The Antifragile Agency (Italy Edition 🇮🇹)

Alright, alright, I'm just teasing you.

One night over dinner in Florence we met a consultant who works with billion-dollar organisations like Hermès, Vodafone, even the UN.

He’s the guy they call when things get political, when big corporate leadership is stuck and no one wants to rock the boat. We asked him what the real challenge was at that level.

Without hesitation, he said:"50% of change management is just politics and fear."

People protect their status, even if it means killing good ideas.

They fight new processes because they’re scared of becoming irrelevant. And they undermine progress just to keep their own seat.

Agencies are no different...

• How many agency owners avoid restructuring because they don’t want to piss off their team?
• How many tolerate underperformers just because they’re “nice people”?
• How many say they want to grow but refuse to change the way they operate?

The longer something has been around, the harder it is to change and the more fragile it becomes.

Sacred cows, legacy processes, org charts that make zero sense anymore. They’re not there because they work. They’re there because people are afraid to challenge them.

And if you’re not willing to challenge the politics, egos and fears inside your own agency... You’re not serious about growth.

Periodo. 🇮🇹

What got you here will break you later

At $50K MRR, you can get away with a bit of fragility.

Missed deadlines? You jump in and fix them. A team member drops the ball? You pick it up without blinking. The wheels wobble, but they don’t fall off.

By $100K MRR, that same fragility gets riskier.

You’re still holding things together but it’s getting harder. You start feeling it in the late nights, the rushed approvals, and the growing list of decisions that “only you” can make.

At $250K+ MRR? That’s when things really start to crack. The weight is too heavy, the delivery team is scrambling, profitability starts to slide and so on. And you’re doing damage control just to keep clients from walking.

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Most agencies are fragile by design

(Not because they’re bad, because they never built for what’s coming next.)

I remember one morning in Florence, watching a guy struggling to park his tiny old Fiat Panda on a steep street.

The engine was revving like crazy and it smelled like something was burning. No matter how hard he pushed, it wasn’t going anywhere.

Most agencies are the business equivalent of that car.

• Overworked teams
• Sloppy delivery
• Founder bottlenecks everywhere
• No clear roles
• And profit margins so tight there’s no room to breathe
• And you? You’re back in Slack at 10PM reviewing work you thought you’d already delegated.

Also if you’re a technician-turned-agency founder, there’s a good chance you’re stuck perfecting deliverables instead of perfecting your business model.

And while that might feel productive, it’s actually keeping you small. Being a strategic leader requires a whole new set of skills and perspectives.

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The 3 pillars of building an "antifragile agency"

This is where Kristina and I spend most of our time when we rebuild an agency’s foundation.

It’s not about scaling harder. It’s about making the agency stronger with every step. So you’re not adding risk… You’re removing it.

1. Operational Model

Simplicity scales. Complexity collapses.

Your delivery shouldn’t depend on superstar talent or you playing air traffic control. It should run like a machine: efficient, repeatable and boring in the best way.

What this looks like:

• Clear end-to-end delivery processes, not bloated SOPs no one reads.
• Automation, where possible (AI isn’t optional anymore)
• Judgement, where it counts (your team makes decisions without you)

One agency we worked with freed up 40 hours a month for the founder by tightening delivery systems and empowering pod leaders. The work got better, client retention went up and he finally got out of Slack hell.

2. Organisational Model

You don’t need always more people. You need the right structure and right people.

Structure = freedom.

We mostly build pods because they work.

Small, self-sufficient teams that own client results. No bottlenecks. No waiting for approvals. And no more founder as the glue holding everything together.

What happens without this?

• People step on each other’s toes
• Accountability disappears
• Founder burnout hits hard

This isn’t theoretical. We’ve helped agencies go from founder bottleneck to self-managing teams in 3 to 6 months. And yes, it’s uncomfortable at first. But it’s the difference between building a machine… And running a hamster wheel.

Imagine yourself... No laptop, no emergencies - because the team has it covered.

3. Financial Model

If you’re chasing top-line revenue without understanding what are you optimising for you’re most likely scaling your risk, not your profit. And if you’re underpricing because you’re afraid of losing deals, you’re making yourself fragile.

What antifragility looks like here:

• Clarifying what business outcomes you're optimising for: exit or cash cow.
• Predictable pipelines
• Pricing that reflects your value
• Capacity planning that keeps your team sharp, not overwhelmed
• Profit margins that let you walk away from bad-fit clients without blinking

Optionality is everything. If you need every client or every deal just to keep the lights on? That’s fragility.

I highly recommend you read about and watch our conversation with Valentin Kuznetcov who is our Financial Consultant at Big Growth Group: How misaligned finances and your psychology are "killing" your agency:

• Read here
• Watch here

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The common traps agencies fall into

Here’s where most agencies get it wrong. They try to fix complexity with… more complexity. More services. More headcount. More steps.

It’s like overpacking for a trip - you carry more than you need, and by day two, you regret it.

Instead:

• Strip back your services
• Simplify roles
• Fire bad clients
• Kill old processes that don’t serve you anymore

Via Negativa, my friend.