Greg Hickman

Helping agencies, consultants and freelancers take back control of their business , create wild profits, and grow with certainty without sacrificing time with family.

🕬 ATTN: Agency Owners, Freelancers & Service Providers

Do You Know the Reason You Cannot lift the ceiling on your client capacity while removing yourself from day-to-day fulfillment ...?

You have not yet had a true SYSTEM to take the best of what you have to offer and transform it into your unique solution, rather than being viewed as a commoditized service provider.

Here's a few things we do that nobody else does:

✅ Create (or makeover your existing service menu into) your productized service suite

✅ Create and build a systematic sales experience so you only sell to the right people while optimizing your time

✅ Structure and deploy a new client on-boarding experience and client fulfillment process that sets clients up for success without your 1:1 involvement

✅ Identify and build the right team of people and processes to free your time as the owner and escape the day-to-day

✅ Scale your team and your systems around each of the critical areas of your business: Sales, Marketing, Fulfillment and Operations

✅ Deliver an operating and communication cadence for you to continually meet the goals of your strategic plan.

If you meet the following criteria we need to talk:

-You're sick and tired of not knowing how to scale your client capacity without getting buried in fulfillment.

-Perhaps you know that you need mentoring to take it to the next level.

-Or maybe you've 'already bought a Guru’s course on scaling’...and it didn't work.

Time and time again, we speak with burnt-out agency owners who know they need to change things in order to scale...

They just need a proven system to do it.

----------------------------------

Now imagine if you had that system...

A systematized process that helped you to design your 100% unique service offering (so that your clients get great results and delivering it is easy and fun for you and your team) 

Imagine discovering how to deliver your service (and what format to deliver it in, so that you maximize profits and time without sacrificing client results)

What if you KNEW that you had a dream team that helps roll out the systems and process to run the business without you involved in the day-to-day.

And...

🎯 How would you like to scale the business up with the latest strategies and systems to build a business that runs without you? 🎯

You can.

That's what we help you do: ► https://altagency.com/mw-watch-li

✉ Email me directly with your questions ☛ hello@altagency.com


Owner and Founder AltAgency

We help agency owners, freelancers and service providers grow and scale without working nights and weekends. 

Less Done-For-You. More Leverage. Better Results. It's a Win-Win.

Ferenc Fekete

Helping non-tech Founders transform Ideas into SaaS products @ VeryCreatives | Product Agency, SaaS & MVP Development | Startups

I've watched many startup founders fail at the same exact point: turning their validated idea into actual software.

They waste months (or even years):
→ Trying to hire the right developers
→ Burning cash on poor planning and execution
→ Second-guessing every technical decision along the way

Meanwhile, competitors move faster, investors demand traction, and the pressure to deliver keeps building more and more.

After watching this pattern destroy countless promising startups, we built VeryCreatives to fix it.

But here's what makes us different:

We don't just build your MVP and disappear. We're product people who think like founders, not just developers who code to spec.

👉 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻-𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵: We start by pressure-testing your assumptions before writing a single line of code. If the market doesn't want it, we'll tell you straight.

👉 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝗻𝗲: We build like it's our own startup, obsessing over user experience, scalability, and investor readiness from the first sprint.

👉 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱: Whether you're at napkin sketch or Series B, we've been there. We've helped founders go from zero to acquisition, and we stick around for the entire journey.

For the past 14 years, we've built products for venture-backed startups, fast-growing scale-ups, and globally recognized brands like Red Bull, Nestlé, and Philips.

The startups we work with have:
✅ Launched investor-ready MVPs in under 90 days
✅ Secured funding from top-tier investors and VCs
✅ Scaled from first users to thousands of paying customers
✅ Successfully exited to strategic acquirers

Got a SaaS idea that's been sitting in your head for months? 
Let's map out your 90-day path to launch → https://verycreatives.com/book-a-call

Co-Founder

At VeryCreatives, we are a team of expert developers who create powerful SaaS apps that solve problems and drive growth for founders with initial funding. We believe in empowering our clients with innovative software that helps them achieve their goals and stand out in their industry.

Our audience consists of driven and ambitious founders who have just received initial funding for their startup. They are looking for a software development partner who understands their vision, can help bring their ideas to life, and deliver results that will help them achieve their business goals.

Founders with initial funding have a pressing need to build their product quickly and efficiently to maximize their chances of success. At VeryCreatives, we understand this need and are dedicated to creating high-quality SaaS apps that not only meet their requirements but also exceed their expectations. We are committed to delivering value and results that help our clients succeed.

VeryCreatives stands out in the market for our ability to deliver high-quality, innovative solutions that meet the needs of our clients. Our unique approach to software development, coupled with our expertise and commitment to excellence, is what drives us to provide outstanding results to our clients.

Industries our clients operate in, using the SaaS products we've built: 
- Digital marketing, Event marketing & Influencer marketing SaaS
- Foodtech & Delivery 
- Fintech, Banking & Investments
- 2-sided marketplace platforms
- Agriculture & Livestock management
- Packaging compliance & Waste

Markets we cover: UAE, EU, UK, US.

"The project will cost $50k." - Developer
 
3 months later: $120k. Sh*t. What happened?

Every non-technical founder has heard this: "It will take longer than expected."

But you can prevent it (with some high-school math)

Here's how to build an accurate cost forecast:

Step 1: Break it down absurdly small

Not "user authentication: $5k"

But:

→ Login page design: $500
→ Login backend: $1k
→ Password reset flow: $1.5k
→ OAuth integration: $2k
→ Security testing: $500


Step 2: Add complexity multipliers

→ Simple feature: 1x
→ Medium complexity: 1.5x
→ Complex/uncertain: 2x
→ Integration with third parties: 2.5x


Step 3: Add the "unknown unknowns" buffer

→ New team: +30%
→ Existing team, new domain: +20%
→ Experienced team, known domain: +10%


Step 4: Phase the budget

→ Phase 1: Core features (40% of budget)
→ Phase 2: Secondary features (30% of budget)
→ Phase 3: Polish and optimization (20% of budget)
→ Buffer: (10% of budget)


Step 5: Define cut points

If Phase 1 goes over, what do you cut from Phase 2?

Decide BEFORE you're in crisis mode.


The rule:

If you haven't scoped it in detail, you haven't scoped it.

And if you haven't scoped it, any number is a guess.

So…

Maybe pause that developer project.

Launch products customers love, then exit | 5x exits, $100M ARR created for founders

I run a 28-person agency. I used to feel guilty about an ‘empty calendar’ on a Monday. Now I try cancel all of my meetings:

And it’s helped us grow revenue 30%+.

Previously I was in every delivery meeting, every project review, every standup at VeryCreatives.

I thought I had to be in the room for things to run.

Now, our fantastic Head of Delivery meets with the PMs directly. 

And an ‘empty calendar’ means brain space to strategise on growth.

Here's what my Monday looks like now:

1. Strategy session with my co-founder Mate
→ Previous week, pipeline, finances, what's planned
→ Keeps us both aligned so neither of us needs to check in again all week

2. Sales sync
→ New leads, who handles what, timing

3. Afternoon: wide open
→ This is the whole point
→ We use that time to plan new internal tools, shape future services, figure out where we're going next

By lunchtime, the operational part of my day is done.

Everything after that is thinking time.

What's one meeting you could delete from your Monday to create space?

My 6-year old son tells $100M private equity firms if product ideas are ‘good’ (I’m serious).

If you can't explain your product to a 6-year old, I’ve got $100,000 on the fact that no one else will get it either.

I sit through dozens of product pitches every year.

The pattern is always the same:

Founder: "So basically, we're building a platform that leverages AI to optimize cross-functional workflows while integrating with existing enterprise systems to enable seamless collaboration and data-driven decision making."

Me: "What does it actually do?"

Founder: "...It helps teams share files."

The 6-year old test:

Can someone who has never heard of your product understand:

1. WHO it's for
2. WHAT problem it solves
3. WHY they should care

In 5 seconds?

If not, here's the formula that works:

"We help [specific person] [do specific thing] so they can [achieve specific outcome]."

Examples:

→ "We help freelancers send invoices so they get paid faster." 
→ "We help HR teams track applicants so they hire better candidates."

Trust me… my 6-year old is a great product idea validation filter.

Can you explain your product in one sentence?

Clay is one of the only companies I’ve seen do this 🔥

When you open the dashboard:

→ There's an AI chat text box.
→ It asks: "What do you want to build?"
→ You type your goal. It takes you to a chat screen. 
→ Then their AI (Sculptor) builds the workflow for you.

I think this solves three problems at once:


1. The blank canvas problem

Clay is powerful but notoriously hard to start with (lot’s of features).

Beginner users will open it, see an empty table, and don't know where to begin.

This prompt box removes that moment. 


2. Slow learning curve

A lot of tools teach you their features via an onboarding. 

But then over a few years they launch 10+ other features you have no clue how to use.

This Clay feature speeds up the learning curve:

→ You describe the outcome
→ The product figures out which features to use
→ You learn by watching it build


3. HUGE time and cost savings. 

For a lot of large products such as Clay, there are off shoots of service based agencies that build with the product for you.

Now you literally do not need to hire an agency.

The product builds what you need for you.

Making it more fun to use.

-

Have you seen other tools do this?

Why US innovation labs pay $500K for what Hungarian teams build for $100K (and get better results):

I just watched an enterprise innovation lab spend $500K on a product that never saw a single real user.

Then in same quarter, we shipped a similar concept for a German client. 

It took six weeks, it cost much less…. and in the end was live and taking payments vs the US one (zero payments).

The problem is US labs have been trained to solve every problem with a 20-person team.

Think about what happens when you have a massive budget:

→ You hire a product manager.
→ You hire three designers.
→ You hire a scrum master.
→ You hire eight developers.
→ You hire two QA engineers
→ And a DevOps team.

Everyone needs to justify their role. So they build. And build. And build.

👉 The PM adds features to show progress
👉 Designers polish screens nobody asked for
👉 Developers architect for scale you don't have
👉 QA tests edge cases that won't exist for years

Six months later, you have a beautiful product that solves nothing particularly well.

OR-

With that same $500k budget, you could run 10 separate validation sprints at $50k each. Even if 8 fail completely, you still walk away with 2 validated concepts to scale.

Compare that to putting the budget on one product that takes six months to discover nobody wants.

Agree or disagree?

Fireflies.ai hit a $1B valuation.

How to copy their MVP strategy:

Founders Sam Udotong and Krish Ramineni would dial into calls as "Fred from Fireflies.ai", sit silently, take notes by hand, and send them 10 minutes later.

They did 100+ meetings like this. Completely manual. 🤯

→ Zero development cost to validate
→ Learned exactly what users needed (by doing the job themselves)
→ Proved people would pay $100/month BEFORE investing in code
→ Only automated after hitting $750/month revenue

What I take from this:

Before you scope features, before you wireframe, before you hire anyone:

Can you deliver the core value manually? Without hiring any developers?

If yes, do that first. Talk to those customers. Understand the problem deeply.

Then build.

-

P.s.

We use Fireflies.ai at VeryCreatives.

We switched from Fathom because it felt more complete and could even log our internal calls in Hungarian. 🇭🇺

Could you imagine Fred joining your call to take notes?

What's stopping you from delivering your product's value manually this week?

The fastest way to make $100k MRR with SaaS 

Copy all of your competitors features:

No, seriously.

But only once you take this into account.

Your competitor has 50 features. 
They’re proven over 5+ years.
They’re clearly making revenue.

Just copy them all right?

Here's the problem:

Your competitor built those 50 features over 5 years.

They added most of them because:

→ A big customer asked for it
→ Someone on the team thought it was cool
→ They were trying to justify a price increase

They probably regret half of them.

What to do instead:

1. Identify their core value proposition (usually 2-3 features)
2. Find which features their customers actually use (check G2 reviews, Reddit, support forums)
3. Identify what they do poorly (read 1-star reviews)
4. Build that. Better.

Don't compete on feature count. 

You'll lose.

Compete on solving one problem exceptionally well.

What's the one thing your competitor does that you could do 10x better?

Has Claude Code killed your SaaS dreams?

I keep reading this headline:

“The SaaSpocalypse is here!!”

→ HubSpot has lost over half its value.
→ Adobe has dropped 40% on AI fears.
→ ServiceNow dropped 11% in a single day.
→ Asana is down 92% from its all-time high.
→ Docusign is down 54% from its 1-year high.
→ Salesforce is down 40% from its 2025 high.
→ Atlassian has lost 76% of its value in the last year.
→ Workday just hit a 52-week low down 39% this year.

All the major SaaS companies stock prices are falling off a cliff in the last 6 months.

Everyone is calling it the SaaS apocalypse.

People believe AI can do everything immediately and the whole industry is going down the sinkhole.

I don't buy it.

What I do think is that the way we use these products is about to change completely. And the SaaS companies that survive will have these 4 things in common:

1. Ecosystem lock-in

You cannot code your own Google Docs integration, Gmail integration, Fireflies integration, and all the other tools your team runs on. Your company and your client's company are connected through shared Slack channels. Try building that from scratch. You can't.

By keeping your current software, you get access to an ecosystem of plugins and connections to other companies that would take years and a load of money to replicate.


2. Proprietary data

If a SaaS product has been collecting and structuring your industry data for 10 years, that data becomes the product. AI needs data to be useful. The platforms sitting on the best data win.


3. Distribution

Casey Hill wrote about this recently and he's right. Having millions of users already on your platform is a moat no startup can copy on day one. That's why Salesforce isn't going anywhere. 


4. Outcome-based pricing

This is where things get interesting. Companies might not pay for seats anymore. They might pay for number of invoices submitted, accountancy submissions per year, or tasks completed by agents.

The actual value will shift from the interface and people doing the work to letting agents do the work with the best workflows possible. SaaS products in the future will open themselves up for agents, becoming MCP services.

And here's what people forget about building their own...

You have to own maintenance, support, handling technical difficulties, and scaling. I don't think companies will build their own software for accounting, finances, or managing people in HR. 

TDLR;
- The moats are ecosystem, data, distribution, and pricing flexibility
- The winners will be platforms that open up for AI agents
- Building your own still costs more than people think

What's your take on the SaaS shakeout? Are the public market movements justified?

Wispr Flow is blowing up right now 🔥

Their onboarding is why:

→ It’s a Voice-to-text app valued at $700M.
→ They are currently growing 50%+ month-on-month.
→ In 2025, they 10x’d customers in 5 months.

During onboarding, you speak to configure your settings. 

By the time setup is done, you've already used the core feature without realizing it. 

Brilliant!

After 13 years of building products, the biggest onboarding mistake I see is separating setup from usage. 

Founders build welcome sequences with videos and walkthroughs. But then… The customer finishes onboarding having never done the one thing the product exists for.

Wispr Flow makes setup and the core action the same thing.

The whole point of onboarding is getting the customer from zero to value fast. 

If your product needs 10 steps before a user sees value, think about what you can cut. 

The best V1 products I've worked on put the core experience first and build everything else around it.

How fast does your product get a new user to the thing they signed up for?

Wispr Flow Has The Best Onboarding:

ChatGPT 5.4 won’t give you your next SaaS idea.

These 6 places will:

After 20 years building software products for founders, here are the 6 most common places they said they found their idea.

1. G2 reviews (1-2 stars specifically)

Go to any established SaaS category. Filter by lowest ratings. Read the complaints.

→ "We switched because the reporting was unusable"
→ "Integration with X broke every update"
→ "Support took 3 weeks to respond"

These are real customers spending real money, telling you exactly what they wish existed. That gap between what they paid for and what they got? That is your product.


2. Reddit, Inc. and niche communities

Search subreddits like r/SaaS, r/startups, r/smallbusiness for "I wish there was" or "looking for alternative to."

→ Real pain, described in the customer's own words
→ Free market research that most founders ignore completely


3. Job boards

This one surprises people. Look at what roles companies are hiring for. If 40 fintech companies are all hiring "compliance automation engineers," there is a gap in the tooling. Companies hire when software fails them.


4. Crunchbase and funding announcements

What is getting funded tells you what investors have already validated. You do not need to copy them. But if 12 companies raised seed rounds in the same space in the last 6 months, the market is real.


5. Product Hunt trending categories

Not for copying what launched yesterday. For spotting which categories keep producing new entries. Repeated launches in one space means the existing solutions are not good enough.


6. Google Trends comparison

Take 4-5 tools in any category. Compare their search volume over 2 years. One declining while the category grows? Their customers are looking for something else. That something else could be you.


The pattern across all 6 is the same….

Find people who already have them and are already paying someone else to solve them badly.

I have seen founders burn through 50k, 100k building products nobody asked for. And I have seen others spend two weeks doing this research and walk into our workshop with an idea that had paying customers within 90 days.

Where do you look for product ideas before building? 
Which one did I miss?

6 Websites SaaS Founders Find Product Ideas

McKinsey & Company just released the best markets for 2026.

$100B+ is flowing into ONLY 5 sectors:

1. Healthcare and clinical tech
→ $15B+ in private investment last year according to McKinsey
→ Regulatory barriers keep vibe coders out 
→ We've built in this space and watched one get acquired within 18 months
→ Aging populations in the EU and US guarantee demand for another decade

2. Open banking and embedded finance
→ PSD3 in Europe is forcing banks to open up even more data
→ Every fintech needs compliant infrastructure that actually works
→ The products that win here are boring on the surface but deeply technical underneath
→ We've shipped open banking platforms that are still running 4+ years later

3. Legal tech
→ One of the most underdigitized professional services globally
→ McKinsey & Company estimates legal operations spending on tech will double by 2027
→ Contract automation, compliance workflows, case management... the backlog of things to build is massive

4. AI-native B2B tools 
→ $70B+ in generative AI investment in the last 18 months
→ The wrapper era is ending. Investors want products with real data moats
→ Best opportunities: vertical AI for specific industries (farm-tech, logistics, insurance)
→ If you're building a thin ChatGPT layer on top of a spreadsheet, you're already behind

5. Marketplace platforms for fragmented industries
→ Logistics, construction, agriculture, skilled trades
→ These sectors run on phone calls and spreadsheets
→ Building a marketplace here is harder than people think (chicken-and-egg, trust, payments)
→ But the ones that crack it become acquisition targets fast

What I tell founders who ask me where to build:

- Pick a market with regulatory friction. It protects you.
- Talk to 20 people in the industry before you scope anything.
- If a freelancer on Fiver could build your V1, the market is already too crowded.
- The best exits we've seen came from products solving boring, complex problems in industries that move slowly.

Where are you seeing the most opportunity right now?

P.s.

I couldn’t fit all the details in this post (It’s 100+ pages). Comment ‘report’ below if you’d like the full 100+ page PDF report this is from and I’ll send it over.

Plain is the only company I've seen do this 🔥

They show you what you can achieve in 5, 15, and 29 minutes on their landing page.

Instead of a feature list or pricing table, you get a timeline of outcomes.

Plain is an API-first support platform used by Vercel and Cursor. 

It’s the kind of tool where you'd normally expect a "book a demo" button and a 3-week onboarding process.

But their landing page breaks it down simply:

5 minutes

→ Connect Slack, Teams, Discord, and email
→ Connect your CRM and issue tracker
→ Respond to your first ticket


15 minutes

→ Deploy an AI agent across all channels
→ Define SLAs, business hours, and customer tiers
→ Automate queries with workflows


29 minutes

→ Generate AI insights from support requests
→ Deploy a knowledge base from your support messages
→ Let customers self-serve with Ask AI

I've been building software for 20 years and I've seen hundreds of product pages. Almost none of them answer the question every buyer is silently asking: "How long until this actually works for me?"

Plain answers it before you even sign up.

If you're building a SaaS product that takes real effort to integrate, here's what you can take from this:

1. Show buyers how fast they'll see results instead of listing what your product does.
2. If your product is complex, break the complexity into small wins. Give people a reason to start.
3. Time-based milestones beat feature lists. Nobody cares about your 47 integrations. They care about "5 minutes to first ticket resolved."

Map your onboarding into time blocks and put it on your landing page. It de-risks the decision for your buyer and I think more SaaS companies should be doing this.

Have you seen other companies do something similar?

How to hire 10/10 SaaS employees

Depending on your rev and growth stage:

Some founders rush hiring and burn cash with nothing to show for it. 

Here's how to know what you actually need:

1. Hire a sprint team when you're going from 0 to MVP
→ You've identified a real problem and want to validate fast
→ You need people who've done the grunt work before, like user journey mapping and usability-first development
→ These short focused sprints typically take 6-10 weeks from idea to working MVP

2. Hire freelancers when you have a team and a working product
→ You're growing and already have a roadmap
→ You need temporary help to ship a feature or tackle a backlog item
→ They're great for that specific integration before a big demo, but don't expect long-term commitment or strategic input

3. Hire an internal team when you're playing the long game
→ You have the time and budget to hire and retain top talent
→ You have someone in-house to lead the team and set priorities
→ You've already built infrastructure like HR, PM, dev ops, and internal comms
→ Expect 3-4 months to hire senior devs, plus another 1-3 months to get them productive

For most early-stage teams, an internal team isn't the best starting point unless you're going deep tech or building something highly complex.

Match your hiring strategy to your actual stage.

P.S.

Here's the catch though… if you're launching in a regulated industry… Or one that's underutilized in tech, where the product team has to dive deep into the niche and understand its inner mechanics before they write a single line of code.

Stuff like legal tech, Farm-tech SaaS or Healthcare platforms.

Freelancers won't cut it here. 

They don't have the domain knowledge or the patience to build it up.

These are the cases where you go with an experienced product team. One that already has the processes, workflows, and strategy to navigate complexity from day one.

I've developed products for 5x exits.

Ask your product partner these 4 questions.

When a non-technical founder sits down with a developer for the first time, they usually talk about their vision, their timeline, and their budget.

Wrong approach…. You should be interviewing them.

After 13 years of building SaaS products, here are four questions that separate great developers from expensive mistakes:

1. "What would you NOT build for V1?"

A good developer gives you a specific list of things to cut. A bad one says "we can build all of it." If they don't push back on your feature list, they'll build everything you mention and invoice you for every hour.


2. "Can you walk me through something similar you've built?"

You want specifics. Screenshots, architecture decisions, trade-offs they made. If the answer is "yeah we can do that" without showing proof, keep looking.


3. "What happens if a feature takes twice as long as estimated?"

You want a plan, not a promise. Good developers talk about scope adjustments and priorities. Bad ones say "it won't happen." It will.


4. "How would you help me figure out what to build first?"

The best answer involves user research, validation, and customer conversations. If they jump straight to "what tech stack do you want?" they're builders, not product thinkers. You need both.


These four questions cost you nothing and save you $15-20k per month in building the wrong thing with the wrong partner.

The best product partners you'll ever work with will tell you what NOT to build.

Save this before building your v1.

taplio

The Battle

Greg Hickman

Ferenc Fekete

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