Niching down and looking for non-scalable channels as a priority

Like most industry professionals staying ahead of the curve, I’ve been discussing (weekly) the shifts and pivots of different digital channels, GTM motions, and pipeline initiatives we’ve been stepping onto over time.

Some notable examples are:

• A macro transformation that happens every 20-25 years (Jul 09)

• Events + on-sites in 🇧🇬🇩🇪🇬🇧🇺🇸 (Jun 04)

• 18 months of social downhill, top 100 executives, 5 events in 4 weeks (May 14)

• The Internet collapse, my 5-funnel digital blueprint, avoiding bad PR (Mar 05)

• HNY 2025: The 5 Things I'll Focus On In Q1 (Jan 02)

A notable trend here is the shift to channels that haven’t been oversaturated and bloated over the past 12-18 months, thanks to the ever-growing population of freelancers and microagencies, the optimizations brought by AI (allowing 100x the volume of blasts before), and new polluted channels like AI replies on social posts and programmatic SEO.

Competition in certain sectors is unparalleled and higher than ever

Most of the talent war, or the competition behind the handful of open jobs (even though we have several open roles in Sofia), is due to another job bubble that burst and has been deflating over the past couple of years.

This concerns white collar jobs in IT and digital roles - specifically engineers, marketers, managers, sales, admin/office, virtual assistants, network/cloud people, CX staff - many roles available in cloud, SaaS, funded startups, Nasdaq companies, agencies, consultancies, and other digital organizations.

Part of that optimization is led by LLMs - specifically the L1 and L2 roles that can be automated effectively, while mitigating the side effects of working with staff:

• fixed working hours

• Fri afternoon to Mon morning N/A

• PTO/sick leaves

• comp expectations quite higher than LLM/agents

• communication overhead between 10 people getting 4 activities done

• added overhead for project managers/account staff/product managers/QA

And “agency” is rare to find today:

Much of that work has to go through a stakeholder anyway - so the review cycle isn’t necessarily condensed if you think of it.

👉 Take a look at Oracle, laying off nearly 3,000 people even in India, where talent is more affordable compared to most of the world, but investments would rather be relocated to locations where clients live and work in.

This has flooded the market with roles that, collectively, haven’t been contributing to the compounded company ROI, or entire offices formerly paid for by large venture capital investments or one or two massive strategic initiatives that didn’t pan out.

Many great people were impacted in that process, too. We are now interviewing AND hiring some of these as a result, because closing a team or office with 70 people inevitably yields several great individuals caught in the process that we’re happy to bring on board and integrate at DevriX.

This also impacts the busiest industries - digital services

One area that’s been consistently impacted over the past 3 years - the bubble burst, the layoffs, the funding shutdowns, returning to the office, the AI wave, the drop of SEO, the demise of social media… where does that end?

Digital services: social media marketing, PR, freelance content writing, web design/development, customer support, virtual assistant, link building - all of these other roles mentioned above, that turned to full-time freelancers or small agencies of 3-5-10 people trying to build their own brand and business.

When I started my own agency back in 2010, the market was somewhat saturated already. But WordPress was merely 11% of the market and grew 4X over the past 12-13 years, expanding along with new players like us targeting new verticals and opening new opportunities.

Most other channels today, however, have only been getting more saturated and more competitive:

1. AI is automating a whole lot of effort for scheduling, post creation, publishing, SMM, vibe coding and vibe marketing, and many many more - at least for solopreneurs, brick and mortars, SMBs (not established brands)

2. Some channels have been disrupted hard - SEO and Google Ads, or organic social media, whereas similar services have questionable results in different industries

3. Previous rates/retainer sizes shrunk quickly - what was ongoing in 2021-2022 in some cases dropped by 30%, just like teams of 10 were optimized to teams of 3-4 in many orgs

4. Tools like Zapier, Make, vibe coding apps and app builders like Replit, Lovable, v0, are getting more accessible to individuals - solopreneurs, SMB founders, managers and product people in orgs, limiting the need of multiple iterations, cutting down the MVP buildout cycle, and optimizing smaller initiatives vs. the need of app development every time

5. Existing channels like SEO or social media, or even newsletters like first-party, are only getting more saturated. The number of online users is mostly stalled (growing slowly), the time spent online is often down compared to pandemic years (people spend more time offline), and new and new competitors are just emerging and competing for a fixed-sized market

This is why we end up with 10M+ digital marketers, 10M+ website developers, 10M+ support reps, and so forth, working globally - from Asia through Europe and Africa to South and North America - targeting the same competitive markets (first-world, English-speaking countries most of the time), in a market that’s been compressing, for services that are incredibly easy to find today.

With brand and data moat (trust + proprietary information) being the only differentiators.

To succeed in this market, starting now, or as an unknown brand, you either need to be extremely lucky, extremely well-connected (a network ready to buy from you), working with an ultra trusted influencer/key opinion leader.

👉 All your other options are simple: differentiate, niche down, provide a valuable solution in need today, target a specific industry, or sell offline.

Mario

🗣️ Welcome Kris as our new Director of Engineering 🥳 - 15 years ago, Kris took an extended internship with us and later graduated to a rockstar in Chili Piper, a twice co-founder, and a rockstar at Redis, now joining our troops again!

🗣️ Rod starts as a Fractional Growth Officer 🥳 - come and say hi

📚️ Books I read this month (mostly flat, binging some revenue/finops podcasts)

• The FP&A Handbook: Mastering Financial Planning & Analysis (18% in)

• Ray Dalio’s “How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle” (45% in)

• Hooked - on habits and cues and product alignment (50% in)

• “The Sweaty Startup” by Nick Hueber (10% in)

• “Revenue Architecture” by Jacco van der Kooij (40% in)

📰 Mid-market enablement is entirely based on foundational practices - core discussions I happen to have frequently still based on “MBA Disrupted” principles.

🔖 Protect B2B email with encryption. Use S/MIME encryption to meet compliance standards and secure sensitive business communications.

🔖 Secure data with encryption. See which encryption frameworks support compliance and data protection as cybersecurity risks grow.

🔖 Spot trends before competitors do. Learn how AI detects emerging topics on new social platforms for early campaign positioning.

🔖 Tie storytelling to business value. Storytelling KPIs connect narrative goals to conversion metrics at all funnel stages.

🔖 Adapt employee training to fit. Adaptive learning tools tailor training content by matching topics to employee skill levels.

🔖 Stress-test email at scale. Use these 10 practices to maintain deliverability and infrastructure performance during large-volume campaigns.

🔖 Use stealth to build dominance. See how companies win by becoming core infrastructure in The Invisible Empire strategy guide.

🔖 Decide faster to win more. Five executive tactics from The Cognitive Velocity Advantage explain how to stay ahead in volatile markets.

📰 Geopolitics meets trade strategy. Von der Leyen backs the EU-US tariff deal to prioritize economic stability.

📰 Waymo tests cars in Manhattan. The firm secures permits to operate driverless vehicles on NYC streets through urban trials.

📰 Meta invests in rural data center. The company commits $10 billion to a Louisiana facility for future AI power needs via energy framework.

📰 Keurig Dr Pepper expands globally. The company agrees to buy JDE Peet’s for $18 billion to forge a global coffee leader via merger deal.

📰 XerpaAI unveils AI growth agent. The tool automates metrics tracking for Web3 startups’ traction strategies via growth agent.

📰 Fed faces ideological divide. Trump appointees could shift the central bank’s decisions along the lines of Supreme Court split via political analysis.

📰 DoorDash hires Duolingo marketer. Zaria Parvez leads social strategy as the company bets on organic engagement for growth via organic reach.

📰 Experian partners with Incode. The duo delivers real-time AI checks to prevent fraud and speed identity decisions via fraud prevention.

📰 OpenAI opens New Delhi office. The company opens its first India office and adds a $5 ChatGPT Go plan via market engagement.

📰 Musk sues Apple for App Store rigging. xAI claims top platforms collude to limit new LLM distribution and reshape AI rankings through legal action.

📰 Generative AI ups CPA roles. Accountants gain speed and accuracy, becoming strategic partners in reporting and risk via technology adoption.

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

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Ecommerce Store | Design and Style: Art-driven ecommerce brand specializing in customizable, high-quality diamond painting kits. Offers global shipping, dedicated support, and boasts a 70% repeat customer rate - offered at $2,392,930.

Need My Help?

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

🌐 Scaling enterprises on top of WordPress? 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 (hundreds of millions of monthly views), 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 ($3,500/mo) for $3M - $30M founders and executive teams and the smaller Strategic Growth Circle ($997/mo) for $100K - $500K entrepreneurs, agency founders, scale ups.

🌠 Feature your business across the community? The B2B Ecosystem includes this newsletter and 40 other digital properties (directories, newsletters, blogs, SaaS, and social accounts) targeting B2B executives. See how your business can benefit.

📈 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.