After running AdTribe for six years and managing over $100M in ad spend, I learned how hard it is to build and keep a world-class media buying team.

Finding great talent takes months.
Training takes even longer.
And the wrong hire can cost you clients and profit fast.

So I built the service I wish existed back then — Haven.

Haven is a white-label media buying partner that helps marketing agencies scale without hiring.

For $799 per account, you get a complete senior-level growth team:

✅ Media buyer
✅ Creative designer
✅ Video editor
✅ Developer
✅ Performance strategist

No hiring. No overhead. No training headaches.

Today, more than 20 agencies partner with us to handle their paid media.

A few of them said it best:

Olivia Kean, CEO at Fusion Hub
👉 “It’s allowed me to focus on the things I love, knowing they’re crushing it on their end.”

Kory Baraba, CEO at Grow Fast
👉 “We’ve worked with 4–5 different media buyers from Haven, and they’ve all been amazing.”

See more client stories here: https://www.hirewithhaven.com/clients

If you run a marketing agency and want to scale fulfillment without adding headcount,
connect with me or reach out at dmitry@hirewithhaven.com

Dmitry Fesenko

I used to stare at a blank page for hours.

No idea what to write on LinkedIn.

Now? I have enough content ideas for the next 3 months.

One shift changed everything: I stopped trying to create and started reflecting.

Here's what I mean.

Writing content is just thinking out loud. You reflect on things you said, things you did, things you thought about.

That's it. No magic formula.

I'm not a LinkedIn guru. Most of my posts get less than 1,000 impressions. But I show up every day because eventually the right people will see it.

Here's where I get my content ideas:

→ Client calls (I record everything with Fathom)
→ Team meetings
→ Our Notion docs
→ Content I consume (like Alex Hormozi)
→ Things I build (like our Airtable backend)
→ Random thoughts throughout the day

I review my day and turn it into 5-10 content ideas.

Some hit. Most don't. But I'm never staring at a blank page anymore.

Stop trying to be creative. Just document what you're already doing.

Where do you get your content ideas?

CEO at Haven | Hire world-class media buyers for 65% less than in the US | $100M+ in managed ad spend

AI can do most of my job. I'm not worried.

Just got back from Bangkok. Met up with a few clients and partners while I was there.

One conversation stuck with me.

If AI gets so good at doing our jobs, what edge will service businesses have?

We agreed on one thing: in-person relationships are the real moat for B2B.

AI can optimize your campaigns. It can write your copy. It can analyze your data faster than any human.

But it can't grab dinner with your client. It can't build trust over a round of golf. It can't shake hands and look someone in the eye.

I'll take that trade every day.

Honestly? It's the best part of my job anyway.

So while AI handles more and more of the execution, I'll keep building relationships with the people I like.

Playing golf with clients. Having conversations like this one in Bangkok.

That's a future I'm excited about.

What's your moat?

(Mine might involve a negroni or two 😁)

We have 400+ Slack channels.

It's a nightmare.

2 hours every morning just to get through messages. And even then, client questions slip through the cracks. One missed message can cost you a six-figure contract.

So our developer built something cool.

A custom tool that scrapes all Slack messages every 30 minutes and creates a dashboard with:

→ All unanswered client messages
→ Response time per media buyer
→ Accounts with the most communication (for unit economics)
→ Working hours when media buyers are most active

But here's the best part.

AI analyzes every message to determine urgency. If a client waits more than 2 hours for an answer, the media buyer gets a DM notification. If it hits 3 hours, the team lead gets pinged too.

We just launched this but initial results look promising.

Slack has always been our biggest energy drain. This is our first step to making it efficient while still keeping human relationships with our clients.

AI is awesome.

Happy Friday 🍺

Our media buyers manage $30M+ in ad spend every year.

Here are the AI tools they actually use daily:

For thinking & strategy:

→ ChatGPT: Reports, analysis, strategy drafts, brainstorming, client comms. The workhorse.
→ Gemini: Research, structuring ideas, operational tasks.
→ Claude: Deeper analytical work. Audits, data analysis, strategic recommendations.

For creatives:

→ Sora: Video concepts and short-form ads.
→ Symphony: UGC-style ad videos.
→ Veo 3: High-quality video creatives (usually paired with our designers).
→ NanoBanana: Static visuals and ad creatives.

For workflow & data:

→ Adnova: Speeds up campaign setup and simplifies creative workflows.
→ GoMarble: Pulls data directly from ad accounts. Compares performance across periods. Syncs with Asana & Slack so we can track team workload.

Two years ago, none of these tools existed.

Now they're part of our daily workflow.

The role of a media buyer is changing fast. The ones who adapt will thrive. The ones who don't will get replaced by someone who did.

What AI tools is your team using?

AI tools media buyers

Our team was checking Slack on weekends "just in case."

And they'd end up working 2-3 hours on stuff that could've waited until Monday.

That's not sustainable. And it's not even efficient.

The real problem: we're spread across timezones. Media buyers in Europe. Me in Canada. Clients in the US and Australia. There's always going to be friction when someone sends a message outside working hours.

So we're building something simple: Urgent Forms.

Every white-label partner will get a dedicated link. When something is genuinely urgent and the team has checked off for the day, they submit the form.

The moment it's submitted, our team lead, the media buyer, and I all get a ping on Telegram or WhatsApp.

Since we're spread across timezones, someone will always see it.

The goal: media buyers can actually disconnect on weekends. No more opening Slack "just to check." If it's truly urgent, it comes through the form. If it's not, it waits until Monday.

Clients get peace of mind knowing urgent issues will be handled. Instead of sending a Slack message into the void and hoping for the best.

It's not fancy. Just a short form connected to a few notifications.

We discussed this with our team leads yesterday and rolling it out soon.

If you run a distributed team and struggle with after-hours communication, might be worth trying something similar.

Happy Friday ya'll 🍻

$1.36M in managed ad spend
$4.08M in ecom revenue
20,353 leads generated

That's February at Haven.

The breakdown:
→ 91 active accounts
→ Avg ROAS (ecom): 4.04x
→ Avg CPL: $44

Performance:
→ 63% of accounts overachieved (100%+ of target)
→ 11% on track (80-99%)
→ 26% underperforming

Platform split by spend:
→ Meta: 58%
→ Google: 41%
→ Pinterest, Taboola: 1%

Wins this month:

✅ Best financial month ever (32% EBITDA)
✅ Found two rockstar media buyers for multi-million dollar apps
✅ Hired new head of paid media
✅ Hired new COO 

That's what I love about the agency business.

One month you feel like all stars are aligned against you and you want to quit. The next month you're firing on all cylinders.

The key is not to get too excited when things are good, and not get too sad when things are bad.

You just gotta love the game.

Onto March 💪

We just placed a senior media buyer into an app spending $500K/month on ads.

Here's how it happened.

Doug is Head of Growth at a women's health company. Their founder built a massive audience and decided it was time to launch a product.

It blew up.

They scaled to $500K in monthly ad spend within a year. But Doug had too much on his plate. He needed someone great to take over Meta, Google, and TikTok ads.

We've placed a ton of talent into high-growth apps, so he reached out.

From signing the contract to the candidate accepting the offer: less than 6 weeks.

Probably one of the smoothest placements we've done.

P.S. If you're running a high-growth app and need a killer user acquisition talent, we have a few great candidates ready to go. DM me.

This is what winning looks like.

Scrolled through our Slack and had to screenshot these:

👉 "Team work because they are so happy with Meta performance!"

👉 "The client is so excited and had minimal revisions for us."

👉 "You're killing it over there. Super happy to have you as part of the team."

👉 "Excellent news on spending much more on NFL this year, good work."

This is what happens when you pair agencies with media buyers who actually care.

We're not just filling seats. We're placing people who treat your clients like their own.

That's the difference between a contractor and a partner.

White-label media buying now makes almost 70% of our revenue.

What started as me selling extra capacity of my media buyers to other agencies became the biggest revenue driver in the business.

Why I love this model:

→ Retention: most of our agency partners stay with us for years
→ I'm barely involved in fulfillment. My team leads handle most of it
→ Agencies basically become my sales reps, so i can just focus on hiring great talent
→ Most of our partners become close friends (same vibe)

But this is not all rainbows and sunshine.

This is probably the worst agency model for most founders. Here's why:

→ High volume, low ticket. To hit $100K MRR, we need to manage 130+ accounts
→ Heavy ops. We have over 20 full-time team members
→ Every agency owner needs different things. We personalize our offer for each partner
→ Timezone differences are still tricky. It doesn't work for everyone

Despite all that, we're still pushing hard. Signing new agency partners almost every week.

The relationships make it worth it.

I'm still having a ton of fun building this.

If you need a trusted media buying partner, reach out. We're bringing on 5 new agencies in Q2 💪

Everyone's chasing the latest Claude update.

They're missing the point.

Here's what no one wants to talk about: the boring stuff. The data.

Everyone will have access to the same LLM models. The only way to differentiate yourself is to have a unique dataset you can train your models on.

We started building this with our developer. A database that will eventually become the brain of our AI agent.

Here's what we're feeding it:

→ All accounts data and creatives
→ Every public Slack message
→ Notion SOPs
→ Asana tasks
→ Team call recordings
→ Stripe invoices

Literally every piece of information we use to operate our agencies.

Now here comes the boring part.

It takes an enormous amount of time and effort to organize your data properly.

It means rewriting all your SOPs and only keeping the ones you actually use. Otherwise you train your AI on the wrong processes.

It means connecting all 90+ accounts and making sure every data piece is being collected.

It means constantly giving feedback on the quality of outputs. Which, by default, no one wants to do.

Only then can you build a truly AI-native agency.

Otherwise you have no edge 🤖

I was 100% sure this person didn't exist.

We needed a new Head of Paid Media.

But I wasn't actively searching. I figured I'd have to grow one internally. Finding someone great from the outside felt impossible.

Then Diana, our new team lead, recommended her previous Head of Paid Media.

She said he was as good as our last one who stayed with us for 8 years.

I hopped on a call with zero expectations.

Diana was right.

Illya had done everything we were lacking:

→ Built processes media buyers actually follow
→ Ran a dedicated creative department
→ Understands that media buyers need to become growth strategists to stay relevant

We sent the offer the next day.

The lesson? Your team is your best recruitment channel.

They know who's great. They've worked alongside these people. They can vouch for culture fit in ways a resume never will.

Before you post another job ad, ask your team who they'd want to work with again.

Do you ask your team for referrals?

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I run two agencies. Here's my entire tech stack.

9 tools I actually use every day:

1/ Fathom

Records every call and pushes notes straight into CRM.
I use call transcripts to write most of my LinkedIn content.

2/ Claude

I asked it 50 questions about me, my goals, and my businesses.
Connected our Notion, Gmail, and financial data.
Added people I admire.
Now it's my go-to for business and life advice.

3/ Stanley

My new favorite writing tool.
I always struggled to make Claude write in my voice.
Stanley makes LinkedIn content way easier.

4/ Superwhisper

New tool I just started using.
Saves a ton of time on typing. Now I can brain dump ideas in 30 seconds instead of writing for 5 minutes.

5/ GoMarble

I use it to ask Claude what's going on across our entire client portfolio.
My team loves it too.

6/ Folk CRM

By far the easiest CRM for social selling.
Perfect if you're living on LinkedIn like me.

7/ Veed.io

I have zero video editing skills.
With Veed, I get 10 to 20 short-form clips from client calls in minutes.

8/ AuthoredUp

My go-to for writing and scheduling LinkedIn posts.
Simple UI. Useful analytics.

9/ HeyReach

Automatically sends 25 to 40 connection requests a day to my ICP.
First DM is also automated.

What are the tools you can't live without?

👇 Drop them in the comments.

1 (1)

I started my first business 10 years ago.

It was a disaster.

Back in 2016 I quit my job as a customs officer and was trying to figure out what to do with my life.

I read Richard Branson's book "Screw It, Let's Do It" and was ready to make millions 😅

A long-time friend and I went through a few ideas and decided to export wood pellets to Europe.

Our market research was based on:

→ Ukraine has a lot of forests
→ Wood scraps must be cheap to get
→ European companies would line up for our product

We formed an LLC called "B&F Trading" (what an awesome name).

Our GTM strategy was to cold call importers and undercut competitors on pricing.

(we paid someone under the table to get the database of all wood pellet importers)

Here's what went wrong:

→ Wood leftovers aren't easy to find, even in Ukraine
→ The quality was poor. Most wood companies just throw it away. And Europe is very particular about quality
→ Margins were brutal. 20 tons of product cost $2,000
→ European importers valued long-term partnerships. They didn't want to work with two 20-somethings trying to undercut everyone.

Needless to say, we made zero dollars.

But it taught me lessons I still use today:

→ How to evaluate demand before spending money
→ How to do basic GTM: website, cold email, outreach
→ How legal stuff works: contracts, taxes, LLCs
→ How to sell. I cold-called hundreds of people. Terrifying for a nerd like me.

Every business is hard. There are always things you don't know until you start.

But each failure makes the next one easier.

What was your first business flop?

Got this email from an agency owner we used to work with years ago.

"Been reading your emails. Thank you!"

"We should meet up and shoot the shit. Maybe BKK or Chiang Mai or Hua Hin."

Scott used to be one of our white-label partners. We worked together but never met in person. After the project ended, we lost touch.

Then my newsletter brought him back.

Starting my newsletter was probably the best investment I've made in my business.

I started with zero strategy. Just shared everything I was working on.

→ New tools I'm testing
→ How I structure my agencies for efficiency
→ Problems we face when scaling
→ Personal stuff (like me doing a health checkup in Bangkok)

I didn't want to treat it like a sales funnel. I just wanted to stay connected with people I like.

Then something interesting happened.

People I hadn't spoken to in years started reaching out. Some of them referred us new business. Others wanted to meet up and talk shop.

If you've been sitting on the idea of starting a newsletter, just start.  

Don't overthink it. Just write like you're updating a friend.

Thank me later.

Brand positioning explained in 30 seconds.

I'm currently in Asia. Anyone who's been here knows 7-Eleven is the spot.

I walked into the protein milk section and counted at least 10 different brands.

Same flavors.
Same price.
All with exactly 30 grams of protein.

Except one.

This brand has 33 grams.

I'm a simple consumer. I see more protein for the same price, I buy it. Every single time.

That's the power of brand positioning.

You don't need to reinvent the product. 
You don't need a massive rebrand. 
You don't need to slash your prices.

Sometimes you just need one small difference that matters to your customer.

It could be 10% more of what they actually care about.
One feature your competitors don't have.
A single reason to pick you over everyone else.

When everyone zigs, you zag.

Had coffee with a developer in Thailand last week.

He taught himself to code 10 years ago so he could become a digital nomad.

And it worked.

He traveled the world. UpWork gave him all his clients. Life was good.

Until it wasn't.

Over the last 3 months, he got zero jobs. The market got more competitive. But more importantly, businesses just need fewer developers now.

Here's the irony.

Just a few years ago, being a developer was considered the highest career pursuit. Learn to code and you're set for life.

Now they're the first ones being replaced by the machines they built.

Things change fast.

But I don't think knowing how to code is worthless. I don't think it ever will be.

It's just not enough to be a pure tech engineer anymore.

The people who will succeed most are those who are technically skilled AND understand the business side:

→ Why are we building this feature?
→ Do our customers even need it?
→ What's the best distribution channel for this?

Being able to coordinate AI agents and engineers to get results for the business will be invaluable.

Generalists are back in demand.

What skills are you doubling down on?

The best engineers won't build the best companies anymore.

Evan Spiegel said it in a recent interview:

"Before, so many resources were dedicated to engineering. Now people are gonna be much more focused on marketing and distribution."

He's not the only one. OpenAI's Greg Brockman says taste is now a core skill. The pattern is clear.

Building is getting cheaper. AI can spin up a product, an app, a landing page in hours. The barrier to create is basically gone.

So what becomes the most valuable skill?

Creating content that gets attention from the right people.

Sure, Claude can write your LinkedIn posts. But that's not an edge when everyone has the same tools.

The edge? Knowing what to say. Understanding your audience so well that your content actually lands. That takes taste. That takes you.

And as AI floods every channel with generic content, trust becomes the scarcest resource. People buy from people they trust.

The companies that win in the next 10 years won't be the ones with the best engineers.

They'll be the ones with the best marketers.

Good time to be running a marketing agency 😅

I work with small but mighty agencies who have done great work to get where they are and are now finding that growth feels heavier, harder to explain, or overly dependent on them.Often, the first thing that starts to strain is positioning. Messaging feels harder to land. Sales take more effort. Referrals are less consistent than they used to be.As agencies grow, more of the business starts depending on the founder. Decisions, clarity, sales, and momentum begin to funnel back to one person.You’ve done great work to get here.Great work alone isn’t enough to scale.If you’re stuck in delivery, unsure how to evolve your services, explaining your value more than you want to, or craving a clearer path forward, that's where I come in. I help agency founders reshape their business so they can grow with more clarity, less chaos, and better results, without becoming the bottleneck. My work is grounded in a growth system that focuses on six connected areas:🔹 Strategic Positioning &amp; SpecializationGetting clear on who you’re for and what you’re known for🔹 Product Alignment &amp; Offer DesignDesigning services that scale without increasing delivery strain🔹 Outcome ClarityMaking the value of your work clear enough to buy with confidence🔹 Brand Identity &amp; ExperienceTurning positioning into trust-building experiences🔹 Strategic PartnershipsCreating relationships that compound growth beyond you🔹 Leadership DevelopmentHelping founders move from doing the work to leading the business⚡ Client Wins✔️ Tripled revenue through offer clarity and streamlined systems✔️ Supported agency growth from 4 to 40 with change management✔️ Scaled from 3 to 15 and supported a values-aligned exit✔️ Coached and consulted with 200+ agency founders✔️ 30+ agency owners connected through Agency Together👋 A bit about meI’ve spent over 15 years in the agency world, including selling one, and now coach and consult founders across North America. I understand the business and the reality of running one.Strong communication underpins all of it. As agencies grow, communication becomes infrastructure. It shapes how teams operate, how stakeholders talk about you, and how clients experience your value.I bring deep agency experience and hold a master’s in communication focused on organizational development, helping founders lead more intentionally and make better strategic decisions.I also lead workshops that help teams and communities work better together by clarifying expectations, improving communication, and building trust.📥 DMs are welcome.

Audrey Kwan

“One agency’s win is another agency’s loss.”
 Said no one at last week’s Agency Together Mingler

Instead, Small But Mighty agency owners came together to show what’s actually needed right now:

👉Being in community
👉Learning from each other in real time
👉Navigating disruption together

We’re in a moment where things are shifting fast. The playbooks are changing.
And the agency owners who showed up yesterday aren’t waiting for someone else to hand them the answers, they’re building clarity with each other.

Not in isolation. Not from the sidelines.
But in real conversations with peers who are in it, too.

If you were there, thank you. You made it what it was.

Champion for Small But Mighty Agencies | Elevating Positioning & Sustainable Growth So Owners Don’t Become the Bottleneck

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