a sale or, you know, maybe they're thinking about it.
What are the things I guess that somebody, you wish somebody had told you and what are the things that you put into kind of like order that was really necessary that you didn't realize was?
I think it's like if it's your first real proper transaction, it's just a lot and can be a lot to just handle when it comes to, you know, you don't really understand like the temperature fully of a buyer all the time.
Like they're, they're not going to really show you their hands until the deal is done fully.
I think like the best buyers and the best partners show as much of their hand as they can along and throughout the process.
Like for us, that was like, you know, we had moments where like something maybe would come up and like, oh shoot, is this deal going to fall through?
Or because we wouldn't really get the full temperature check from, from the, from the buyer.
We'd only get like legal talking to legal talking to our broker, kind of weird, you know, telephone game of what's going on.
So, I mean, I think the biggest thing is like just trying to stay as like mentally stable as you can, knowing that there's going to be weird things that show up in, in either diligence or, I don't know, maybe you're going back and forth and, you know, your, your legal team doesn't think that there's going to be a ton of reps and warranties.
And then in the last minute you get a bunch of extra reps and warranties and it adds kind of a, a wrench into it.
And it's kind of scary and, you know, you don't maybe know what reps and warranties even are and you have to figure out what they are and what they mean.
So I think, I mean, I think a lot of it really comes down to, it's new for everybody.
Every first sale is new for everyone and it's just as scary for everybody.
I think the biggest thing is just trying to like stay level-headed and hire good attorneys, like at the end of the day, like people that are going to look out for you and really like respect what you do and respect like instead of just, you know, your, your money as well.
Like we, we were fortunate to have a firm that I've been working with for a while help us with our deal and they weren't just like trying to get on the phone every 30 minutes to try and clock up like their rates and their hours and charges a bunch of money.
So I think it's like a mix of like having someone that takes care of you, but also gives you just enough time and attention to make sure like the deal continues to go through and move, move quickly and smoothly.
Outside of that, it's really trying to be, you know, on the LOI side, ask for as much as you can in the LOI before you get to the deal.
Like, because there can be a lot of changes that can happen in between those.
LOIs can stay like, letter of intents can stay very broad generally.
Like we tried to push for like as much clarity in the LOI of like, what's cash, what's equity, what's the payout period look like, all of these like really important details.
How quickly do things get paid out?
You know, like what is, what is, as far as insurance policies, like sometimes they'll, you know, make you take out an insurance policy to cover if like the company doesn't go as well.
Try to get all of that clarity as much as we could in the LOI, which, you know, some buyers don't love that because they, A, kind of know that you know what you're doing.
But that's just one thing that I would try to have your legal or whoever, if you're going through a deal, like push for as much clarity in the LOI so that that way, like the purchase agreement kind of follows suit versus just being like a big gap between a bunch of gray area that can happen.
And the gray area is the stuff that gets really scary.
This is tricky, right?
It's like these are, and I know nothing about Verndale, so this isn't about them.
It's more just like they've done this multiple times.
So they've had the reps of going through this, whereas like this is your first time going through it.
That's the importance, I'm assuming, of the legal team who's been through it before.
But what's tricky about that is like you have to really trust your legal team on top of that to know that they're doing the right thing by you.
And of course, they're going to try and do that.
But it's just like it's the unknown unknowns that kind of keep you awake and wondering what does it all mean?
All right, friends, quick break.
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I was going to ask a follow up, and this is like looking forward a little bit to, I guess, an opinion from you.
But like Verndale has a thesis, presumably, which they bought, Fan Group, which has a very distinct offering from what Homestead offers.
And there's probably a lot of benefit in doing that.
Do you have an opinion on like what the future of agencies looks like with AI, without AI?
Is it the consolidated approach?
Like is that going to become more of a necessity as AI pushes down costs and people expect more out of agencies?
Or is a creative-only shop, maybe that's not the best example, but like is a media-binding-only shop going to survive?
Is a creative-only shop going to survive?
Is it going to not change at all?
I don't know.
Do you have an opinion on where the agency market goes?
I mean, if it were up to me, I mean, I can't, I now legally can't start another agency for like five or ten years.
I can't remember, but it's going to be, you know, it's a while.
And I'm not sure if I ever want to do that again, candidly.
But the big thing there is I just think you need to be the best at one thing.
Like I think trying to do a bunch of things okay is just never going to work well.
And the focus is really important.
I think our, what we were really good at in the beginning of Homestead and we continued to stay good at was the, you know, the paid acquisition side.
But when we got really good at the retention side, I mean, like I said, it became more than half of our business.
I think it was like 60, 70% of our business towards the end there.
That's where we started to like hit a rhythm.
And there's a certain point of like time and market of just bringing on the right staff, finding the right people.
Like, I mean, the agency business right now is completely based on people.
Now it's becoming people plus AI.
So I think that staying focused is more important than trying to do a little bit of everything.
The future state of what it looks like, AI adoptability is going to be all of it.
I think if people are unwilling to do that, they're going to very much struggle.
I think that most media buying is going to be automated for a lot of brands the next like year.
There's tools that are coming out now that are helping with this, that brands are already like trialing and testing.
So if it's a media buying only agency, I'd be a little bit afraid about that.
And so I think it's, you know, it needs to more come down to like the service offering should have strategy at the end of the day.
Like it should have strategy and experience because as much as AI can like copy other brands, like you don't really know what the strategy was to develop the concept in the first place and the methodology to develop the concept in the first place.
Instead of just like copying and pasting things until AI gets really good at the strategy part.
I think agencies have like plenty of plenty of runway left here.
And there's also just the personal, you know, ability of like teaching, having someone manage things.
There's a reason why a lot of people have like a financial advisor, you know, buy an ETF for them and charge them, you know, 1% fee on it.
Even though they could easily just go to Schwab and buy the ETF themselves and sit on it.
It's because it's like something that's kind of scary.
You're talking about big dollars and acquisition and like this is the biggest line item on your P&L.
I think having an expert to like help you and coach you and guide you will always be a thing.
So future of agencies, like I think what Vernil is doing is they're trying to bring in the best of each sector.
So like retention, acquisition, web, you know, CRO.
And then it's like creative, performance creative.
Like I think they're going to continue to probably plug other areas and try to have like a full, you know, all around offering.
We had a lot of clients.
Like the interesting thing about Van is like I think we had, I don't know, double digit clients, like over 10 clients that we both shared that were active clients of both Van and Homestead already.
That just showed the promise of like how many of our, you know, around 100 clients like could actually work with each other.
Anyways, I think that that was just super smart of Verndale to do.
And so I would imagine their future acquisitions are going to be similar.
Just bolt-ons.
That is an offering that a brand is probably already paying a different agency to do.
That would just make sense to bring into the fleet.
Like you said, is just kind of building together the different types of offerings that are AI enabled and how you're positioning that and what it looks like.
And I think the future of it, you know, and we see this in the founders community is so much around the innovation and the experimentation that the agency can have in terms of leaning into thinking about this.
And it's not, nobody's going to be an expert, but if they can make, you know, their processes 15% more effective utilizing AI, that's going to be, that's going to make them more attractive to a buyer.
That's going to make that agency so much more effective because I think a lot of, we're in this stage of a lot of experimentation and a lot of noise.
But it's those that have truly positioned AI in terms of moving it forward, in terms of like moving the needle on businesses, you can tell right away.
You can see it in their results.
You can see it in the way they're thinking about stuff.
And I would also say I've also seen the rise of a lot of creative agencies at this time that, or media buying agencies that do creative that have gone against the AI trend and are focusing on just absolutely making the best ads without AI.
And, you know, trying to do long form, getting into consumer psychology.
And I've seen the rise of that too.
So I don't think it's like the be all and end all.
And I think that just like anything, people want a quick answer, you know, but in reality, the hard, deep work is what's going to actually move the needle in a lot of cases.
Yeah.
You kind of like loosely hit on personal enjoyment with like, I don't know if I'd want to do this in 10 years when I finally can again.
But maybe the, maybe the homestead of, you know, five years ago or even three years ago.
Is there any advice that you would give for them?
I mean, your business is the people that your business is your employees.
Your business is like, yes, as a, as a sole founder or as a founder or partner or whatever to, to like bring in business for the most part, usually like that's usually what the CEO's job of an agency is.
Your business like dies or flies based on your team.
So I think, I think I have like a unique talent, which is like finding people that are just good and normal that are also smart.
And I think that homestead is a good example of that.
Like if you look at even the first like 15 employees that we had and where all those people are now, you know, a handful of them are still with us at homestead, which I'm incredibly grateful for.
But to see a lot of them go on to go work at eight and mostly nine figure brands has been, has been super cool.
I think the, the biggest like tip and feedback there is like when I started homestead, I was hiring for vibes and smart.
So it's like, I didn't really care if you didn't have a background in media buying or Facebook ads.
If you seem really smart and I liked you a lot and you seemed like someone that could get on a, on a call with a client and chop it up and shoot the shit.
And like also be able to then get into the work and go down all the analytics and be able to speak, you know, into that.
Those are the people that we hired.
Those are, those are like the Cam Bushes, the Conor O'Lanes, the Mike Lucases.
Like those are those people that they like hit that on the head.
Um, and so to see all of them go and do what they're doing now is like, uh, it's, you know, kind of, it was kind of obvious that they were going to go do amazing stuff after homestead.
But that's kind of how I framed who I was going to hire for the first like 10, 15 people.
And I think that like culture is, is important for like a small agency.
Like everyone should get along.
Everyone should enjoy what they do and like be able to like feel more like friends.
I think during the day, I mean, if you're spending 40 hours a week together and probably some late nights and some early mornings, like if you can enjoy who you work with, I think the work gets better because it feels less like work.
So that's kind of what we did in the beginning.
And then I think from there, like really what it comes down to is, you know, the, whenever you meet someone interesting or smart, like in, there's a chance that maybe they could come work for you, like ask them if they would be interested to come work for you.
Cause I think like, we just did that consistently.
And if I meet people at events or, you know, like my CMO Max, um, of hollow met him at an event and I was like, I like him.
He seems really smart.
Do you want to come work for me?
Like I just like put it out there the first, like within the first like 15 minutes of meeting him.
And so I feel like doing that is, is important to like take shots at people that seem really cool and interesting.
And maybe you can't, you know, afford the salary that they want to come in at.
Maybe it's a future thing that you end up, you know, linking up later, but the success of an agency, it comes down to your people.
It comes down to their ability to like learn, learn quickly, and then also just be normal and nice and kind.
So that's like what Homestead is today.
That's what our brands are today.
It's just like a bunch of, you know, no, we have, I've always had a rule of like no assholes.
Like you could be the smartest and like the most witty and the, the most experienced, you know, growth marketer.
I've interviewed a lot of these people over the years.
Like, I don't want you to come work for us if you're going to be a dick or if you're going to have an ego.
Like it just isn't going to work out.
I mean, that's really it.
At the end of the day, I think it's like, it comes down to the people.
So spending more time and effort on bringing the right people in, the work will get better.
They'll like, everyone can, everyone that's smart and nice can learn.
Like, I don't think you need to have some crazy background in this to learn it now, especially like with all the resources, with like all the AI stuff and everything that's coming out that can just like teach you quicker.
That's what I would put the attention towards.
I mean, I think that's, that's what a lot of homes said to get to where it is and get the exit that we had.
And that's, I think what's helped with the brands too.
Let's talk about the brands.
You know, for those of you that don't know, Marsman raised $27.5 million Series A.
Announced on March 30th of 26, co-founded by Benjamin, who is the CEO and Zach, co-founder and CMO. 100 million run rate, revenue run rate under 18 months, profitable bootstrapped. 400,000 customers served to date.
And it's a men's wellness and supplement stack company.
I guess the first question I had, which I never asked you is, why take money at all?
If you have all this, like if it's going so well.
Yeah.
I mean, Mars is crazy.
I mean, like we've, I like, you know, Ben and I had a decision that we had to make, which was like, are we going to be public about this business or not when we build it?
And from the beginning, I kind of learned my lesson from Hollow of like, the more public you are, the more ripped your stuff is going to get.
And the more you talk about it, the more, you know, eyes you have on you.
And for the most part, unless they're customers, it doesn't really benefit the brand a ton.
It can help you get connections and learn things and, you know, get opportunities.
But I think that building in silence was like definitely the move here to do over the last kind of two-ish years.
So, I mean, obviously it was fun to come out with the news, of course.
Like this is like, Al Catterton is the goat.
They're the best in CBG investing.
You know, they took, brought Nutrafol in, very similar comp to Marsmen, took it and sold it for, you know, a billion to Unilever.
They've, you know, they've done the deal with Thorne, which they bought, you know, I believe they bought them around $600 million.
They're going to market now for $4 billion.
I mean, it's in the supplement consumer space, like they are world-class at this.
So, candidly, like why take the money?
We wanted to have access to them.
I mean, we didn't shop this deal around.
We basically had a couple conversations, very loose conversations with a few private equity funds.
We met Chris over at Al Catterton and just like hit it off from day one.
And gave them first look.
I mean, no other PE fund really got a look under the hood.
It was just them.
And we were growing.
Similar to Homestead, we were growing quite rapidly during the diligence process of us putting together a deal, which helped us at the end of the day.
And they were very fair.
So, I mean, I think getting access to a firm like Al Catterton to Ben and I was really, you know, it was validation, first and foremost, that this is a great business.
And this is a great opportunity in the space that we're in has a ton of potential because they have access to things that we don't have access to.
They see information.
They see deal flow.
They see all these things.
They see trends in spaces.
So, it was validation to say, yeah, this is a great company and a great opportunity.
But it also gives Ben and I a larger chance for a bigger outcome.
Ben and I have never sold a company for nine figures.
So, for us to have a partner that knows how to shop those deals and knows how to sell companies for not just nine, but, you know, billions of dollars in some cases, just made a ton of sense to have that experience and that, you know, robust team like behind us for the future.
I mean, outside of that, I mean, the company was going really well.
And so, it's like, when is the right time to go get money?
It's usually when things are going so well that it's like we might as well put some more, you know, fuel behind it and just like keep pushing even more.
So, you know, I think it came down to a few things.
Like, we have a really exciting, like, I can't talk about it fully, but like a nationwide retail opportunity that we're going to go and be launching in the coming months here.
We have an opportunity with a handful of other, you know, very large retailers.
That takes money to do and to do it right.
So, that's a big piece of this.
The other part of it, too, is like there's things that we're excited to bring into like the men's wellness ecosystem, which is like bringing, you know, people that have a lot of, you know, knowledge, experience, things that can help others.
May it be like a celebrity that has a ton of experience with this that maybe comes on with the brand.
Or if it's like more doctors and physicians that we could bring into the Marsman ecosystem that can end up helping our customers and like just be healthier individuals.
So, all of these things to like make Marsman feel from a customer and consumer perspective more valuable to them than just, hey, there's this T-Booster product I take on a daily basis.
Those are all things that cost money and are going to be kind of like decently big bets that we're going to take.
And so, that's what a lot of this is coming down to, too.
So, it's like a mixture of we had the opportunity to partner with the best, which is a rare opportunity.
We have, you know, a big retail coming around the corner and we have all these other like large bets that we want to go take.
So, despite the fact that we were scaling and we are still scaling at the rate that we are and we're profitable, it just made sense to just say, hey, let's not just try to, you know, have a good outcome.
Let's go shoot for the moon on this one.
So, or Mars, if you will.
I was going to say, can't shoot for the moon?
I don't know how much we want to get into like the weeds of or how much you even want to.
There's building in public and there's sharing very strategic things very specifically in public.
So, we don't have to go down the route of maybe cracking the tactics of what got you there.
But what was like the, what was the insight into like the white space in this, right?
Because like I think the general perception of, I'll give you my perspective.
The general perception of men's testosterone supporting products is, I always make this joke to you, but it's like it's what you, you're at the gym at 4 a.m.
It's what you see on the TV.
It's like, dude, what is this?
I'm getting scammed.
It's like I'm calling an 800 number and people buy it because they wouldn't be spending money otherwise.
But it's like, it's these really tacky, sketchy things.
And so, I'm just curious, like what was the, when you guys kicked this off, like what was the, what was the white space that said like this is the opportunity?
Yeah.
So, all this is on Benjamin, not on me.
Ben went through his own kind of like, you know, trial error success of trying to figure out how to improve his testosterone.
We use his story a lot in our marketing efforts and, you know, but at the end of the day, he was a super healthy, you know, 20 year old man that was kind of dealing with fatigue and a handful of other, other things that, that were having an impact on his day to day.
Just well-being and just mental headspace.
And he went and got his testosterone tested and it was like extremely low for the age and for how healthy he was.
So, he wanted to try to find a way to figure that out naturally.
I would, I would put Ben at like the, the 0.001% of like the forward thinking health and wellness individuals in like the U.S. and maybe the world.
So, he was always willing to like try things, but he definitely lives on the like natural end of that, that, you know, more than, you know, going to go rip a bunch of peptides and do a bunch of crazy shit that there isn't a bunch of clinicals or anything like that behind.
So, he, over the course of like, I think it was like a year before he even brought the idea, the product to me, he was basically like trial, trial and error, trying a bunch of individual ingredients and kind of found a formula that he really liked.
And so, when he had, he had the idea for Marsman, he came up with the name and the, the brand kind of like thesis and the product itself.
He, he was like, you know, he, he presented it to me.
He was like, hey, you know, I think there's a huge opportunity here.
You know, no one has really come knocking on Nugenics' door, which is kind of like the 800 pound gorilla in the space.
And this is a better product at the end of the day.
We're using, you know, fully clinical doses.
Everything is dosed appropriately.
So, from a potency standpoint, it's there.
There's a few other ingredients that no one has really combined yet together.
I've been taking this and it improved my testosterone by, you know, X.
I think that consumers would love this.
And so, you know, he brought all of that historic, like personal story to this, which I think is also like really important.
It's not like it was just a product that we just kind of shot from the hip and threw in GPT and said, hey, make a better T booster.
He put a lot of time, effort and energy into, into formulating it.
So, kudos to him for doing a really good job and making a great product.
But then, yeah, I mean, you know, the, the fun part of being a marketer is like when you find a good product and you have the right, like it can be a good time.
It can be a lot of fun and like the growth can happen very quickly.
Yeah.
I mean, we were, we were running the business for a handful of months and doing okay.
I mean, we were like just starting to crack into like six figures a month in revenue.
And then I had a conversation with Jordan Menard, who was one of the co-founders of Instant Hydration.
He's at an agency.
He's one of the smartest marketers that I know.
And Jordan's like, dude, go all in unsubscription.
And I'm like, I'm like, we're trying it.
We've got the, you know, this is like two, two, almost not quite two years ago.
He's like, go all in unsubscription, full send, like don't, don't hold back.
He's like, I promise you this will back out.
Just go all in unsubscription.
And so there was a point in like October that this is like whatever, 12 months ago, 18 months ago, whatever it was, 16 months ago that I told Ben, I'm like, hey, we're going to flip the site over to subscription only.
For the most part, like we have the ability to like try once, but like on the, on the form of like the front facing website, we're going to go all in on subscription and see what happens.
And we spent into it.
We were losing money on every acquisition, but I'm like, let's really see how this cohort backs out.
And because the product is great, because we did a good job with like the retention experience, our month one rebuild was like world class compared to any other brand, any other comp that I ever saw at Homestead.
And it was like, oh shit, we're onto something here.
And then month two rebuild hit 30 days later and it was still quite strong and above any other brand that I saw.
And I'm like, okay, we really have something special here.
We're like our payback period is like, you know, at one point it was like within 30 days, like 45 days.
And I'm like, that is world class, never heard of it.
And so, yeah, I mean, that was kind of like the catalyst to this candidly is like Jordan being like, send it.
And us basically having to say, hey, we'll push in, push in all of our chips to the middle of the table and just see what happens.
I mean, we put in a couple hundred thousand dollars into the company to kind of get it over that, that, that bridge there.
Yeah.
And then it just started to stack.
And then, then it really is the game of, you know, how much can we spend on, on new customer acquisition and how much can we optimize our, our, our retention cohorts.
That brings us to today.
That brings us to, you know, nine figure run rate in less than 18 months.
I mean, I think, so I'll sell, I'll tell you things that I've said about you behind your back to other people.
Okay.
Which is, I think, and, and actually I've said this about Brad as well.
Not just saying this so you don't feel left out, Brad.
But there's something that your intuition has within marketing in terms of looking at the entire funnel that is very unique.
That's understanding like how somebody is coming in, the way that they're thinking about this and if it makes sense or doesn't make sense.
And I've seen, I've been on live calls with like, with you and your team and other consultants, like walking through this.
And you'll bring up, you're like one of these people that brings up one point that nobody else sees, including myself, where you're like, oh, why is that that way?
And you're, and I'm like, oh, I don't know.
Like, and I'm wary to one of these people, like Gracie's like this as well.
Like she'll see something that like is off, but I don't see it.
And like, and cause I'm like a volume person in terms of the amount of stuff that I create.
Right.
Versus, and like you're a quality person on the marketing side for sure.
And I think if you go and look at the way that the entire funnel runs and the, and that, you know, the ads are, I mean, you can obviously look at the ad library.
You'll see that, that this is sort of a, a masterclass in all of the things that you learned in, in doing Homestead.
So what is it in terms of, and obviously you don't have to give the sauce too much, but like, what is it that you walked through and built with Marsmen in such a short period?
Obviously it was a combination of subscription.
It was understanding that this isn't, it was understanding common issues.
I think that men have and, and that men see, especially in the United States and that they feel.
And it was leaning on that desire for, for more, right.
Of, for more energy, for more, you know, like being able to endurance, like it's all, you know, it's like these things that you feel.
So what, how did you lean into that and what were the things that you were, that you really made it so magical?
Do you think from the marketing standpoint?
I, you know, as much as I'm, uh, you know, confident, I don't love like trying to like share.
Your Twitter account would say, would say, would say, you know, be different, right?
I mean, yeah, sure.
I mean, that's my like internet persona, so that's fine.
But, um, the, the reality is like, I think we're ahead of the game when it comes to a lot of things.
And that comes from me to your point.
I think just like studying, studying the market and just trying to like ask questions that people aren't willing to ask, which is, yeah.
Why does your buy box look that way?
What does your edit cart button look that way?
Why does your carousel images, why are they set up in a certain way?
Um, these are all like the little details of things that I would just like obsess over.
What is your, uh, Google shopping listings look like?
You only have one, like why, why not just all six?
Why couldn't we just have all six show up and it's just our product?
Um, just kind of like trying to take it and go beyond just like what's average, I think is like what got Mars meant to where it is, which is.
Because we, we push it like we, I think like it would blow most brands minds how many landing pages we've fired up for this brand in the last like year.
Um, it's hundreds of pages and like unique templates, probably like 50 plus.
Um, so like the volume of ideas and concepts that we've tested is insane.
Like the CRO test that, I mean, we run two to three depending on like the volume and capacity of traffic.
Now that we're spending as much as we are, we can like pump them out.
But like per week that we're running on the site to just like completely optimize every little detail of it.
I think everyone has aspirations to do that.
This was my project to like go full fucking send and be like, okay, I only have one product to sell.
I can actually do all the work that I want to do because it's just one thing.
The thing about hollow that made hollow, like, I mean, hollow is a great business.
Still growing.
Like it's crazy to see what we've been able to do with that business.
But like hollow is like seven businesses in one because we sell to seven different types of people, seven different products, even though they're all socks.
This is literally like one product that we can have a bunch of different angles and a bunch of different like cohorts of that we can all push to one product.
So I think that was something that like gave us gave us a lot of momentum, too, is that we we could take all of this like ad concept to landing page concept, the congruency of those to then also to a PDP that all came into this one thing.
Then it was like, okay, just keep these people on this one product.
We don't have to upsell them on anything.
We can literally just keep them here.
I think that is that focus is what also allowed us to crush.
And then, I mean, candidly, I would be in asked if I didn't say this, but like our team is incredible, like both on hollow and Mars.
But I mean, the team that we've been able to assemble with Mars is like really world class.
Like we've been able to get incredible people like ahead of retention, ahead of partnerships, ahead of growth, ahead of paid, ahead of performance creative.
Like some of these people were ex-hollow employees that are now on Mars, and most of them are new to the ecosystem.
But when you have a brand that's growing at this rate, that's really exciting, people just want to come work for you.
And so we just get the best people to come and, you know, have the opportunity to come work for us.
Like our chief of staff, absolutely world class.
It like blows my mind every day.
Our head of finance, like we've just been able to cultivate a group of people that I think just crank and are super motivated to push.
And then also, like, I mean, I have to give like hats off also to Benjamin, my co-founder.
I don't think I've ever worked with a founder that pushes as hard as he does.
I think maybe like Chad from Groons is maybe like this.
Clearly like had an incredible outcome and built an insane business.
Benjamin pushes like no one else I've ever seen to the point that like it almost like stresses me out of someone who I always thought was like going to be the alpha in the room.
He like pushes beyond that to a crazy degree.
So I mean, all that said, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, candidly.
So yeah, obviously.
But yeah, I mean, I think the summary of it is we didn't worry about what anyone else was doing besides just like figuring out what they could be maybe doing right.
Applying that to our own stuff.
And then because we had the one product, it was just the focus thing that allowed us to just push.
And then, yeah, when you stack subscription revenue, MRR, and then you can continue every single month lowering your CPA, like your NCRows increasing your CPA.
It just becomes kind of unfair.
It just feels like cheating after a certain point.
I mean, I would say that, you know, you touched on a couple of things which are really important.
I'd want to underscore for people that are still listening to this podcast, which is now getting quite long, actually, 47 minutes in.
So thank you for still being here.
One of tens of our listeners.
One is the attention to detail that you have is actually really worth noting.
And the other one is I've witnessed you being like we see a dip in revenue and like you're not accepting it.
Like it's just it's not you know what I'm saying?
Like it's not like, yeah, you know, we'll see what next week brings.
Like I hear that a lot from other people.
Not going to happen.
You're like we're going to spool up this.
We're going to fix this.
We're going to try this.
And like you have the team and the final part is because of the team, you invested in this team really before you had the money to do so in this brand.
Like you, you, you, you know, you had the Homestead ish, but like you also had people that you were basically not paying yourself.
You and Ben, like you guys were like, we're going to we're just going to absolutely build world class and like bet on this.
And we think this is a good bet.
And it was because you brought in absolutely incredible people.
Like I was just telling a story about another agency owner who now everybody knows who this agency owner is.
And I said, like, try to figure out what this person did early on.
And what happened was they hired a marketing team for the agency of five people to put out absurd amounts of content.
So everyone knew about this person.
And this person was losing 60 grand a month for nine months.
And but like that's what they did.
You know what I'm saying?
Like and that's what made it successful.
So I think that's a really important thing to like kind of have in your head.
Because like the the financial outcomes that you've seen here are essentially like great for.
But this has been years in the making for these things where you haven't paid yourself.
You guys have you know, you haven't taken a lot of money.
It's all been poured back into the people.
So I think it's that's important to point out because I think there is a lot of dollar signs in people's eyes when they see stuff like this.
But the real story is there's there's more to the tactical grind every day of and investing in the right people, which I think is a huge thread that runs through this.
Yeah, maybe people would not be surprised at this or be surprised.
But like Ben and I look at every email that goes out.
We look at every ad that goes out.
We look at every landing page that goes out, every CRO test that goes out.
So like between Ben or myself, we're looking at all of those things and giving it one final touch before it goes just to try and push it a little bit more.
I think that that's like a piece of it that also I think, you know, puts puts the right amount of pressure on the team, but also like creates, you know, an outsized outcome.
The only other piece that I will say is there is a level of risk tolerance that like we took in this business in those early days that a lot of people just aren't willing to do.
And we did it and we sent it.
And like that was I wouldn't say quite a coin flip, but it was like, you know, maybe a 60 40 instead of a 50 50 flip.
There was a lot of that in the very beginning.
Like the advice from Jordan was like risk, very risk forward.
So I think a lot of brands also sometimes get stuck in the like it's going OK and good, but it's not great in that what gets it to great is that risk tolerance of being to say like, hey, if we change this one thing up in the business, that's going to have a big ripple effect.
But if that ripple effects could be great or bad, like am I willing to take that bet?
And I think most people don't.
And the people that see outsized outcomes usually are the ones that are taking that risk.
Yeah, I wrote a bit ago.
I was writing.
I was writing down on my notebook.
And so I'm just going to read what it says.
And I think you guys just hit on all this so that the headline is is glaze because we're closing out the glazing section here.
But I wrote I wrote down some things that stood out to me before you guys each individually went through this.
So this was this was written down ahead of time.
Ironically, what you just said, I wrote down big balls.
So I think Zach has gigantic nuts.
The other thing I wrote down is that the team the team speed like I've been I've been in Slack channels with people across the different brands.
And it's like, I love the people that we work with, like client side, like nobody moves as fast as your team.
Like, hey, we need to get when you're going to test this new offer.
And it's like, okay, the buy box is done, like three hours later.
It's like, what do you mean the buy box is done?
This is a this is an I thought this was a next week project, like and it would be a next week project, if not the next month project for a lot of people.
And it's just like that the speed of like, well, why why can't we just do it right now, especially if it's going to change the economics of this in a substantial way.
Like that's that's always I was telling my business partner, Jordan, we were having this conversation like last week.
It's just like the most useful or like the most beneficial things that I've done in my life is like get around people who break your frame on like what's possible.
And like, I think the team, you and your team, like, I think set this set the standard on speed.
So I just wanted to add, again, this this section of my notebook is called glaze.
So I'm just close that out.
And then like the other thing, the other thing I'll say that I think you also mentioned is like you seem to like put yourself around people who are either where you want to go or are in a similar spot.
You just like talk to them relentlessly.
And it's like, hey, I just got on this call with so and so, you know, like that happens several times a week.
And that's like intentional.
And like, obviously, people want to do the same with you.
Like they want to talk to you.
And I think that's that's really cool.
What I wanted to bring it back to, I guess, like my final thing, we can make this as quick as you want.
But I'm not going to let you go on the personal enjoyment piece of this.
So I just like I'm just curious, like you went through you've gone through the agency life.
You've gone through the brand life.
And you made the point about, you know, I don't know if I want to do this in 10 years now.
Maybe riff on that for for a little bit.
It's like, where's your where's your head at with it?
Like the intention of Homestead for what it's worth was always to start brands.
So I if you really go back and look at my like proper work history, I started an e-commerce brand.
When I was 19 in college.
And that's what got me my first job at a marketing agency that allowed me to drop out of college.
It then got me a job at another marketing agency that then turned into Homestead.
So I've been a brand person that went agency for like 10 years before I got to be the brand person that I've always wanted to be.
Which I'm not like there.
I'm not who I always wanted to be yet.
Like I have I have big goals and big aspirations.
But like there's definitely been like there's definitely been the intention to go build brands.
And so when I started Homestead, I mean, I told told the OG team that the first 10 employees will tell you that my intention was we're going to build this agency.
Then we're going to go start our own thing.
So I think that's just like the route.
You know, I love helping other people grow their businesses.
Like I get a lot of enjoyment out of just I don't do one on one consulting personally just because I'm so busy.
But I just like tell people in DMs like just ask me your questions and I'll try to answer them.
Or just like text me and I'll try to answer them.
But I enjoy that the most about the service side is like when you can help someone else and help them just like see that pop is like honestly like as much fun as doing it for yourself.
But it can be a grind like it, you know, when you when you really want to build a big business, which I always have aspirations to do is like build big shit is to do that in an agency is just really hard.
It's, you know, hundreds of people, hundreds of clients, hundreds of people because of the hundreds of clients.
Like I really enjoy working like personally with a smaller group of people.
So if we can do, you know, big numbers, but do it with a brand like that's kind of what feels like right right now.
So that's that's kind of where my head's at with it.
I think that that's Brad, you brought up a good point, which is the asking people.
I think this is a thread that runs through really successful people that I've seen in my life, too, which is they're always constantly curious and of asking other people.
How's that?
What are you doing with that?
How are you thinking about that?
Right.
And I tell a story often about a guy that I knew many years back who was a world class expert in innovation and he had a world class like innovation consultancy.
And he would go and speak at IBM and all these.
Like, you know, I know he was speaking in Anthropic last month.
I just saw, you know, this is what he's done.
It works on innovation with people.
And I'm like, how do you stay on top of this?
He's like, oh, I just talked to like five people a month who work in innovation and ask them what they're innovating on.
That's nothing other than that.
And so I think that kind of curiosity is really interesting because I think there's an ego side of it that comes in and is like, well, I know this is what it is.
But actually, to be truly successful on Lockheed, you have to be talking to people all the time and be constantly curious and testing and trying and seeing what other people say.
You know, you hear how much in Zach, your story, how much other people are woven into that.
And I think that's really valuable just for people to hear.
I'll just close the loop on that as like the final piece is.
Yeah, I mean, I think you need to if you want to go do something or you're like, I want to get here next.
You can't be talking to the people that where you're at.
You have to go talk to the next step of people.
And I think that it can be like scary and stuff like that.
I have like a weird no filter where I just like light somebody up if I like get, you know, I maybe just ask a friend for like a contact to someone else.
Have like a have like a text group chat with with, you know, Chad from Grunz is in that Hudson from Comfort's in that.
Like these are people that, you know, Hudson's going to do a billion in revenue.
Chad just sold his company for a billion dollars.
Like that's at a stage that I can't even imagine.
But like those are the people I want to be like, what am I am I thinking about this wrong?
Am I thinking about this right?
Like I asked a question about how I even spending my day to day to that group.
And, you know, thankfully, you know, someone like Chad was sweet enough and kind enough to like send me a two minute long voice note.
That was like really helpful.
But like that's the type of thing.
I think you need to continue to interact with people that are like outside of the scope that maybe is like a little scary to reach out to or you look up to.
Like just reach out to them.
There's normal people for the most part.
So thank you to those of you that are still listening.
The longest podcast we've ever had.
So pretty, pretty exciting.
But a lot of big news, you know, obviously.
And and the good news is we didn't sell the podcast yet.
So the podcast keeps going.
But if anybody wants to buy us, we are open to nine figure offers.
TBPN just went to open AI.
So we, Anthropic, if you're listening, you are certainly will.
We'll take we'll take two billion.
Of course.
Yeah.
But we Zach, congrats on the success and glad to have glad to have an episode to talk through it with you.
And as always, if you enjoyed this, please rate us on the podcast app of your choice.
We're happy to be here for you, providing tactical insights on everything.
And if you have questions or comments, feel free to email Andrew at Foxville Digital and we'll get back to you.
But until next time, keep it scaling.
This episode is brought to you by Homestead's email and SMS service.
Honestly, we've done an episode with with Jacob from Homestead.
He's the man.
And he's he's got to be probably one of the smartest email and retention operators like on the agency side.
Hands down.
I look forward to seeing the tweets that he puts out basically every single month with like a recap of the designs.
And as amazing as the designs themselves are, it's the actual like tactical behind the scenes work where he just like knows what he's doing.
And the team at Homestead like really know what they're doing on email and SMS.
Probably, if not the number one, very, very close to competing for a number one retention agency in the D.C. space.
So just killing it.
Yeah, absolutely agree.
You know, if you are looking at your emails and you're like, these are terrible and, you know, you can optimize the flows and, you know, you can do SMS better.
You got to look at the Homestead team.
So check them out, reach out and they can definitely help make your entire email and retention and SMS program so much better.
And I'm not just saying that we've all seen the work.
I actually had a member who sat down with with Jacob at the founder meetup that we had.
And he came over to me and said, I just talked to him for 10 minutes.
And literally, he he's revolutionized my entire email department.
So agencies are modeling themselves off of what Jacob is giving them for advice.
So anyway, onwards to hopefully working with them.
