Agency, consultant, or partner: pick the right one.
They are not three flavors of the same thing. An agency sells execution, a consultant sells advice, a partner puts in capital and operators and wins when you win. This page is the honest comparison, including the part where we tell you to hire someone else.
The three doors
Agency, consultant, partner. They are not three flavors of the same thing.
The agency. You pay a fee, they execute tasks you define. Reports, deliverables, hours. The risk stays entirely with you: if it does not work, you paid for the attempt.
The consultant. You pay for advice. They diagnose, they recommend, they leave. You execute. The risk stays with you, plus the execution burden.
The partner. We put in capital, operators, and execution. We win when you win. The risk is shared, and so is the upside, because we are in the business with you, not billing it.
Notice the pattern. Two of these sell you something and leave the outcome to you. One puts its own money and people on the line. That is the difference this page is about.
When an agency is the right call
Honest answer: sometimes the partner door is wrong and the agency door is right.
- You already have strategy and just need execution: media buying, creative production, development hours.
- You want to keep full control and full ownership, and you are comfortable carrying all the risk yourself.
- The work is well-defined and bounded, not open-ended growth.
If that is you, hire a good agency and hold them to revenue numbers, not activity numbers. And if the agency handles one channel while we handle the growth engine, that combination works fine.
When a consultant is the right call
This one matters, because it is where we disqualify people on purpose.
If what you want is advice, hire advice. A good consultant will audit your business, tell you what is broken, and hand you a plan. Then you execute it with your team. That is a clean, honest transaction, and we run a consulting practice for exactly this.
If your sentence starts with "I just want advice," do not apply for a partnership. You will be disappointed, because partnership is not advice with a fancier name. It is capital, operators, and shared upside. Advice-seekers should go to consulting. That door is open and it is the right one.
When a partner is the right call
The owner who wants a co-builder, not a vendor.
- You want someone in the business with you: capital deployed alongside yours, operators embedded in the operation.
- You would rather share upside than pay fees. You want the other side to hurt when it does not work, because that is what makes them fight for it.
- You are open to operational change, not just marketing tweaks. Partners touch the business, not just the ads.
- You make decisions fast and you are honest about your numbers. Partnerships die on slow owners and hidden books.
That is the filter. If you read that list and nodded, the next step is understanding how we evaluate: how we evaluate partnerships and the economics.
The question to ask yourself
One sentence decides which door.
Do you want someone to tell you what to do, do what you tell them, or build it with you? Tell you is consulting. Do what you tell them is an agency. Build it with you is partnership.
We only open the third door. If you want one of the first two, we will point you to the right place and part as friends. A wrong-fit partnership is expensive for everyone.
Questions
Straight answers, before you apply.
No, and applying for a partnership would waste your time and ours. Advice is consulting: we have a consulting practice for exactly that, and it is the right call when you want a plan you will execute yourself. Partnerships are for owners who want us in the business with them, with capital and operators behind it.
Sometimes we replace one, often we sit alongside one. Agencies execute tasks; partners own outcomes. Plenty of our partners keep an agency for creative or media buying while we handle the growth engine and the capital behind it.
Yes, and it happens. Management is how we learn a business from the inside: the numbers, the operations, the owner. When the fit is obvious on both sides, the conversation about partnership starts naturally.
Capital, operators, and the full marketing engine: Google PPC, email, iMessage, web, Marketplace, data, and creative. The exact mix depends on the business, which is why every partnership starts with our evaluation process.
Anyone shopping for a vendor, anyone who just wants advice, and anyone who wants capital without operational change. Partnership means shared upside and shared work. If that sentence makes you uncomfortable, the services side is the better door.
If you want a co-builder, start here.
Read how we evaluate first, then apply. If you just want advice, consulting is the right door.