Description:
In this solo episode of The Builders Podcast, host Matt Levenhagen shares a candid reflection on redefining success. After years of growth and managing a larger team, he faced the challenges of revenue flattening, downsizing, and recalibrating his vision. Instead of chasing an old 3–5M agency target, Matt reframes success around gratitude, retention, and daily delivery.
He dives into the realities of agency life in 2024/25, from the difficulty of letting people go to the joy of jumping back into code. Matt now thinks of his business less as an “agency” and more as a studio—lean, focused, and happy. By choosing gratitude first and growth second, he’s building a baseline that feels like success today, while still leaving the door open for future opportunities.
🔑 Key Takeaways
- Define your baseline. Decide what “enough” looks like and anchor to it.
- Gratitude first. Appreciate your contracts, relationships, and craft.
- Retention as strategy. Delight existing clients—quality is your moat.
- Adopt the studio mindset. Smaller core team, elastic talent when needed.
- Daily delivery matters. Measure success by what you ship each day.
- Growth is optional. Remove the stress of chasing constant scale.
THE MEAT OF IT!
- Opening: Why this solo builder’s reset matters
- The 2024 agency landscape and lessons learned
- Setting the stage: baselines, gratitude, and motivation
- Yesterday’s North Star vs. Today’s Reality
- The original 3–5M agency vision
- 5 years of 40–50% growth and the sudden plateau
- Letting go of a larger team and hard lessons learned
- Back to the Craft
- Shifting from CEO to hands-on builder
- Finding motivation in switching hats
- Redefining Success
- Gratitude audit: appreciating stable clients and contracts
- Adopting a “we’ve arrived” mindset
- Studio vs. agency: reframing identity
- Operating System: Daily Delivery
- The new KPI: deliver something every day
- Micro-story: a quick Wix/JavaScript fix that delighted a client
- Capacity the Smart Way
- Lean core + elastic talent on demand
- Retain, delight, and let growth be optional
- Closing: Gratitude First, Growth Second
- Action prompts for builders facing a plateau
- Keeping the door open for bigger opportunities
Check out these related Episodes:
- Episode 241: Michael Kenny – Building Beyond the AI Buzz: Ethics, Relationships, and Becoming Irreplaceable
- Episode 235 – The Builder’s Dilemma: Scale Big and Chase Growth or Be the Craftsman?
- Episode 229 – Building in the Age of AI: How I’m Positioning My Agency for What Comes Next
