Ask any founder or CMO what their biggest regret is — somewhere near the top, you’ll hear:
“We burned months (and budget) on the wrong agency.”
And yet, the way brands hire agencies today hasn’t changed in decades.
It’s mostly generic marketing — glossy decks, empty promises, and a cliche marketing plan that somehow always ends with, “It will take atleast 4-6 months to see results.”
Let’s talk about what’s actually broken here — and what needs to change if you’re serious about scaling.
What’s wild is that we still haven’t changed how we find or hire agencies.
It’s mostly:
- “Top agency” blog posts (written by the agency itself)
- Referral chains based on old relationships
- Vague discovery calls where no one actually digs into your funnel or audience
The entire system is designed around agency optics, not brand outcomes.
Let’s break down what’s broken — and what the next evolution looks like.
1. The Agency Discovery Process is Rigged.
Most directories are pay-to-play. That “top agency” list?
They paid to be there.
That “award”? Given by another agency-run organization.
That glowing case study? Cool. Can I see unedited results in your ad account?
Brands don’t realize how skewed the discovery process is until they’re deep in a retainer with no ROI to show for it. And by then, switching feels like starting over.
So brands spend weeks researching, emailing, and jumping on calls — without any system for making a confident, data-informed decision.
It’s not that brands are lazy — it’s that there’s no clear framework to follow.
2. The Vetting Process Is All Talk, No Transparency.
You get on a call.
They sound smart. Maybe they name-drop a few brands.
But how do you actually vet if they’re built to solve your specific growth challenge?
Most agency-client relationships die not from a lack of talent — but from misalignment.
No one asked the right questions at the start.
No one pulled real data to match need vs. capability.
And definitely no one brought in actual performance benchmarks.
Very few founders ask to see:
- The Internal team structure (who’s actually on your account)
- Time for allocation across creative, strategy, and media buying
- Testing the roadmap or creative velocity plan
- How they prioritize learning vs. scaling
I’ve seen brands sign $15K/month retainers without ever seeing the person who’s managing their ad account. Or without knowing how many creatives they’ll actually receive. Or if SEO includes content or just backlinks.
3. The Wrong Fit Costs You More Than Just Money.
Hiring the wrong agency is like hiring the wrong cofounder.
They shape your positioning, your content, your acquisition channels — and if they miss, they don’t just waste your budget, they distort your brand’s potential.
I’ve seen early-stage founders kill momentum entirely because they got locked into a “full-funnel growth retainer” with zero creative bandwidth.
And I’ve seen 8-figure brands stall because they were paired with performance teams that never pushed creative iteration or testing velocity.
They didn’t fail because the agency was incompetent.
They failed because the agency wasn’t built for their kind of growth.
❗️Most agency-client failures are due to poor fit, not poor performance.
So What’s the Solution?
That’s the part that frustrated me — as both an agency owner and a marketing strategist, I kept seeing the same gap:
There’s no clean matchmaking layer between brands and the agencies built to serve them.
We need context — budget, stage, channels, past results — not just filters by “industry” or “location.”
We need performance data. Live dashboards. Real answers.
Not decks and 3-week discovery processes.
We need transparency. Standardized scopes. Escrow. Something closer to what Upwork could’ve been for marketing, if it weren’t a race to the bottom.
My Take
Agencies aren’t dying — bad fits are.
The next generation of marketing growth will come from intelligent matchmaking — where tech meets expertise, and brand-need is clearly aligned with agency-skill.
I’m not building another directory. I’m not building a freelancer marketplace.
I’m building the connective tissue between brands and outcomes — because when you stop hiring blindly, you start scaling intentionally.
If you’re building something in this space — let’s talk.
If you’ve been burned by a marketing partner — we’ve got you
Let’s stop wasting time on broken processes.
Let’s build something smarter.
