Why you're getting this: You've interacted with Haven or AdTribe before, and this is my weekly-ish update on what I’m working on to build an agency I actually enjoy running. Zero pressure to stick around, just click unsubscribe if you don't want to get it
Alright, let’s get into it.
The wine trip
Last weekend, my girlfriend and I went to Kelowna. It's a cute town about 4 hours from Vancouver.
It's basically the Canadian version of Napa Valley, so if you're into wine you'll love it. I had so much wine that I feel like I can now tell the difference between a good one and a bad one.
We stayed at a place owned by a German couple, Carmen & Marty. By far the best hosts I've ever had. She ironed my shirt, brought us ice cream, set up the fireplace outdoors. Felt like visiting a rich auntie.
Just look at the breakfast she served every morning at 9am.
Anyway, if you're ever visiting Kelowna, give them a visit. Tell them I sent you haha.
Here's their website: https://www.autumnlane.ca/
AI creatives
My team recently started using Higgsfield and the quality of what it produces is honestly mind-blowing.
Here’s the ad we made for one of our direct clients with just a few prompts.
I used to pay $35 per static ad like this one. Now it's just a few tokens.
Of course it's not that easy. You still need to know what to ask, understand the context of your ad accounts, your audience and their pain points, the product, etc. The AI doesn't replace that knowledge, it just executes faster once you have it.
But I still believe AI can completely change the math on creative production.
Right now, we only charge $149 for our minimal creative package and deliver 12 statics or 4 videos. Honestly, I'm losing money on this offer since I'm paying graphic designers and video editors per creative.
AI fixes that. The plan is to roll out a proper AI creative offer to all our agency partners in the next few months. Better unit economics on our end and way more volume for them.
Becoming a software company
Right now, if I want to understand what's happening with a client, someone has to manually check five different tools. Ad performance is in GoMarble. Client messages are in Slack. Call notes are in Fireflies. Creative files are in Drive. Team assignments are in Airtable. Nothing talks to anything else.
That's the old way. And it doesn't scale.
So we hired a developer. The goal is to build one database that pulls from all of these sources automatically. Ad performance, Slack history, call transcripts, creative data, everything in one place that compounds over time.
Once that's in place, a few things become possible that aren't today. AI agents can run weekly reports and flag issues without anyone asking. Media buyers get a single dashboard instead of five tabs. I can ask Claude a question about any client and actually get a useful answer because the data is all in one place.
Honestly, I never thought I'd be building an actual software company. But here we are. God bless AI lol.
Talk soon,
Dmitry