And I had to make a hard call…
Step away from LinkedIn - and fix what growth broke.
So we paused all marketing… and went back to the base.
Here’s how it went 👇
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❌ THE BAD:
1) Operational bottlenecks hit hard
This was by far the brutal part of Q1.
The pace exposed gaps — both in team bandwidth and internal systems.
Execution slowed. Things slipped.
This forced us to stop and rethink everything going forwards.
2) We need to keep pushing up market to survive
This became painfully clear: <$5-8K/month SEO retainers don’t make sense anymore.
They’re hard to deliver results for, and harder to scale profitably.
We’re now focused on going upmarket — and being brutally honest about fit.
3) Taking time off LinkedIn hit our pipeline (My fault...)
Out of sight, out of mind. Inbound dropped to 0 nearly.
Luckily, outbound is now finally cracked — but this was a reminder that marketing should always run.
4) We lost a $10K/mo client who took SEO in-house
Even with strong results, when a retainer gets that big, it becomes a natural target on the P&L.
Internalizing becomes a cost-saving move — and we get it.
That’s just the name of the game when you play in the upper ranges of monthly spend.
Still, at our stage, those hits are real — and we felt this one.
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✅ THE GOOD:
1) We’re rebuilding Ops from the ground up
6-month full systems rebuild — in motion now and wrapping up by Q3:
→ Interconnected data structure in AirTables
→ Custom “Bubble” made portals for clients
→ Internal automation for reporting, QA, approvals
→ Custom AI agents in development for Q2 👀
It’s a HELL of a project...but will pay off dividends.
2) We’ve started getting into bigger rooms
We’re now often in talks with companies spending $10–25K/month on SEO.
This is exactly where we want to be.
The only reason we’re here:
→ We’ve paid our dues & have credibility
→ Our outbound sales was targeted for these accounts.
3) New brand. New site.
We finally launched the new site and clarified our 3 core services:
→ SaaS SEO
→ SaaS Content
→ SaaS Link Building
It actually reflects what we do now — not what we started doing which was only SEO strategy.
4) We’ve brought in serious help
To support future scale — and get our strategy + marketing right:
→ 2 external agencies (Ops + YouTube)
→ 3 freelancers for design, editing, and SaaS SEO content creation
It’s the team we need to scale properly.
5) We’re making bold bets on brand
We’ve done a full 180 marketing strategy revamp.
We’re going up-funnel and thinking long-term.
Something big is cooking — and I can’t wait to share it!
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TLDR
That was a hectic Q1 to say the least…
But we learn’t a ton…that’s the way I see it!
So now, we’re all pretty excited for Q2 ✌️
This post was originally shared by on Linkedin.