8,900 subscribers, B2B ecosystem growth, deep + broad scale

January has been a complete roller-coaster in my broader business community. Let’s dive into the macro + how we cast the wide net.

Macro and B2B recap

The good:

• Closing business left and right - after a slow 2024, January is more than unusually strong

• The war in Israel is on hold (hopefully for good)

• LA’s fires were horrid, but things are stabilizing

• Republicans are usually good for business - tariffs are a wild card, but so far business is running MOSTLY smoothly

• Workload is more optimal than last year with higher % return to office and some cuts increasing efficiency

The bad:

• Casualties during layoffs led to cutting corners in different departments - support, sales, marketing included. This leads to missed opportunities or compromising on quality

• Many B2B businesses - from professional services to SaaS and hardware - shrunk last year and aren’t necessarily prepared or confident enough for the new year

• AI is raising more questions than ever - is it taking jobs? Is it stable enough to replace people? Is the quality satisfactory to deploy in production? Does maintaining infrastructure pan off at the end?

All in all, 2025 is starting out better than last year - and executives are capitalizing on the opportunity.

But human capital is the biggest bottleneck here. After a decade of growth in IT, comfort and work-life balance have been the norm in corporate work. Add to that work from home for 3 years + Gen Z traits, and you’re in that continuous battle between productivity and providing a work environment that isn’t hated because of the “lack of flex hours”, “not a 4-day work week”, “expects people to collaborate on site”, “too many meetings” or “not enough individual 1:1s”, and a million other complaints.

While the B2B realm is waking up, here’s how the other projects are taking advantage of January.

The Growth Blueprint is growing

Another benefit of January is the steep drop in ad budgets after the heavy elections + Q4 shopping season.

This makes it 2x to 3x more affordable to keep running ads to the newsletter… And folks starting business early are more inclined to join and read the macro news.

I’m still iterating on the value prop that’s most aligned with the reader's expectations (you). There are different topics I cover in varying levels of depth in this newsletter:

• GTM/growth strategies

• Macro news and global dynamics

• Sales and revenue efficiency principles

• Global insights from 500 portfolio companies I monitor (across the agency, consultancy, investments, etc)

• M&A opportunities - both buy and sell

• Investment deals

• Interviews with other B2B leaders (for the podcast)

• Experiments across my satellite companies

• B2B Ecosystem news and updates (for the media hold co)

A more narrow focus is likely to help build a stronger audience - and more active one. If you have any preferred chapters, just drop a one-liner in a reply and I’ll rank them higher ✉️ 

Evolving the B2B Ecosystem

One of the larger initiatives I prioritized over the second half of 2024 is the B2B ecosystem.

I’ve been running the satellite network of projects for about a decade - with some blogs, small SaaS, plugins like WP-CRM and others. But as standalone entities, they haven’t been able to provide sufficient value at scale.

What I focused on instead last year is consolidating these under a media hat (the B2B ecosystem), and shaping strategic connection and ties between the standalone content sites, SaaS tools, my advisory firm Growth Shuttle + the high-level agency offers through DevriX.

The new category introduced last year was Directories:

4 acquisitions - Landing Page FYI, Get AI Courses, Business Tools Vault, and The Affiliate. And 6 new builds on Unicorn’s platform that have been growing for the past few months.

The diversified portfolio of B2B directories helps map out additional tools and services and cross-promote across the media sites. This will slowly plug in the service lines in different places.

We’re getting directory submissions for all directories already - so organic/social are picking up, too.

And what we’ll be working on soon are Network Packages - featuring products, brands, or services across the entire network - some or all properties and multiple channels (sponsored listing, email blast, influencer relationships…)

While most tools are still small (100-200 organic views a month), that adds up to thousands a month across the network. This doesn’t cover the larger properties that have been running for years - each generating thousands a month itself.

So all in all, there are north of 15,000 monthly views for a larger sponsorship of business directories plus different ways to feature outside of that. I’m contemplating higher up packages that include my own socials/newsletters as well, but that needs to go through vigorous vetting process (just highly trusted/recommended brands).

What I love about the B2B ecosystem is the diversified approach. If one or two topics go down, it won’t slash the entire B2B category (business to business will never go away). The platforms support and link to each other, so there’s mutual cross-sharing, and domain authority gets strengthened up by the network effect.

And if blogging sites are down, directories are up. If organic SaaS visibility or social is dead, directories can bring traffic to the SaaS tools. It’s a hedged approach that does wonders.

Lastly, I’m looking into additional newsletters casting a wider net. I’ll share the first one soon - it revolves around productivity/getting smarter, which is suitable for building a large audience (right now same size as this one). Some B2B offers are low ticket (cheap SaaS or courses) and also relevant to this one, thus supplementing the effort and expanding the audience.

If you want to find out more about the B2B ecosystem, hit me up. Always open to expanding and growing the network 🚀 

Mario

✍️ Innovation hitting a ceiling? LLMs are slowing down - and it’s no surprise really. Even as video generation or new deep reasoning models emerge, the actual delegation and utilization is not there yet. It will likely take years until we see broader adoption at work solving most critical problems. I compared that with the stalled smartphone market.

✍️ Trust beats skills all the time - My honest read on agency relationships speaks to the importance of relationships, word of mouth, networking, and building trust one step at a time. Most agencies, freelancers, consultants are skilled and can provide a service. But with millions of them, it all boils down to strong relationships far beyond the technical capabilities.

📱 Don’t do outreach on Mondays - I’m getting bombarded on Mondays and I seriously consider shutting my phone down half the time. The barrage of follow up calls, cold calls from telecoms/ISPs/banks, endless LinkedIn DMs, Monday morning “just touching base” is through the roof.

🔖 Master Customer Insights — When companies tap into customer analytics, they often see impressive benefits—sometimes even a 115% boost in ROI. Discover how to track key data, segment your audience, and identify trends to make smarter, data-based decisions in this in-depth guide to customer behavior analysis.

🔖 Optimize Workforce Strategies with Predictive Analytics — Read how big names like Walmart and IBM are winning with data-driven workforce planning tools integrated into their strategy.

🔖 Create Google Ads That Convert — Check out 10 standout ad strategies from top names like Nike and Amazon. Discover how a touch of personalization, a sense of urgency, and simple, clear messaging can boost your conversions, along with practical tips to sharpen your campaigns.

🔖 Streamline SaaS Growth with Lifecycle Automation — Boost your efficiency and keep customers engaged using the best 7 lifecycle automation tools for B2B SaaS. From attracting leads to nurturing loyalty, explore platforms that refine every step of the customer journey and drive sustainable revenue growth.

🔖 Master Lifecycle Automation — Unlock growth by tapping into the unique needs of both B2B and B2C customer journeys. Learn how the right automation tools can simplify complex B2B processes or spark quick B2C conversions, changing how businesses connect with and keep their customers.

📃 Trade tensions escalate. China has announced new tariffs of up to 15% on U.S. imports, including coal, LNG, and agricultural machinery, in response to recent U.S. trade measures. The move signals rising economic friction between the two nations.

📃 Championing the ethical business. The 2025 Just 100 rankings showcase companies leading the way in corporate integrity, employee well-being, and sustainable initiatives. These businesses are redefining responsible leadership and long-term impact

📃 US sovereign wealth fund could buy TikTok, Trump says. President Trump has initiated steps to establish a US sovereign wealth fund, with potential funding from tariffs and asset monetization. The fund, aimed at financing national projects, could also play a role in acquiring TikTok amid ongoing national security concerns.

📃 The legal battle over AI leadership. A federal judge ruled that parts of Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI could proceed to trial. Musk challenges OpenAI’s transition to a for-profit entity, arguing it contradicts the company’s original nonprofit mission. The case, which may have major implications for AI governance, continues to unfold.

📃 Zuckerberg sets Meta’s AI targets for the year. Meta has outlined an ambitious AI strategy for 2025, planning to invest up to $65 billion in AI infrastructure. The company is expanding data centers, increasing computing power, and working toward its AI assistant reaching over a billion users.

Let’s see the latest offers from Flippa. Don’t forget to sign up for their newsletter for daily/weekly/monthly offers such as these.

AI-Powered Video Editing App - This app enabling users to edit photos and videos maintains a 4.6-star rating across 4.4K+ reviews and has generated a TTM revenue of $509K.

• Annual profit: $195,000

• Average monthly downloads: 67,000

• Business age: 2 years

Portable Humidifer Ecommerce - This ecommerce business specializing in stylish, portable humidifers has driven a TTM revenue of $1.3M.

• Annual profit: $273,000

• Average order value: $77

• Business age: 5 years

3-Product Business Building Portfolio - This business features a portfolio of three products which include an ad marketplace, analytics SaaS, and a digital course.

• Monthly profit: $11,024

• Average order value: $151

• Business age: 2 years

Need My Help?

Keeping myself busy - here are the main projects I focus on:

🌐 Scaling WordPress past 100M views? DevriX provides martech retainers to SMEs, publishers, eCommerce, SaaS, and more. Our plans start from $1,200/mo to $40K/mo and we manage high-traffic platforms, B2B SaaS apps, partnership management solutions, supporting $10M - $250M businesses with scalability, custom funnels, CRO, big data augmentation, AI-driven processes, HubSpot workflows, programmatic SEO - and everything a modern business requires in digital in 2025.

🚀  Work 1:1 with me? At Growth Shuttle, I run two popular plans: Async Advisory for $3M - $30M founders and executive teams and the smaller Strategic Growth Circle for $100K - $500K entrepreneurs, agency founders, scale ups.

📈 International founder looking into US LLCs? Check out doola and their “Business in a Box” model. Suitable for both foreigners and US citizens and both for residents and non-residents.

📊 Into digital M&A? I work closely with Flippa’s marketplace. They offer a vast variety of online businesses for any buyer’s interest. Or if you’re ready for an exit, Flippa provides the tools to list your business and close the deal.

💼 Looking for investment opportunities? Check out SeedBlink and use Equity to manage your ESOP tables in-house.