Biggest Christmas wins in 15+ years

The last 10 days of the year have been some of the most productive days historically in my professional career. Some examples:

1. The 2007 Q4 led to my full-time freelance switch starting in 2008 (later leading to DevriX)

2. Got my driver’s license on Dec 23

3. DevriX corporate documents filed on Dec 21

4. First Growth Shuttle invoice before Christmas

5. Growth Shuttle US registered on Jan 2 (technically docs prepared the days before)

6. Launched a Product Hunt top startup a while back after Christmas (Beta Testers Hub)

7. Acquired CEO Hangout on a Christmas weekend

8. landingpage.fyi acquired a week before Christmas

9. Endless project launches around the holidays

10. Migrating DevriX to Google Workspace on a Dec 27

11. Bulgaria joining the EU on Jan 1 2007, Schengen in 2025, and switching to EUR this Jan 1

I’m definitely missing a lot of the milestones along the way, but some of the best deals or opportunities shaped around the holidays, when day-to-day is slowing down, other entrepreneurs take time to reflect, or push to close the deal and start a new chapter right after.

On Saturday, Lovable’s founder reposted a status tweet of mine for a newsletter that moved to the platform.

Today, Marc Benioff liked another post of mine.

Moral of the story?

• The holidays slow down the roller coaster at work

• Fewer meetings, demos, timelines, due dates

• Corporate workers heading out for a long vacation week

• All the outreach spam - cold calls and emails - freezes until the first week of Jan

• The last week is for reflection, catching up on email, R&D, planning, some scrolling

This doesn’t neglect the time off for holidays and everything.

But it sheds off 60 hours in the week from the other interactions, thus, leaving another 20ish hours in-between where connections and attention are getting marked.

Amidst the endless wave of pitches and cold calls/emails/DMs, I pay attention to what comes in during slow times. Automations are usually off at that time, and FTE BDRs are taking time off.

Therefore, the signal-to-noise ratio is really high.

For nearly a decade, a third of DevriX’s business was signed on weekends.

This was no coincidence:

Busy executives swamped with meetings and emails during the business week weren’t physically able to focus on shaping a problem in a way that resonates, especially pre-LLMs when RFPs or high-level requirements mandated manual time to craft and map out effectively.

I’ve also hired contractors on weekends to ensure a side project gets started when the office madness kicks in on a Monday morning, and all requirements were cleared out ahead of time.

In the 2015-2019 era, I was planning my whole week on a Sunday evening, freeing up some time and avoiding delays after 3 days of back-to-back meetings and numerous deployments on Thursdays.

Additionally, when I was attending 6-10 WordCamps annually, these were all falling on weekends - again utilizing these slow times with fewer interruptions and longer networking periods to build strong connections (many of these still lasting).

In the form of New Year resolutions, executives often take the week before to internalize their progress, assess what’s left, clear out some additional details, and kickstart the new year strong.

Being in that circle - virtually or not - is an asymmetric opportunity that gives a strong boost for the coming quarter (and sometimes, for years to come).

Happy holidays and make the most of the coming week,

Mario

Relaunched The Smarter Brain on Lovable ^

👨‍🏭 The state of copilots and vibe applications - I wrote a micro post on the current state of vibe and copilots. Been spending a good chunk of my time optimizing operational processes and building SOPs into tools and applications, therefore jumping between some of the popular solutions + creating new apps and middleware with Cursor and Antigravity. The space is moving as rapidly as humanly possible.

💼 Why your RevOps strategy should be outcome-driven? The misconceptions around task-driven assignments are impacting growing businesses reaching a glass ceiling. I’ve listed down the main reasons why RevOps objectives should target outcomes.

🤖 The modern GTM stack is AI-first. Chat interfaces are now controlling the broader GTM stack. You can pay tens of thousands of dollars for SaaS licenses across the titans of HubSpot or Salesforce, Clay, Apollo, Instantly, Semrush, and many more - and reach all of this through MCPs and A2A integrations straight into ChatGPT.

🔖 Fix Agile’s scaling issues. Misaligned goals and unclear roles often derail SAFe rollouts, according to this guide on common implementation challenges.

🔖 Target ads city by city. Better ROI starts with city-level targeting, where you adjust bids, exclude weak areas, and match local demographics.

🔖 UX gains lift revenue. A consistent omnichannel interface can raise retention by 89% and boost yearly revenue nearly 10%.

🔖 AI efforts fail from within. MIT and RAND say most AI projects stall due to weak ops, not tech. Strengthen core organizational skills to scale use.

🔖 Control inputs, not headlines. Givaudan’s hold on its supply chain shows how quiet control outlasts noisy branding.

📰 OpenAI shows leverage in compute economics. A 70% compute margin signals scaling benefits despite heavy infra bills in margin snapshot.

📰 Clearwater Analytics heads private. Permira and Warburg Pincus lead an $8.4B take-private plan in take-private bid.

📰 Alphabet buys power to feed data centers. A $4.75B Intersect Power deal aims to relieve constraints in grid bottlenecks.

📰 Paramount escalates Warner Bros. pursuit. Larry Ellison backs the bid with a $40B guarantee in guarantee details.

📰 Cloud spending pitch targets Brussels. Backers argue EU cloud buildout could add €1T-plus GDP via cloud investment and sovereignty.

📰 Solar and storage keep growing through policy noise. Data center demand helps deployments surge in grid buildout.

📰 EU softens 2035 targets, startups bristle. Climate VCs warn looser rules may advantage China in EV targets.

📰 Multi-agent cost tools target enterprise GenAI spend. SoftwareOne releases a system to optimize deployments and budgets in cost optimization.

📰 Companies rethink competitiveness for 2026. Strategy shifts toward resilience, diversification, and pricing power in 2026 outlook.

📰 Prediction markets find friendlier footing. Polymarket and Kalshi lean into Washington ties as rules shift toward legitimacy in billion-dollar rise.

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

Prop Trading SaaS Platform: A fast-growing software business supporting digital prop firms with $657K annual revenue and 50% profit margins. Established in 2023, it shows solid traction with 200 active users and recurring income - offered at $674,100 (reduced 22%).

Astrology SaaS Business: A 2-year-old subscription-based platform in the entertainment niche generating $26K monthly profit at 80% margins. Backed by strong authority and 900+ active subscribers, this asset is available for $990,000.

Talent Booking Marketplace: A profitable platform connecting vetted models and creators with global brands for paid collaborations. With $3.4M GMV, zero marketing spend, and high client retention, it’s listed at $3,810,000.

Marketplace for Expired Domains: A 6-year-old online business earning $60K monthly profit and 57% net margins. Combining high efficiency with $1.27M annual revenue and global reach, it’s selling for $2,320,000 (reduced 7%).

Working with me

Here are the main initiatives I focus on:

🌐 Scaling $50M - $500M+ companies on top of WordPress. DevriX provides full RevOps consulting + delivery with GTM enablement for PE-backed portfolio companies, traditional tech, healthcare, finance, and professional service businesses pacing toward revenue growth initiatives. Our standard monthly retainers between $10K and $100K include revenue lifecycle services for marketing and sales leaders, FP&A for financial teams, pipeline enrichment through websites and dozens of lead sources, automations and delivery integrations, CRO and ongoing testing, product delivery and platform integration solutions, and more through our consulting solutions.

🚀 1:1 Consulting. At Growth Shuttle, I run two popular plans: Async Advisory ($3,500/mo) for $5M - $50M founders and executive teams and the smaller Strategic Growth Circle ($997/mo) for $100K - $1M entrepreneurs, agency founders, and scale ups.

📈 Building US LLCs from Europe. I help European and Asian founders scale faster through doola and their “Business in a Box” model. Also suitable for US citizens (given their bookkeeping solution), but in very high demand across Europe.

📊 Post-Merger Integration. I support M&A initiatives through Flippa’s marketplace. Working closely on PMI initiatives for PE companies and fast-growing startups integrating new companies within their portfolios, enabling data pipelines, and securing more deals through my personal network.