Six client interviews shaped the firm's position, and every opportunity got clear stages from first call to signed contract.
Sales forecast
Grew from $30K to $250K.
$30K
$250K
The agency's sales forecast increased 733% in 30 days.
You built a growth engine for every client but your own.
We work with founder-led creative, digital, and technical agencies where growth still depends too much on you.
Firms we are proud to work with
Start where your firm is stuck.
We run the diagnosis and the working sessions, and we build what comes out of them, so you are not hiring one more voice to tell you what is wrong.
Advisory
You are making every call alone. Advisory is standing sessions with Kurt on the decisions that keep coming back, so you get his read before you commit to one.
Consulting
Something specific is costing you money and no one owns fixing it. Our team works it through with yours and stays on it until the change is actually running.
Fractional Marketing
No one senior is setting direction for your marketing. We fill that seat and run the program, including whoever does the work.
What we hear on first calls
Strong work can still make your business hard to grow.
Fifteen agency founders walked us through their growth. They ran different sizes and sold different services, and they all described the same five problems.
One described referrals that fell in their lap with no program and no incentive behind any of it.
At another, every introduction, proposal and win traced back to a single calendar.
A third was closing most of the demos it ran and only running one or two demos a month.
Eighty thousand dollars of cold email had gone out at one of them before our first call, without booking a single meeting.
And the founder of the last one had worked out that the strategies which got the firm this far were not going to get it where it needed to go next.
All five of these cost margin long before anyone notices them in revenue.
Client result
A branding firm's buyers obsessed over their new positioning.
The pitch changed from one conversation to the next and open deals lived in notes and an email tool, so deals took longer to close. We rebuilt the position and the sales process around it.
Testimonials
Thanks to Kurt's expertise, we transformed our agency by prioritizing client needs. With a rebrand and targeted messaging, our revenue doubled, and our team expanded within a year. His ongoing support has been invaluable, and I'm truly grateful for his impact.
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Alex Melton
Founder, Wyrmix
Kurt showed me the skills and practices I was missing. His advice tripled revenue from the low to high 6 figures in about a year. Everything he has shared is still in practice today and I am constantly improving and implementing the habits and practices that made my agency more sustainable.
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Dustin Rea
Founder and CEO, Red Hook
Working with Kurt Schmidt has truly supported our growth as a business. As our advisor, he took the time to understand how we work, even visiting us on-site to learn the ins and outs of our company and team members. Because of this and his depth of experience in our industry, his advice frequently pinpoints situations rather than being generic “consulting”. Kurt guided us as we added new services, navigated the challenges of growth, and built confidence in our decisions. What makes him different is his fresh perspective and his ability to make complicated things clear. He has a real talent for helping you find the way forward when things inevitably get tangled. I would recommend Kurt to any Operations Leader who wants a trusted, hands-on partner.
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Kat Murphy
Director of Operations, Orases
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Our agency has used Kurt's development experience, knowledge, and digital strategy during our engagement with his consulting services. He helped us hone and reimagine our approach to our digital offering, software development, and opened the door to many new business opportunities. What really sets Kurt apart is his commitment to our success and the passion he brings to the role, while keeping his recommendations digestible, actionable, and results-focused.
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Donnie Potter
VP of Digital, DKY
I came to Kurt through a referral and he's guided me for close to a year. The experience has been incredibly positive. He's helped us boost client engagement, streamline processes, fine-tune project management, track work better in our CRM, and put tighter terms in place to prevent scope creep. He gets into the details that often get overlooked, and he works with both me and our Project Manager on execution. His focused guidance on AI and automation has been transformational to how I think about workflows, clients, and opportunities. If you're considering Kurt, come ready to accept new ideas and change. You'll have a great partner, even when you stumble.
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Alexander Acker
Founder, Adventure House
I reached out to Kurt needing dual help: One, casting a vision. Two, turning on more effective business development approaches. He was the decisive sounding board that my vision casting needed. And he also brought immense practical operational techniques to help spur me to action just when I needed the kick in the pants.
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Ken Byers
Co-Founder, Confidant
When I first booked a session with Kurt, I was completely lost on how to build a sales strategy for my business and how to navigate entrepreneurship as a first-time founder. But Kurt broke everything down into clear, actionable steps that completely shifted my approach. I ended up doing multiple sessions with him, and the experience was truly transformative. His guidance has had a massive impact on how I'm building my business. If you're looking for real, practical advice, I highly recommend him.
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Utsav Nagori
Co-Founder, DynaPro Global
Meet Kurt Schmidt
Kurt led Foundry through two Inc. 5000 appearances. He has spent more than 25 years building service businesses.
He has advised more than 150 agencies and written three books: The Attraction Agency, 10-10-10, and The Little Book of Networking.
Agency growth resources
Common questions
Founder-led digital and technical agencies, from small studios to firms of up to 120 people. These firms have often grown on referrals and founder-led sales and want a more reliable pipeline and sales process.
We work on the sales and operating problems that make growth harder to repeat. Usually that is positioning, pricing, the pipeline, how delivery runs, or how much still depends on you.
Advisory supports ongoing decisions. Consulting handles a defined change that needs to be built and put into use. Fractional marketing gives a firm one leader and a team running marketing month to month.
Yes. Kurt leads the diagnosis, working sessions, and major decisions. The SCG team handles production and systems work under his direction.
A first call is a working conversation about the business behind the agency. You get a straight read on what deserves attention and whether we are the right fit.
Engagements are flat monthly retainers scoped to how much we take on. Defined-scope projects are priced separately.
Find out where your firm actually stands.
A working conversation for founder-led digital and technical agencies.
Run a custom software firm billing by the hour? See The High-Margin Firm.