October 19, 2025 • 39 mins
Most people avoid embarrassment and failure, Darwin Liu trained for it. In this episode, he reveals how doing the uncomfortable on purpose helped him build a multimillion-dollar agency and stay sharp in an industry that's rapidly changing. You'll hear the mindset behind pushing limits, hiring struggles, and why boredom can be a sign of progress.
Inside this Episode:
- Why getting comfortable with embarrassment builds real confidence
- The difference between being an entrepreneur and running a company
- The critical stage where most agencies fall apart
- What happens when you build mental toughness instead of avoiding discomfort
Hear details for an agency planning workshop event November 10th and 11th 2025. Visit anagencystory.com to learn more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Russel (00:01):
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where owners and
experts share the real journey,the early struggles, the
breakthrough moments, andeverything in between.
I'm your host Russel Dubree,former eight figure agency
owner, turn Business coach.
Sold my agency and now helpsagency leaders create their
ideal business.
Every agency has a story, andthis is your front row seat.
(00:23):
This is an agency story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
I have Darwin Liu with X Agencywith us here today.
Thank you so much for being onthe show today, Darwin,
Darwin (00:39):
thank you so much for having me, Russell.
Glad to be here.
Russel (00:42):
I'm glad to have you.
Let's get right into the thickof things.
Tell us what X agency does andwho you do it for.
Darwin (00:50):
Yeah, so, uh, XAG Agency is a full service digital
marketing, performance basedmarketing agency.
And, uh, we do business for, I'dsay mid enterprise level
clients.
Generally speaking clientsgenerating somewhere around 5
million to 400 million plus,right?
Primarily, you know, it's 70%e-commerce, 20% b2b.
And I guess the USP or the bigdifference for what we do,
(01:13):
Russell, is we're able to scale,meaning we're able to increase
revenue and.
So we have a unique strategythat we do internally that, you
know, we built off these yearsof Google marketing where we
take over a client.
A recent example for you wouldbe they were generating
somewhere around$48 million inthe first year.
Once we took over, we increased,it, almost doubled it somewhere
around 95.6, so something likethat with only a increase of
(01:36):
20%.
So we basically jacked up therevenue and the revenue at the
same time.
Russel (01:41):
Yeah.
Well, it sounds like the kind ofservice everybody should want a
piece of agreed.
Everybody loves that doubleword, that it never sounds
anything less than sexy.
Well, very cool.
I wanna hear a little bit moreabout just how you created that,
how you do that, and all theother things that go into
running an agency.
But before we get into all thatnitty gritty stuff, I just wanna
(02:03):
hear about Young Darwin.
Tell us about that.
Darwin (02:06):
Yeah, man.
Funny story for you is I neverheld a real job, right?
So I, uh, right outta college, Ireally didn't know what I do.
So Id how to get this back.
That came up was onlinemarketing.
So that's basically where Istarted thousand eight in my
mom's basement with the lightsoff.
(02:27):
Right.
So for two years I was tryingall these games and just fy if
anyone who hasn't been doingmarketing for that long, back in
the day, it was like the wild,wild West.
Google CPCs were like 30 cents.
Facebook just came out, right?
So they actually didn't knowwhat they were doing.
And what ended up happening waswhen Facebook first came out,
they allowed almost everythingin anything.
I created a quick script where.
(02:50):
If you wanted this free iPadfirst, you had to invite your
friends.
It was quick.
One click of a button.
So happening was they click,they invite all their friends,
they enter the email.
I was making money likeclockwork 30.
And then guess what?
Facebook finds out they gonnacome and show it.
So with that said, I, I'm tryingother things.
(03:11):
All these other black hattactics, I ended up 30 on my
credit card.
I couldn't pay my bills.
My mom, I needed to get a job.
So I ended up working at anagency, but now I think I was
paid 30 grand a year.
With that said, you know, yousaid, hold on, wait, 30 grand a
year?
Yeah.
30 grand a year level.
Right.
That wasn't for me.
(03:31):
You know, when I did that, mymom was, I told you, you shoulda
done this in the beginning.
You shouldn't had to do whatyou're doing.
In my mind, it was always.
This, it wasn't end, it was justa means end because I always
knew I still wanted to runcompany and do my own.
I was an entrepreneur, so Istarted working there.
I really built up, um, I guessmy network.
I was doing well.
I was the fastest person.
(03:53):
They, me not to, after aboutfour or five years, I the
timeframe.
Now I left, you know, and I,when I was leaving, my mom was
like, Hey, you're making a lotof money right now.
Are you stupid?
Why are you leaving?
This isn't what I wanna do.
So that's basically where XAgency came on board.
Right?
The moment I left, everyonewanted to come with me.
So I think within our first yearwe were already at seven figures
(04:16):
and, uh, we've just been growingsince last year was the first
year that we've been stagnant,so we're trying to fix that.
But yeah, that's it.
Yeah.
Russel (04:24):
So how do you look back on, I mean, you're just
definitely giving off that kindof entrepreneurial vibe from the
get go.
It's like, how do I worksmarter, not harder, or
whatever.
When obviously as you shared,you kind of engaged in some
black hat type tactics, but whenyou reflect back on that, how do
you think about those?
About your start situation?
Darwin (04:43):
Yeah.
You know, and.
I was never afraid of stuff Iactually never cared too much
about.
For me.
It was always skirting therules.
I mean, I used to skip schoolall the time.
I honestly think when you'regrowing up, the people who have
(05:05):
straight A's that follows allthe rules that they're meant to
be a worker because they'rebeing trained to follow all the
rules.
And I think if you're able tokind of skirt, not rape them per
se, but kind of skirt the rules,that is a great foundation for
becoming entrepreneur.
You know, so that's, I've alwayshad the, the mentality that's me
personally, even as a kid.
And I was selling cards, youknow, baseball cards, but yeah.
(05:28):
It's always gonna be anentrepreneur.
I do think there's a differencebetween an entrepreneur and A
CEO.
So I do have a, there are that,I do, I hate being a CEO.
Right?
But yeah, entrepreneurship is amindset.
Russel (05:40):
I think is very common for a lot of entrepreneurs.
Right.
This is, you know, mean, justkind of how you're describing,
right?
Innovation is at the boundariesof status quo, or the rules, if
you wanna say, and that's whatmakes entrepreneurs,
entrepreneurs.
But that doesn't.
Innovation has occurred.
That's not always necessarilythe best use of your time,
skills, talents to maintain thatthing.
(06:02):
It's to go explore and find moreboundaries to push.
I run into that quite a lot.
So that's, I guess, I dunno isthe word, but how do you look at
that?
Darwin (06:11):
Just to touch upon that point a tad bit.
There's a lot of studies outthere.
I'll say that.
Entrepreneur.
There's a lot of entrepreneurswho fail at the company because
once they hit a certain point,they don't know how to scale.
The whole problem is, and whichis what I alluded to earlier,
being an entrepreneur, themindset is different than being
a CEO and unless entrepreneurcan actually change, you know,
(06:35):
their thinking to be a CEO, youcan't continue being an
entrepreneur and running thecompany as an entrepreneur
because as an entrepreneur, you,you wanna try crap, you wanna
throw stuff at the wall, youwanna see what works.
And as the company grows andscales, which is where we're
getting to, into now, put on theCEO hat, it's all about building
structure, building processes,uh, being more efficient and
(06:56):
putting in hr, putting in thisand putting in that.
And those are two differentthings, right?
Russel (06:59):
So you're saying you're not an HR guy?
No, I,
Darwin (07:04):
that's my whole thing.
Yeah.
I do have adhd, just, I don't.
Me naturally.
I do not like processes.
I can't follow my own processes.
I can't do this.
I am my own workplace and I'mreally trying to, you know,
switch my thinking to being thetructure and processes kind of
guy.
But yeah, I absolutely agree.
Russel (07:24):
It makes sense and.
A lot times when folks I talk toand work through it, it's always
like, look, we can try to comeup with a solution that's, Hey,
go be a completely differentperson.
I'm generally not a fan.
You know, you have skills,talents, abilities, and where in
the world should those be placedand where can we backfill?
Gaps.
Gaps or what needs to beotherwise, but we might come
(07:46):
back around to this idea andconcept.
You're absolutely
Darwin (07:49):
right on that part.
Right Russell too.
And that's actually been athought that's been floating in
my head, which is, should I justhire a CEO and continue doing
entrepreneur things?
You know?
So that is always something thatany entrepreneurship really
think about, which is if this issomething you absolutely hate,
if this is something youactually suck at, and if the
budget allows, find someone torun your stuff.
Find someone who can basically.
(08:11):
What's that word?
I can't think of that word, butcomplimentary to your
Russel (08:14):
skill sets.
Yeah.
The yin to your yang or the P toyour pod, or, I'm sure there's
all kinds of other analogies ofthat.
You know what, let's just rundown that track and what we can
get back to some of the agencystory.
But it's funny, you know, Ithink.
Had a similar type mindset ofdiscipline, that visionary and
not always really wanting to sitdown and do the nitty gritty
(08:35):
process.
I kind of forced it over time,but we ended up bringing someone
into the business that that wasfar more their forte.
And I'll say it was the dream.
I got to live in my best placeand you know, do what I do best,
and they did what they did bestand it was one of those things
that's like I always had theback of my mind to write the
business book.
His name was Shyam actually.
(08:57):
And I was gonna title the book,find Your Shyam, and just stop
fighting and just find theperson that's gonna compliment
you,
Darwin (09:04):
you know?
And I would say, damn Russell,tell me how you did it.
Because I tried three folks tohelp me do this.
I've had different populations.
CI still can't fucking get, getit right.
And maybe it is the nature ofour business, it's a marketing
business, so everything changesso fast.
It's been very hard to build ourmarketing processes, you know,
that has.
(09:24):
Face my business.
Maybe you can help me with thispiece too.
The other hardest part is, atleast in my industry, the
everyone who does marketing issay, understood.
And there's a different workethic there.
There's a different way ofmanaging those folks versus
certain older folks and maybe meand you.
Russel (09:44):
I mean, it's funny going back to how, and I don't know, I
won't be so confident as thedefinitive answer on this per
se, but in my own livedexperience that I learned how to
make good hires in business, Ishould say, and I never really
was able to pinpoint whensomeone was gonna be great and.
(10:04):
I get the sense a lot of kind ofsimilar attempts that folks say
when they have a failedleadership path is that it was a
little more forced than justletting it naturally develop or
you know, like, we gotta hireand fill this position, so we're
gonna go find somebody.
And I just.
To a little bit the amount,experience, personality, mindset
(10:26):
that someone really has to haveto succeed in that role is rare
or has to be grown and built.
And I guess maybe the best thingthere is it just can't be
forced.
And our particular case, I thinkit's also just putting out your
ethos and that's going toattract.
(10:47):
In the world of, hey, this isthe type of company, right?
And make it not abouttransactional.
I think that's ultimately true.
There's all kinds of people thatcan put on the glitz and the
glam and wanna chase attractiveopportunity and that can fool us
into thinking they can besuccessful.
And we need someone that stillhas, they have this
entrepreneurial belief andmindset.
They just don't have the risk.
(11:08):
It's.
Of mind top fluid thought, kindof thinking on it as you're
describing this challenge andhow it worked in my own journey
and that's
Darwin (11:18):
good to know too.
And I guess maybe then whatwould you suggest for me?
Right.
Continue looking basically iswhat I think I should be doing.
Finding someone who can reallycome in to do this for me.
Dude, I try multiple times.
I kind of stop for now justrunning this the way it is.
But you did, you know, just thefact that we're talking, I makes
sure you wanna continue going ontrying to find something to run
this.
So thank you for this, thisanswer.
(11:38):
Yeah,
Russel (11:38):
absolutely.
They're out there.
Yeah.
And it's almost like, I alwaysthink of this thing too, and I
got married very young, so Ididn't really ever live a strong
dating life kind of thing.
But I can imagine if I was goingout every day and trying to
force some type of relationshiplike that, that it would be,
it'd be a very interestingprocess versus I just went out
in the day, you know, was outthere, put myself out there.
(12:00):
But you know, let also let of.
Try to,
Darwin (12:07):
I think that's a perfect analogy and I, I,
Russel (12:10):
no, no, but great conversation.
Let's get back to your agent,Jeremy, because you said
something pretty fascinatingthere, that within a year you're
at a million or seven figures inrevenue.
I mean, imagine a lot of peoplegotta be sitting here saying,
what the heck did you do withina year that allowed you to do
that?
Darwin (12:28):
Yeah.
So, uh, a couple things, right?
When you're starting as anentrepreneur, you wear every
single hat out there.
You don't have folks who canreally help you out.
So for me, you know, the biggestcurrency in life to me isn't
moving this time, right?
And I think every entrepreneurunderstands that.
So I tried to maximize my time.
For me, it was okay, if I amgonna spend X amount of hours
(12:49):
selling, where do I spend mytime?
I spend it on cold outreach toset clients.
Happens.
So I planned that out.
If I were to reach out toclients and try to, you know,
sell them after each successfulclient, it's a brand new cold
sale.
So I, how do I actually, at theend of the day, there lose
opportunity, cost of time there.
(13:10):
How can I actually maximize mysales?
So for me.
What I did was, my sales processwas getting as many partners as
I can do that I one, obviouslywe had great results and we had
a great system, which is themost important part.
But the next piece was, I'massuming all these partners got
get reached out to folks.
How do I make myself stand out abit?
Right?
They probably get a hundredemails giving them an offer,
(13:31):
right?
One is proving your result withthe case studies.
Two is saying, Hey, we'll giveyou 10% of the revenue for a
good year if you actually referus.
So with those two, I reallybuilt up.
Partner?
Network.
Network and our partner.
And the great thing aboutpartners is it's a warm lead.
You're not coming into a callwith them hating you.
Right.
So yeah, that was the goal,which is build up as much
partners as we can and we'restill doing that.
(13:52):
We're continuing to buildpartner so we can have them
continue to leads.
Okay.
Russel (13:58):
I'm curious actually.
I imagine there has to even be alot more of that.
I mean, I, I definitely Have youread Four Hour Work Week by
Chance?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
Similar vibes to name Tim Ris.
Yes, Tim Fer.
Right.
How look at a problem and how doI time and look at work smarter,
not harder, essentially.
Which is really cool.
It's really cool your processthere.
(14:20):
You know, one of the things myis right had to make a
investment in that effort,right?
It wasn't just showing up andputting it out there that you
had to do a lot.
Actually make those partnershipsbe top of mind.
You said set yourself apart.
What did some of those things,what did that look like?
Darwin (14:39):
Uh, let's see.
So a couple of them.
Obviously gonna, events is onebig thing, which I hate we have
to go to.
But in terms of there's, there'smultiple things I had to do.
One was.
I tell this to all the youngerfolks who are like, Hey, how do
you start your own agency?
I would say marketing is animportant part.
You know, people skills isactually the most important
part.
So I read a crap ton of books,Russell on, on how to talk to
(15:00):
folks, how you know books likeHow to Win Friends and Influence
People.
I read a lot of sales books andhow to sell up insurance with.
But a lot of these connection,right?
Three subsequent, um, all thesethings on how to actually become
someone who people gravitatetowards.
That's actually what I focus on.
And just so that you know, I'mactually a natural introvert.
I like to sit at home by myself,you know, just doing my own
(15:23):
thing.
I actually don't like going out.
I understood the business I wasin.
I understood that I needed toput people skills to actually
succeed.
So that's what I put my focuson.
A lot of learning on peopleskills, a lot of time gonna
events, a lot of testing.
Right.
I actually do a lot of tests.
By the way, Russell, I'll giveyou a quick example, which is
most folks out there, whatthey'll do is they'll.
(15:44):
If they're cooking chicken inthe air fryer, they'll just put
it in and guesstimate and say,okay, this is great.
I actually love testing.
I'll test my chicken on how Icook with the air fryer.
I'll say, Hey, six minutes, howdoes it taste?
Alright, let's go to seven.
Let's go to eight.
So everything I'm doing ismaximized, right?
So if something, whatever I amdoing in terms of a sales
process or HR process, I have atheory, I'm testing it.
(16:05):
That's actually the how our, youknow, our X system works for
marketing, which is a lot offolks, they will just blindly do
something.
They think that they do this,it'll work, but they never truly
actually measure and say, doesthis definitively work?
So that's how we approach,that's sort of one of our
ethoses, which is everythingneeds to have a theory, it has
to have a concrete, finiteanswer.
(16:27):
You know, it's not just, I thinkit works.
I think this is cool.
It's really, let's test.
If it works, great.
Let's test again.
Let's test one more time and ifit works, let's put into our
process.
If it doesn't, we.
Russel (16:41):
And just for the folks at home to just make sure they
hear what I think is some reallygreat approach to business here
is one is taking the time tofigure out a strategy and just
even vetting different concepts,ideas, what could we do looking
at this full spectrum.
But once you decide, go all in.
Don't just dip your toe in thewater, right?
You said read tons of books andreally kind of forced even
(17:03):
something you're saying itwasn't naturally comfortable for
you.
So going all in on that strategyand then just testing the heck
outta it.
Not letting hope be the plan orthe strategy, and walking the
path of giving yourself absoluteconfirmation that these
different things that you'redoing, this works.
This doesn't.
We do that in a condensed enoughperiod, kind of when you're
saying go all in.
(17:23):
That's how we get results morequickly.
But we're just to compoundeverything faster because we're
not forgetting things and we'renot, you know, things get in the
way.
I mean, that's what I hear insome of that approach.
You can fill in any gaps or addto that
Darwin (17:36):
just, and I'm gonna add, you're actually spot on, right?
Just to elaborate on one pieceand to add onto it is, you know,
I talked about doing something Ihated.
And when you touch upon itbriefly and nowadays, you know,
if you're on all these, the GaryBees and the Tony Robinson of of
the world, they'll say, findsomething that you love or do
something that you love.
And all these kids nowadays whoare trying to be entrepreneurs,
(17:58):
think that that is the approach.
That said, no matter what youdo, there will be aspects and
areas of absolutely hate.
So if you don't build a muscleto actually be comfortable with
the crap you hate, you're gonnafail.
You know, and they're sittinghere and comment, oh, I only
wanna do what I love, butthey'll never do something that
they, that that's a fast, that'snot true.
Russel (18:19):
Uh, that is such great advice.
I mean, get comfortable withdoing something you hate.
If you're not doing somethingyou hate and actively working to
getting comfortable with it,then that might be a good
signal.
That message does need to be putout in the world because I think
I really hate too much of thismessaging of, you know, that you
know this 1, 2, 3 step and thisis how you have success, or
(18:41):
something along those lines thatwe have to be telling folks that
it's actually really freakinghard work.
The results brings themselvesbecause if it's easy, everyone
would be millionaires orbillionaires, even.
Darwin (18:53):
Yeah.
And hey, and while we'retalking, and thank you for that,
I, one last important point onthis sort of entrepreneurship
journey, right?
Which is people actually alsohave to understand that failure
is actually part of the process.
You know, I have a ton offriends who will try something
in the entrepreneur world, andthe moment that they hit
influence's failure.
(19:13):
Quit.
But what they need to understandis the more you fail, the faster
you learn.
If you have done this longenough, you'll have a lot of
fails.
It's not about all the 50 timesyou failed, it's about
continuing getting the one timethat works.
So that's one thing a lot offolks missing too, which is I
understand that you will fail,know that you'll say no, then
you fail and eventually justdon't fall off the path.
(19:35):
But the longer you go, you'lleventually strike.
Russel (19:39):
Yeah.
It.
I mean, we could probably riffon this for a long time, but it
makes me think of fans cansometimes get upset when a
professional athlete loses andthey're like, well lost.
I think we don't know, or fansdon't always realize is that's
all it was, was a loss to themand it's another chance to learn
opportunity.
They, they gotta where they'reat oftentimes because they never
(20:00):
got consumed with, did I win orlose today?
It's, did I try something newand different and push the
boundary or find something toimprove upon.
Journey.
You have to appreciate that ifwe constantly ourselves every
single day by did get to theend's, very tough mentally to
stay in the mindset.
Darwin (20:23):
I'm butchering this quote by the way, but they, I've
seen a lot of motivationalquotes about Michael Jordan
saying, oh, you've seen all the30,000 something shots that you
made, but you didn't see a 300that you missed.
You know?
So yeah, like most as people oras humans, I think all we do is
we talk about our successes, butwe, no one ever talks about the
dark feelings and the stuff thathappens, right?
(20:45):
So, but people do need tounderstand, if you are jumping
on this entrepreneurial path,you do need to understand that
you'll have the dark times.
Times what hell.
Russel (21:06):
You do occasionally hear the stories, right?
I think it's like Steph Currywouldn't leave the gym until he
made, he switched, you know, 50threes in a row.
I dunno what the exact numberwas, but it was something insane
like, and that might take himthree or four hours, but Right.
That's goes back to the goingall in and you know, all the
ones that he's failing and stufflike that.
(21:27):
It was funny though.
I'm curious, your take on thisis that's talked about all the
time, fail fast and all thesewords, but I don't always get
the sense that we truly embracethat, um, across the board in
the entrepreneurial community.
It's kind of like the wholething of everybody has a good
plan until you get punched inthe face.
I mean, maybe just go back tothat thought process of getting
(21:47):
uncomfortable, doing somethingyou hate, getting comfortable,
being uncomfortable.
Why do you think you've beenable to do that?
What do you think is differentabout you in that sense?
Darwin (21:57):
I, for the most part, never cared too much about
anything.
And I think that might come withmaybe my own personal issues.
Right?
Meaning again, in high school Icut through so much, I got kept
back in college.
I graduated like a 2.2 GPA.
I never truly cared if my momhated me or if my friends, you
know, thought I was doingsomething ly wrong, right?
(22:19):
So for me, I was perfectly finewith it, you know?
Now with that said.
I did practice or exercise someof that stuff.
Okay, so couple of you know,things might be as an example.
Going out to the clubs byyourself, which is a very
embarrassing way that, uh, youknow, walking into a club as a
guy by yourself and just gettingrejected by every single person.
(22:41):
But it was really building my,sort of, my mental capacity to
handle, you know, rejection,failure, not getting things I
wanted.
Right.
So for me, I did a lot of thosethings.
I would go to grocery stores, Iwould load up my car.
I go there and I say, I don'thave any money to pay for it.
It's embarrassing as hell, butat the day, I'm really getting
myself used to like.
Embarrass.
(23:02):
So as I get older, I still don'tcare at all about almost
anything.
I think that's both for good anda bad of myself.
Russel (23:10):
No, dude, that's so fascinating.
I mean, there's so many analog Ican think of, but the two that
come on one, that's, again,going back to fresh, that's what
they say a lot is too, is theydon't actually care that much.
And we don't wanna necessarilyhear that.
But there's a freedom almost inthat when you kind of, you lose
that caring mindset.
Darwin (23:28):
And just that it's so skin, right?
Nowadays we, we care too muchabout what folks think about us,
and you really, as anentrepreneur, you have to swap
that mindset because people whodon't come from a rich family,
all of your friend group or yourpeer groups, they think
differently and youautomatically are gonna be this,
you automatically are gonna gettrapped up.
(23:50):
So they just need to understandthat part.
Russel (23:53):
Now that came back to me.
The other thing, right?
Nowhere near the level of theNavy Seal, but I was in the
military and I have a decentunderstanding of how they, their
ethos and how they operate andtheir whole thing is right, is
have such rigorous training andstandards so that when you're
probably in an actual battle.
It's like, that's so bad.
I've already been drowned aspart of training and, and all
(24:15):
the crazy stuff they do.
And so what is hard to us isonly relative to the hardest
thing we've done or beenthrough.
And so it sounds like you justgot good at forcing yourselves
into situations that were.
I don't care if I got rejected,I've been in a grocery store and
not had to pay my groceries forfun.
Darwin (24:35):
Yeah.
I, I actually love getting up onNavy Seals and, and everything
that they do.
Right.
And I think one thing that I,they talk about a lot is
something along the lines oflike, you don't really rise to
the level of your goals.
You fall back to level of yourhabits.
So they drill that thing intothem so much that.
Even when a fire comes, theydefault to what they've, you
know, trained on.
So they will just follow the,everything that they've done.
(24:58):
Right.
So same thing here.
I'm really band day, I'm reallybuilding my mental habits or my
mental muscles to be able tohandle something like that
versus, you know, setting thegoal of, of.
Not having the mental muscle todo it.
So I think a lot of this reallyis building the mental capacity
or the mental habits, orwhatever you wanna call it, to
handle everything.
(25:19):
Being on the entrepreneur path,because it's way different than
working on a job.
There's a lot of uncertainty.
There's that no one reallyunderstands you.
You're gonna be all alone for,I'd say, every year of your life
for the most part.
Right.
Russel (25:34):
Yeah, so that's so perfect.
I love that notion of habits,right?
Again, another foundationallayer of what are, your habits
are probably gonna be, tell meyour habits.
I'll tell you probably where youstand and relative to maybe the
goals you're wanting to achieve.
Uh, that's great insight.
Let's go back to the, the agencyjourney.
I mean, it sounds like a lot ofthe stuff that can be really
(25:57):
hard, you found a way to makeeasy.
In your, you've alluded littlebit, but where's the cons
that've been?
Darwin (26:08):
Yeah, so I'll this the right now where?
When you first start out inagency life, you're at maybe one
to five or one to seven pitchemployees.
Right.
It's actually fun because everyday is different.
You're trying stuff, you'redrawing stuff at the wall.
You guys get to build, you know,have fun, do all these crazy
stuff, and everything's stillgravy.
(26:31):
That's actually how you grow inthe beginning because you hadn't
found that your, you know, yourproduct market fit.
Right, but the moment you do,when you get to somewhere
around, say, 15 ish employees.
Transitional period of.
Structured processes, thingsthat people can follow and you
(26:52):
know, having these systems wherepeople are actually following
the system and doing stuff.
Right.
And I always tell my team, themoment the company becomes super
boring is actually when you knowthat we've actually hit the next
level.
Because, you know, I've internedat a bank before that it is the
most boring thing that peopleworld.
That's so where you haveeverything planned out, every
process, and it's just going andhitting buttons.
(27:14):
I want to get to that pointbecause if I can actually get to
that point, I don't think saidright.
But for us right now, the crappything I still do hate.
It's really this.
Process part, which is,especially in marketing, I'm
still trying to figure out howto get people to follow it.
Right?
The second part is peoplemanagement.
When you scale, as you getbigger, there's a lot of people
(27:34):
management.
And if you can hire full HRdepartment, great.
Or use a, you know, HRL source.
But for the most part, whenyou're managing folks, you can't
systemize feelings.
People feel is people feeldifferently towards different
things you say.
So that has always been asticking point to me.
I hate managing people.
Um.
You know, and that's notsomething I'll ever be great at,
but I'm still doing it.
Russel (27:54):
It's so true, and it was maybe a couple years ago, I
first heard this term called theValley of Death.
Have you heard this term as itrelates to agency, it's kind of
centered around the thing thatyou're talking about.
Oh yeah.
Right.
You can kind of just show up andmake it all work.
You know, dozen, 15 people in anagency.
You know, it's kind of just fun.
You just, because you don't needa lot of structure.
(28:15):
You just show up and you try todo good work and everything kind
of just kind of falls intoplace.
But once you get to that numberas you shared, you're forced to
systematize some things, getinto some layers of perhaps
middle management.
It's called the Valley of Deathfor agencies because once you
enter that, you're starting togrow and you're probably needing
to scale two different things.
Create those systems andprocesses to manage the growing
(28:37):
team there, but also creatingthe system and process to get
the business development to feedthe beast while you're going
through that.
And so basically they say thatcan take, you know, that can
take a lot of time to cross thatvalley and some agencies don't
cross it.
They go back and they fall backto a smaller size.
Some cases fold, verytreacherous.
(28:59):
But when you get on the otherside, then you did figure all
that out.
Then as you're alluding to,you're naturally gonna be in a
pretty spot.
Yeah, no, thank you for that.
Go look that up after.
Darwin (29:09):
See, you know, I can gain anything from, thank you.
Russel (29:13):
It's just fascinat because I always had, it's like,
you know when you do things andyou don't know what you're
doing.
But, and then someone flies aterm to it, you're like, that's
the thing I was doing.
That was, so that's always afascinating part.
How are you looking at, I mean,is this just a stepping stone to
a bigger vision of, that'snothing to do with agency or
just how are you looking at yourentrepreneurial future in the
(29:35):
long term?
Darwin (29:36):
Yeah, so, you know, I have been hit up by a bunch of,
I'd say 50 plus companies, thatwhat they do is they'll try to
buy you at and with biggergroups, right?
And I've always said no to,until we hit a sort of revenue
threshold.
But with that said, with AIcoming out.
I think the marketing agencygame is, at least for the small,
you know, under the enterpriselevel or even up to maybe the
(29:59):
five, 10 million mark, the wholegame's gonna change.
I think this marketing agencymodel is basically gonna die out
for the most part unless you'reenterprise level plus, right.
So for me, that AI coming inthis year has really changed my
thought process.
I'm most likely thinking ofselling this soon, within the
next two years-ish.
I just don't wanna be, um, youknow, the horse and buggy guy
(30:21):
carrying the buggy with porkcups right.
Do have a lot of other projects.
I have like a doggy clothingstore.
I do a lot with investing withcrypto real estate.
Um, but what I'm doing right nowis also trying to build an AI
thought where would be aseparate piece.
It's a whole different model,subscription based, you know,
local based companies can use itand just have it do stuff for
(30:43):
them before using agency, right?
Using natural language.
So yeah, I mean, as anentrepreneur I do think you do
need to look at what's happeningin the global world and pivot,
and that's sort of, I'm doing orthinking of doing that.
Russel (30:55):
I mean, you just seem like the type of guy that
didn't, you don't just ever haveone iron in the fire.
You've got your mature iron,your starter iron, and your
experimental irons, and keepingthose running.
I mean, do you ever struggle tofind time to just, where do you
find the time to keep all thosedifferent endeavors going?
Darwin (31:12):
Yeah.
It's funny thing is I feel like.
I did read a study about howthere's a bigger percentage of
in entrepreneur versus a normalgroup with mental issues, a d,
bipolar, whatever it is.
So, and it's a double edgedsword, right?
I can't sit still.
But sometimes I get so muchwork.
I'm working a hundred plus hoursa week, so it's never, yeah.
(31:34):
You know, do I find time?
There are times that I do havesome time off, but for the most
part I'd say no.
You know, I've probably beenworking at the minimum 70 hours
a week ever.
But there are many months whereI do a hundred hours a week.
You know, I'm working day inday, day out, uh, working over
the weekends, you know.
It's, do I find time?
Sometimes I get pockets of time,but generally speaking, no.
(31:56):
But I like it.
Like I can't just sit still.
Pharmac.
Russel (32:01):
What does Darwin.
Relax or for free time.
Darwin (32:07):
Uh, I love hitting the gym when I can.
I definitely will go to the gymas much as I can when I come
home at night.
Sometimes there's time.
I love to just veg out on actionmovies.
I don't have to think it helpsme sleep and come on my head.
So yeah, I'd say those twoprimarily.
The gym, uh, you know what, Iforgot one last part.
My, I be like, I own my kids,right?
And if you make everythingyou're doing worth, so yeah, my
(32:28):
kids gym and then ve on actionduties.
Russel (32:31):
All right.
What's your, I dunno, I wannasay favorite, but when I think
of good action movie, that'syour go to.
What is that for you?
Darwin (32:39):
Braveheart?
I probably watched that thingabout a hundred times.
Russel (32:42):
What about you Russell?
Oh man.
When I was a kid it was commandoNowadays.
I end up really just loving Bandof brothers actually.
Oh,
Darwin (32:53):
funny thing you made in the Navy series.
Because I am a big military guy,I do love following them and I
always tell myself if I can'tbe, you know, if I fail before
I'm 30, then I would do like a,you know, join the military.
Eventually, obviously ScandinNavy Seals, right?
That was always my two goalsthat I always told my current
one and Entrepreneur thing wasworking, so I couldn't do it.
But I do love Banner Brothers.
(33:14):
What other war movies do I love?
I love Jarhead, right?
But yeah, I love watching War.
Russel (33:19):
Yeah.
I haven't seen Jarhead.
That's one.
Put that on the list.
Darwin (33:24):
Full metal jacket.
Oh yeah,
Russel (33:26):
that is a good one.
That's a classic.
That's the one with Army.
Army who set the basic precedentof what a drill sergeant looks
like.
But to a lot of people say, Iguess he was like a drill
sergeant or something in reallife.
I think I, yeah, I heard he wasright.
They're funny people.
I mean, my little bit ofexperience with the drill
sergeants was they, they're the,and I dunno honestly if they're
(33:46):
trying to be or if they justhave to yell at people so much,
so often that forced as think ofreally unique, funny to what's
Darwin (33:58):
did do military.
Yeah.
I was in the Air force.
Joke.
You know my call force?
Oh
Russel (34:06):
yes.
That's the greatest part aboutthe military is all inter jokes
and everything.
I'll a one favorite.
There was the notion of there'sa spider and a tent and a marine
guy smashes it with a boots, butan army guy eats it.
I can't remember what the Navyguy does.
(34:26):
And then the Air Force guy, youknow, calls and says, why is
there a tent in my hotel room?
And so there's so many goodjokes out there.
I know you're.
Darwin (34:38):
Before.
So yeah, obviously there is alot of interagencies out
Marines.
My marine buddies, all Air Forceare all very smart.
And then my army guys, everyonefor some reason.
But yeah,
Russel (34:54):
very different type of people that join the different,
different services for sure.
That is a very real thing.
That well been a fascinatingconversation.
Darwin, so many great takeawaysfor this journey and we've been
really just talking about somany things.
Entrepreneurialism.
So no better question to kind ofstart to wrap this up than to
ask, are entrepreneurs born orare they made?
(35:15):
That is a loaded question,
Darwin (35:16):
right Russell?
I honestly think it's both.
I mean, at the end of the day,if you are born with sort of all
the qualities that is requiredto be an entrepreneur, you're
already all good to go.
It's kind of like baking a cake,right?
Some people born knowing how todo it, and then others, you can
learn how to do it.
And they, if you learn, youknow, if you actually put in the
(35:36):
time and try to figure out whatthe requirements for being an
entrepreneur are and learn howto do it, you can learn how to
do it as well.
And I've seen folks who learnthe process.
I've also seen folks kind oflike maybe Born who's born
entrepreneur.
Russel (35:48):
Yeah, which is the most common answer and it does make
me think back to, you're kind ofalluding to this earlier, that
one of the commonalities thatgets said a lot and I see a lot
and kind of believe a lot, isthat we're all just a little bit
insane or off our rocker andthat we need that element to
boot.
Maybe that's a little bit of theborn part of a little bit
insanity, but Very cool, man.
(36:08):
Well, if people wanna know moreabout your journey at X Agency,
where can they go?
Darwin (36:12):
Yeah, well, I don't have my personal profile.
They can visit xag agency.com.
Follow our LinkedIn profile,right, xag Agency.
You can add me on LinkedIn, beyou ever have any questions.
Takes me forever to answer, butI'll always get to you before
the of the week.
You can email me atdarwin@xagagency.com.
Russel (36:29):
Thank.
Wonderful.
Thanks for sharing that, andthank you again for time.
Your busy schedule and sharingsand the different parts you've
gone through on your journey.
So many good takeaway, the powerof going all in, testing and
just getting comfortable,getting uncomfortable, doing the
unorthodox things and how that'sbeen so critical and pivotal in
(36:52):
your journey.
Really appreciate you taking thetime to share that with us
today.
Darwin (36:55):
Yeah.
Honestly, Russell, thank you somuch for providing me on this
podcast, by the way.
It's been one of the, I've donea lot of these by the way, and
I'd say this is one of the onesI've enjoyed the most.
It was a very fun, engagingconversation.
Russel (37:06):
Well, I appreciate that.
You're too nice.
Thank you so much, man.
Thank you for listening to anagency story podcast where every
story helps you write your own.
Subscribe, share, and join usagain for more real stories,
lessons learned, andbreakthroughs ahead.
What's next?
You'll want to visit an agencystory.com/podcast and follow us
on Instagram at an agency storyfor the latest updates.
Darwin (37:32):
Prior to starting my agency, I actually worked at an
agency.
When I worked at an agency, youknow, they actually paid me to
not meet.
So for me, in the back of mymind, I figured I could do
anything right.
Now.
With that said, I annually, weget to go to a party in, at the
corporate office.
So my whole team of Boston willhead up to New York and do the
office.
(37:52):
I mean, do the party.
While going up there, you know,and I manage a team of, I'm the
worst influence ever.
I had everyone on my team dotogether, party.
But that was the, I'd say one ofthe more funny stories that
we've had.
Russel (38:11):
I had to be a little bit of an interesting party.
Everybody making out alright?
Darwin (38:15):
Yeah, it was fine.
Obviously me.
No, I, I think I went, but youknow, it not, they were me, so I
didn't much
Russel (38:25):
Oh, yes.
To be young again.
I know, right.
Those days are gone.
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where owners and
experts share the real journey,the early struggles, the
breakthrough moments, andeverything in between.
I'm your host Russel Dubree,former eight figure agency
owner, turn Business coach.
Sold my agency and now helpsagency leaders create their
ideal business.
Every agency has a story, andthis is your front row seat.
(00:23):
This is an agency story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
I have Darwin Liu with X Agencywith us here today.
Thank you so much for being onthe show today, Darwin,
Darwin (00:39):
thank you so much for having me, Russell.
Glad to be here.
Russel (00:42):
I'm glad to have you.
Let's get right into the thickof things.
Tell us what X agency does andwho you do it for.
Darwin (00:50):
Yeah, so, uh, XAG Agency is a full service digital
marketing, performance basedmarketing agency.
And, uh, we do business for, I'dsay mid enterprise level
clients.
Generally speaking clientsgenerating somewhere around 5
million to 400 million plus,right?
Primarily, you know, it's 70%e-commerce, 20% b2b.
And I guess the USP or the bigdifference for what we do,
(01:13):
Russell, is we're able to scale,meaning we're able to increase
revenue and.
So we have a unique strategythat we do internally that, you
know, we built off these yearsof Google marketing where we
take over a client.
A recent example for you wouldbe they were generating
somewhere around$48 million inthe first year.
Once we took over, we increased,it, almost doubled it somewhere
around 95.6, so something likethat with only a increase of
(01:36):
20%.
So we basically jacked up therevenue and the revenue at the
same time.
Russel (01:41):
Yeah.
Well, it sounds like the kind ofservice everybody should want a
piece of agreed.
Everybody loves that doubleword, that it never sounds
anything less than sexy.
Well, very cool.
I wanna hear a little bit moreabout just how you created that,
how you do that, and all theother things that go into
running an agency.
But before we get into all thatnitty gritty stuff, I just wanna
(02:03):
hear about Young Darwin.
Tell us about that.
Darwin (02:06):
Yeah, man.
Funny story for you is I neverheld a real job, right?
So I, uh, right outta college, Ireally didn't know what I do.
So Id how to get this back.
That came up was onlinemarketing.
So that's basically where Istarted thousand eight in my
mom's basement with the lightsoff.
(02:27):
Right.
So for two years I was tryingall these games and just fy if
anyone who hasn't been doingmarketing for that long, back in
the day, it was like the wild,wild West.
Google CPCs were like 30 cents.
Facebook just came out, right?
So they actually didn't knowwhat they were doing.
And what ended up happening waswhen Facebook first came out,
they allowed almost everythingin anything.
I created a quick script where.
(02:50):
If you wanted this free iPadfirst, you had to invite your
friends.
It was quick.
One click of a button.
So happening was they click,they invite all their friends,
they enter the email.
I was making money likeclockwork 30.
And then guess what?
Facebook finds out they gonnacome and show it.
So with that said, I, I'm tryingother things.
(03:11):
All these other black hattactics, I ended up 30 on my
credit card.
I couldn't pay my bills.
My mom, I needed to get a job.
So I ended up working at anagency, but now I think I was
paid 30 grand a year.
With that said, you know, yousaid, hold on, wait, 30 grand a
year?
Yeah.
30 grand a year level.
Right.
That wasn't for me.
(03:31):
You know, when I did that, mymom was, I told you, you shoulda
done this in the beginning.
You shouldn't had to do whatyou're doing.
In my mind, it was always.
This, it wasn't end, it was justa means end because I always
knew I still wanted to runcompany and do my own.
I was an entrepreneur, so Istarted working there.
I really built up, um, I guessmy network.
I was doing well.
I was the fastest person.
(03:53):
They, me not to, after aboutfour or five years, I the
timeframe.
Now I left, you know, and I,when I was leaving, my mom was
like, Hey, you're making a lotof money right now.
Are you stupid?
Why are you leaving?
This isn't what I wanna do.
So that's basically where XAgency came on board.
Right?
The moment I left, everyonewanted to come with me.
So I think within our first yearwe were already at seven figures
(04:16):
and, uh, we've just been growingsince last year was the first
year that we've been stagnant,so we're trying to fix that.
But yeah, that's it.
Yeah.
Russel (04:24):
So how do you look back on, I mean, you're just
definitely giving off that kindof entrepreneurial vibe from the
get go.
It's like, how do I worksmarter, not harder, or
whatever.
When obviously as you shared,you kind of engaged in some
black hat type tactics, but whenyou reflect back on that, how do
you think about those?
About your start situation?
Darwin (04:43):
Yeah.
You know, and.
I was never afraid of stuff Iactually never cared too much
about.
For me.
It was always skirting therules.
I mean, I used to skip schoolall the time.
I honestly think when you'regrowing up, the people who have
(05:05):
straight A's that follows allthe rules that they're meant to
be a worker because they'rebeing trained to follow all the
rules.
And I think if you're able tokind of skirt, not rape them per
se, but kind of skirt the rules,that is a great foundation for
becoming entrepreneur.
You know, so that's, I've alwayshad the, the mentality that's me
personally, even as a kid.
And I was selling cards, youknow, baseball cards, but yeah.
(05:28):
It's always gonna be anentrepreneur.
I do think there's a differencebetween an entrepreneur and A
CEO.
So I do have a, there are that,I do, I hate being a CEO.
Right?
But yeah, entrepreneurship is amindset.
Russel (05:40):
I think is very common for a lot of entrepreneurs.
Right.
This is, you know, mean, justkind of how you're describing,
right?
Innovation is at the boundariesof status quo, or the rules, if
you wanna say, and that's whatmakes entrepreneurs,
entrepreneurs.
But that doesn't.
Innovation has occurred.
That's not always necessarilythe best use of your time,
skills, talents to maintain thatthing.
(06:02):
It's to go explore and find moreboundaries to push.
I run into that quite a lot.
So that's, I guess, I dunno isthe word, but how do you look at
that?
Darwin (06:11):
Just to touch upon that point a tad bit.
There's a lot of studies outthere.
I'll say that.
Entrepreneur.
There's a lot of entrepreneurswho fail at the company because
once they hit a certain point,they don't know how to scale.
The whole problem is, and whichis what I alluded to earlier,
being an entrepreneur, themindset is different than being
a CEO and unless entrepreneurcan actually change, you know,
(06:35):
their thinking to be a CEO, youcan't continue being an
entrepreneur and running thecompany as an entrepreneur
because as an entrepreneur, you,you wanna try crap, you wanna
throw stuff at the wall, youwanna see what works.
And as the company grows andscales, which is where we're
getting to, into now, put on theCEO hat, it's all about building
structure, building processes,uh, being more efficient and
(06:56):
putting in hr, putting in thisand putting in that.
And those are two differentthings, right?
Russel (06:59):
So you're saying you're not an HR guy?
No, I,
Darwin (07:04):
that's my whole thing.
Yeah.
I do have adhd, just, I don't.
Me naturally.
I do not like processes.
I can't follow my own processes.
I can't do this.
I am my own workplace and I'mreally trying to, you know,
switch my thinking to being thetructure and processes kind of
guy.
But yeah, I absolutely agree.
Russel (07:24):
It makes sense and.
A lot times when folks I talk toand work through it, it's always
like, look, we can try to comeup with a solution that's, Hey,
go be a completely differentperson.
I'm generally not a fan.
You know, you have skills,talents, abilities, and where in
the world should those be placedand where can we backfill?
Gaps.
Gaps or what needs to beotherwise, but we might come
(07:46):
back around to this idea andconcept.
You're absolutely
Darwin (07:49):
right on that part.
Right Russell too.
And that's actually been athought that's been floating in
my head, which is, should I justhire a CEO and continue doing
entrepreneur things?
You know?
So that is always something thatany entrepreneurship really
think about, which is if this issomething you absolutely hate,
if this is something youactually suck at, and if the
budget allows, find someone torun your stuff.
Find someone who can basically.
(08:11):
What's that word?
I can't think of that word, butcomplimentary to your
Russel (08:14):
skill sets.
Yeah.
The yin to your yang or the P toyour pod, or, I'm sure there's
all kinds of other analogies ofthat.
You know what, let's just rundown that track and what we can
get back to some of the agencystory.
But it's funny, you know, Ithink.
Had a similar type mindset ofdiscipline, that visionary and
not always really wanting to sitdown and do the nitty gritty
(08:35):
process.
I kind of forced it over time,but we ended up bringing someone
into the business that that wasfar more their forte.
And I'll say it was the dream.
I got to live in my best placeand you know, do what I do best,
and they did what they did bestand it was one of those things
that's like I always had theback of my mind to write the
business book.
His name was Shyam actually.
(08:57):
And I was gonna title the book,find Your Shyam, and just stop
fighting and just find theperson that's gonna compliment
you,
Darwin (09:04):
you know?
And I would say, damn Russell,tell me how you did it.
Because I tried three folks tohelp me do this.
I've had different populations.
CI still can't fucking get, getit right.
And maybe it is the nature ofour business, it's a marketing
business, so everything changesso fast.
It's been very hard to build ourmarketing processes, you know,
that has.
(09:24):
Face my business.
Maybe you can help me with thispiece too.
The other hardest part is, atleast in my industry, the
everyone who does marketing issay, understood.
And there's a different workethic there.
There's a different way ofmanaging those folks versus
certain older folks and maybe meand you.
Russel (09:44):
I mean, it's funny going back to how, and I don't know, I
won't be so confident as thedefinitive answer on this per
se, but in my own livedexperience that I learned how to
make good hires in business, Ishould say, and I never really
was able to pinpoint whensomeone was gonna be great and.
(10:04):
I get the sense a lot of kind ofsimilar attempts that folks say
when they have a failedleadership path is that it was a
little more forced than justletting it naturally develop or
you know, like, we gotta hireand fill this position, so we're
gonna go find somebody.
And I just.
To a little bit the amount,experience, personality, mindset
(10:26):
that someone really has to haveto succeed in that role is rare
or has to be grown and built.
And I guess maybe the best thingthere is it just can't be
forced.
And our particular case, I thinkit's also just putting out your
ethos and that's going toattract.
(10:47):
In the world of, hey, this isthe type of company, right?
And make it not abouttransactional.
I think that's ultimately true.
There's all kinds of people thatcan put on the glitz and the
glam and wanna chase attractiveopportunity and that can fool us
into thinking they can besuccessful.
And we need someone that stillhas, they have this
entrepreneurial belief andmindset.
They just don't have the risk.
(11:08):
It's.
Of mind top fluid thought, kindof thinking on it as you're
describing this challenge andhow it worked in my own journey
and that's
Darwin (11:18):
good to know too.
And I guess maybe then whatwould you suggest for me?
Right.
Continue looking basically iswhat I think I should be doing.
Finding someone who can reallycome in to do this for me.
Dude, I try multiple times.
I kind of stop for now justrunning this the way it is.
But you did, you know, just thefact that we're talking, I makes
sure you wanna continue going ontrying to find something to run
this.
So thank you for this, thisanswer.
(11:38):
Yeah,
Russel (11:38):
absolutely.
They're out there.
Yeah.
And it's almost like, I alwaysthink of this thing too, and I
got married very young, so Ididn't really ever live a strong
dating life kind of thing.
But I can imagine if I was goingout every day and trying to
force some type of relationshiplike that, that it would be,
it'd be a very interestingprocess versus I just went out
in the day, you know, was outthere, put myself out there.
(12:00):
But you know, let also let of.
Try to,
Darwin (12:07):
I think that's a perfect analogy and I, I,
Russel (12:10):
no, no, but great conversation.
Let's get back to your agent,Jeremy, because you said
something pretty fascinatingthere, that within a year you're
at a million or seven figures inrevenue.
I mean, imagine a lot of peoplegotta be sitting here saying,
what the heck did you do withina year that allowed you to do
that?
Darwin (12:28):
Yeah.
So, uh, a couple things, right?
When you're starting as anentrepreneur, you wear every
single hat out there.
You don't have folks who canreally help you out.
So for me, you know, the biggestcurrency in life to me isn't
moving this time, right?
And I think every entrepreneurunderstands that.
So I tried to maximize my time.
For me, it was okay, if I amgonna spend X amount of hours
(12:49):
selling, where do I spend mytime?
I spend it on cold outreach toset clients.
Happens.
So I planned that out.
If I were to reach out toclients and try to, you know,
sell them after each successfulclient, it's a brand new cold
sale.
So I, how do I actually, at theend of the day, there lose
opportunity, cost of time there.
(13:10):
How can I actually maximize mysales?
So for me.
What I did was, my sales processwas getting as many partners as
I can do that I one, obviouslywe had great results and we had
a great system, which is themost important part.
But the next piece was, I'massuming all these partners got
get reached out to folks.
How do I make myself stand out abit?
Right?
They probably get a hundredemails giving them an offer,
(13:31):
right?
One is proving your result withthe case studies.
Two is saying, Hey, we'll giveyou 10% of the revenue for a
good year if you actually referus.
So with those two, I reallybuilt up.
Partner?
Network.
Network and our partner.
And the great thing aboutpartners is it's a warm lead.
You're not coming into a callwith them hating you.
Right.
So yeah, that was the goal,which is build up as much
partners as we can and we'restill doing that.
(13:52):
We're continuing to buildpartner so we can have them
continue to leads.
Okay.
Russel (13:58):
I'm curious actually.
I imagine there has to even be alot more of that.
I mean, I, I definitely Have youread Four Hour Work Week by
Chance?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
Similar vibes to name Tim Ris.
Yes, Tim Fer.
Right.
How look at a problem and how doI time and look at work smarter,
not harder, essentially.
Which is really cool.
It's really cool your processthere.
(14:20):
You know, one of the things myis right had to make a
investment in that effort,right?
It wasn't just showing up andputting it out there that you
had to do a lot.
Actually make those partnershipsbe top of mind.
You said set yourself apart.
What did some of those things,what did that look like?
Darwin (14:39):
Uh, let's see.
So a couple of them.
Obviously gonna, events is onebig thing, which I hate we have
to go to.
But in terms of there's, there'smultiple things I had to do.
One was.
I tell this to all the youngerfolks who are like, Hey, how do
you start your own agency?
I would say marketing is animportant part.
You know, people skills isactually the most important
part.
So I read a crap ton of books,Russell on, on how to talk to
(15:00):
folks, how you know books likeHow to Win Friends and Influence
People.
I read a lot of sales books andhow to sell up insurance with.
But a lot of these connection,right?
Three subsequent, um, all thesethings on how to actually become
someone who people gravitatetowards.
That's actually what I focus on.
And just so that you know, I'mactually a natural introvert.
I like to sit at home by myself,you know, just doing my own
(15:23):
thing.
I actually don't like going out.
I understood the business I wasin.
I understood that I needed toput people skills to actually
succeed.
So that's what I put my focuson.
A lot of learning on peopleskills, a lot of time gonna
events, a lot of testing.
Right.
I actually do a lot of tests.
By the way, Russell, I'll giveyou a quick example, which is
most folks out there, whatthey'll do is they'll.
(15:44):
If they're cooking chicken inthe air fryer, they'll just put
it in and guesstimate and say,okay, this is great.
I actually love testing.
I'll test my chicken on how Icook with the air fryer.
I'll say, Hey, six minutes, howdoes it taste?
Alright, let's go to seven.
Let's go to eight.
So everything I'm doing ismaximized, right?
So if something, whatever I amdoing in terms of a sales
process or HR process, I have atheory, I'm testing it.
(16:05):
That's actually the how our, youknow, our X system works for
marketing, which is a lot offolks, they will just blindly do
something.
They think that they do this,it'll work, but they never truly
actually measure and say, doesthis definitively work?
So that's how we approach,that's sort of one of our
ethoses, which is everythingneeds to have a theory, it has
to have a concrete, finiteanswer.
(16:27):
You know, it's not just, I thinkit works.
I think this is cool.
It's really, let's test.
If it works, great.
Let's test again.
Let's test one more time and ifit works, let's put into our
process.
If it doesn't, we.
Russel (16:41):
And just for the folks at home to just make sure they
hear what I think is some reallygreat approach to business here
is one is taking the time tofigure out a strategy and just
even vetting different concepts,ideas, what could we do looking
at this full spectrum.
But once you decide, go all in.
Don't just dip your toe in thewater, right?
You said read tons of books andreally kind of forced even
(17:03):
something you're saying itwasn't naturally comfortable for
you.
So going all in on that strategyand then just testing the heck
outta it.
Not letting hope be the plan orthe strategy, and walking the
path of giving yourself absoluteconfirmation that these
different things that you'redoing, this works.
This doesn't.
We do that in a condensed enoughperiod, kind of when you're
saying go all in.
(17:23):
That's how we get results morequickly.
But we're just to compoundeverything faster because we're
not forgetting things and we'renot, you know, things get in the
way.
I mean, that's what I hear insome of that approach.
You can fill in any gaps or addto that
Darwin (17:36):
just, and I'm gonna add, you're actually spot on, right?
Just to elaborate on one pieceand to add onto it is, you know,
I talked about doing something Ihated.
And when you touch upon itbriefly and nowadays, you know,
if you're on all these, the GaryBees and the Tony Robinson of of
the world, they'll say, findsomething that you love or do
something that you love.
And all these kids nowadays whoare trying to be entrepreneurs,
(17:58):
think that that is the approach.
That said, no matter what youdo, there will be aspects and
areas of absolutely hate.
So if you don't build a muscleto actually be comfortable with
the crap you hate, you're gonnafail.
You know, and they're sittinghere and comment, oh, I only
wanna do what I love, butthey'll never do something that
they, that that's a fast, that'snot true.
Russel (18:19):
Uh, that is such great advice.
I mean, get comfortable withdoing something you hate.
If you're not doing somethingyou hate and actively working to
getting comfortable with it,then that might be a good
signal.
That message does need to be putout in the world because I think
I really hate too much of thismessaging of, you know, that you
know this 1, 2, 3 step and thisis how you have success, or
(18:41):
something along those lines thatwe have to be telling folks that
it's actually really freakinghard work.
The results brings themselvesbecause if it's easy, everyone
would be millionaires orbillionaires, even.
Darwin (18:53):
Yeah.
And hey, and while we'retalking, and thank you for that,
I, one last important point onthis sort of entrepreneurship
journey, right?
Which is people actually alsohave to understand that failure
is actually part of the process.
You know, I have a ton offriends who will try something
in the entrepreneur world, andthe moment that they hit
influence's failure.
(19:13):
Quit.
But what they need to understandis the more you fail, the faster
you learn.
If you have done this longenough, you'll have a lot of
fails.
It's not about all the 50 timesyou failed, it's about
continuing getting the one timethat works.
So that's one thing a lot offolks missing too, which is I
understand that you will fail,know that you'll say no, then
you fail and eventually justdon't fall off the path.
(19:35):
But the longer you go, you'lleventually strike.
Russel (19:39):
Yeah.
It.
I mean, we could probably riffon this for a long time, but it
makes me think of fans cansometimes get upset when a
professional athlete loses andthey're like, well lost.
I think we don't know, or fansdon't always realize is that's
all it was, was a loss to themand it's another chance to learn
opportunity.
They, they gotta where they'reat oftentimes because they never
(20:00):
got consumed with, did I win orlose today?
It's, did I try something newand different and push the
boundary or find something toimprove upon.
Journey.
You have to appreciate that ifwe constantly ourselves every
single day by did get to theend's, very tough mentally to
stay in the mindset.
Darwin (20:23):
I'm butchering this quote by the way, but they, I've
seen a lot of motivationalquotes about Michael Jordan
saying, oh, you've seen all the30,000 something shots that you
made, but you didn't see a 300that you missed.
You know?
So yeah, like most as people oras humans, I think all we do is
we talk about our successes, butwe, no one ever talks about the
dark feelings and the stuff thathappens, right?
(20:45):
So, but people do need tounderstand, if you are jumping
on this entrepreneurial path,you do need to understand that
you'll have the dark times.
Times what hell.
Russel (21:06):
You do occasionally hear the stories, right?
I think it's like Steph Currywouldn't leave the gym until he
made, he switched, you know, 50threes in a row.
I dunno what the exact numberwas, but it was something insane
like, and that might take himthree or four hours, but Right.
That's goes back to the goingall in and you know, all the
ones that he's failing and stufflike that.
(21:27):
It was funny though.
I'm curious, your take on thisis that's talked about all the
time, fail fast and all thesewords, but I don't always get
the sense that we truly embracethat, um, across the board in
the entrepreneurial community.
It's kind of like the wholething of everybody has a good
plan until you get punched inthe face.
I mean, maybe just go back tothat thought process of getting
(21:47):
uncomfortable, doing somethingyou hate, getting comfortable,
being uncomfortable.
Why do you think you've beenable to do that?
What do you think is differentabout you in that sense?
Darwin (21:57):
I, for the most part, never cared too much about
anything.
And I think that might come withmaybe my own personal issues.
Right?
Meaning again, in high school Icut through so much, I got kept
back in college.
I graduated like a 2.2 GPA.
I never truly cared if my momhated me or if my friends, you
know, thought I was doingsomething ly wrong, right?
(22:19):
So for me, I was perfectly finewith it, you know?
Now with that said.
I did practice or exercise someof that stuff.
Okay, so couple of you know,things might be as an example.
Going out to the clubs byyourself, which is a very
embarrassing way that, uh, youknow, walking into a club as a
guy by yourself and just gettingrejected by every single person.
(22:41):
But it was really building my,sort of, my mental capacity to
handle, you know, rejection,failure, not getting things I
wanted.
Right.
So for me, I did a lot of thosethings.
I would go to grocery stores, Iwould load up my car.
I go there and I say, I don'thave any money to pay for it.
It's embarrassing as hell, butat the day, I'm really getting
myself used to like.
Embarrass.
(23:02):
So as I get older, I still don'tcare at all about almost
anything.
I think that's both for good anda bad of myself.
Russel (23:10):
No, dude, that's so fascinating.
I mean, there's so many analog Ican think of, but the two that
come on one, that's, again,going back to fresh, that's what
they say a lot is too, is theydon't actually care that much.
And we don't wanna necessarilyhear that.
But there's a freedom almost inthat when you kind of, you lose
that caring mindset.
Darwin (23:28):
And just that it's so skin, right?
Nowadays we, we care too muchabout what folks think about us,
and you really, as anentrepreneur, you have to swap
that mindset because people whodon't come from a rich family,
all of your friend group or yourpeer groups, they think
differently and youautomatically are gonna be this,
you automatically are gonna gettrapped up.
(23:50):
So they just need to understandthat part.
Russel (23:53):
Now that came back to me.
The other thing, right?
Nowhere near the level of theNavy Seal, but I was in the
military and I have a decentunderstanding of how they, their
ethos and how they operate andtheir whole thing is right, is
have such rigorous training andstandards so that when you're
probably in an actual battle.
It's like, that's so bad.
I've already been drowned aspart of training and, and all
(24:15):
the crazy stuff they do.
And so what is hard to us isonly relative to the hardest
thing we've done or beenthrough.
And so it sounds like you justgot good at forcing yourselves
into situations that were.
I don't care if I got rejected,I've been in a grocery store and
not had to pay my groceries forfun.
Darwin (24:35):
Yeah.
I, I actually love getting up onNavy Seals and, and everything
that they do.
Right.
And I think one thing that I,they talk about a lot is
something along the lines oflike, you don't really rise to
the level of your goals.
You fall back to level of yourhabits.
So they drill that thing intothem so much that.
Even when a fire comes, theydefault to what they've, you
know, trained on.
So they will just follow the,everything that they've done.
(24:58):
Right.
So same thing here.
I'm really band day, I'm reallybuilding my mental habits or my
mental muscles to be able tohandle something like that
versus, you know, setting thegoal of, of.
Not having the mental muscle todo it.
So I think a lot of this reallyis building the mental capacity
or the mental habits, orwhatever you wanna call it, to
handle everything.
(25:19):
Being on the entrepreneur path,because it's way different than
working on a job.
There's a lot of uncertainty.
There's that no one reallyunderstands you.
You're gonna be all alone for,I'd say, every year of your life
for the most part.
Right.
Russel (25:34):
Yeah, so that's so perfect.
I love that notion of habits,right?
Again, another foundationallayer of what are, your habits
are probably gonna be, tell meyour habits.
I'll tell you probably where youstand and relative to maybe the
goals you're wanting to achieve.
Uh, that's great insight.
Let's go back to the, the agencyjourney.
I mean, it sounds like a lot ofthe stuff that can be really
(25:57):
hard, you found a way to makeeasy.
In your, you've alluded littlebit, but where's the cons
that've been?
Darwin (26:08):
Yeah, so I'll this the right now where?
When you first start out inagency life, you're at maybe one
to five or one to seven pitchemployees.
Right.
It's actually fun because everyday is different.
You're trying stuff, you'redrawing stuff at the wall.
You guys get to build, you know,have fun, do all these crazy
stuff, and everything's stillgravy.
(26:31):
That's actually how you grow inthe beginning because you hadn't
found that your, you know, yourproduct market fit.
Right, but the moment you do,when you get to somewhere
around, say, 15 ish employees.
Transitional period of.
Structured processes, thingsthat people can follow and you
(26:52):
know, having these systems wherepeople are actually following
the system and doing stuff.
Right.
And I always tell my team, themoment the company becomes super
boring is actually when you knowthat we've actually hit the next
level.
Because, you know, I've internedat a bank before that it is the
most boring thing that peopleworld.
That's so where you haveeverything planned out, every
process, and it's just going andhitting buttons.
(27:14):
I want to get to that pointbecause if I can actually get to
that point, I don't think saidright.
But for us right now, the crappything I still do hate.
It's really this.
Process part, which is,especially in marketing, I'm
still trying to figure out howto get people to follow it.
Right?
The second part is peoplemanagement.
When you scale, as you getbigger, there's a lot of people
(27:34):
management.
And if you can hire full HRdepartment, great.
Or use a, you know, HRL source.
But for the most part, whenyou're managing folks, you can't
systemize feelings.
People feel is people feeldifferently towards different
things you say.
So that has always been asticking point to me.
I hate managing people.
Um.
You know, and that's notsomething I'll ever be great at,
but I'm still doing it.
Russel (27:54):
It's so true, and it was maybe a couple years ago, I
first heard this term called theValley of Death.
Have you heard this term as itrelates to agency, it's kind of
centered around the thing thatyou're talking about.
Oh yeah.
Right.
You can kind of just show up andmake it all work.
You know, dozen, 15 people in anagency.
You know, it's kind of just fun.
You just, because you don't needa lot of structure.
(28:15):
You just show up and you try todo good work and everything kind
of just kind of falls intoplace.
But once you get to that numberas you shared, you're forced to
systematize some things, getinto some layers of perhaps
middle management.
It's called the Valley of Deathfor agencies because once you
enter that, you're starting togrow and you're probably needing
to scale two different things.
Create those systems andprocesses to manage the growing
(28:37):
team there, but also creatingthe system and process to get
the business development to feedthe beast while you're going
through that.
And so basically they say thatcan take, you know, that can
take a lot of time to cross thatvalley and some agencies don't
cross it.
They go back and they fall backto a smaller size.
Some cases fold, verytreacherous.
(28:59):
But when you get on the otherside, then you did figure all
that out.
Then as you're alluding to,you're naturally gonna be in a
pretty spot.
Yeah, no, thank you for that.
Go look that up after.
Darwin (29:09):
See, you know, I can gain anything from, thank you.
Russel (29:13):
It's just fascinat because I always had, it's like,
you know when you do things andyou don't know what you're
doing.
But, and then someone flies aterm to it, you're like, that's
the thing I was doing.
That was, so that's always afascinating part.
How are you looking at, I mean,is this just a stepping stone to
a bigger vision of, that'snothing to do with agency or
just how are you looking at yourentrepreneurial future in the
(29:35):
long term?
Darwin (29:36):
Yeah, so, you know, I have been hit up by a bunch of,
I'd say 50 plus companies, thatwhat they do is they'll try to
buy you at and with biggergroups, right?
And I've always said no to,until we hit a sort of revenue
threshold.
But with that said, with AIcoming out.
I think the marketing agencygame is, at least for the small,
you know, under the enterpriselevel or even up to maybe the
(29:59):
five, 10 million mark, the wholegame's gonna change.
I think this marketing agencymodel is basically gonna die out
for the most part unless you'reenterprise level plus, right.
So for me, that AI coming inthis year has really changed my
thought process.
I'm most likely thinking ofselling this soon, within the
next two years-ish.
I just don't wanna be, um, youknow, the horse and buggy guy
(30:21):
carrying the buggy with porkcups right.
Do have a lot of other projects.
I have like a doggy clothingstore.
I do a lot with investing withcrypto real estate.
Um, but what I'm doing right nowis also trying to build an AI
thought where would be aseparate piece.
It's a whole different model,subscription based, you know,
local based companies can use itand just have it do stuff for
(30:43):
them before using agency, right?
Using natural language.
So yeah, I mean, as anentrepreneur I do think you do
need to look at what's happeningin the global world and pivot,
and that's sort of, I'm doing orthinking of doing that.
Russel (30:55):
I mean, you just seem like the type of guy that
didn't, you don't just ever haveone iron in the fire.
You've got your mature iron,your starter iron, and your
experimental irons, and keepingthose running.
I mean, do you ever struggle tofind time to just, where do you
find the time to keep all thosedifferent endeavors going?
Darwin (31:12):
Yeah.
It's funny thing is I feel like.
I did read a study about howthere's a bigger percentage of
in entrepreneur versus a normalgroup with mental issues, a d,
bipolar, whatever it is.
So, and it's a double edgedsword, right?
I can't sit still.
But sometimes I get so muchwork.
I'm working a hundred plus hoursa week, so it's never, yeah.
(31:34):
You know, do I find time?
There are times that I do havesome time off, but for the most
part I'd say no.
You know, I've probably beenworking at the minimum 70 hours
a week ever.
But there are many months whereI do a hundred hours a week.
You know, I'm working day inday, day out, uh, working over
the weekends, you know.
It's, do I find time?
Sometimes I get pockets of time,but generally speaking, no.
(31:56):
But I like it.
Like I can't just sit still.
Pharmac.
Russel (32:01):
What does Darwin.
Relax or for free time.
Darwin (32:07):
Uh, I love hitting the gym when I can.
I definitely will go to the gymas much as I can when I come
home at night.
Sometimes there's time.
I love to just veg out on actionmovies.
I don't have to think it helpsme sleep and come on my head.
So yeah, I'd say those twoprimarily.
The gym, uh, you know what, Iforgot one last part.
My, I be like, I own my kids,right?
And if you make everythingyou're doing worth, so yeah, my
(32:28):
kids gym and then ve on actionduties.
Russel (32:31):
All right.
What's your, I dunno, I wannasay favorite, but when I think
of good action movie, that'syour go to.
What is that for you?
Darwin (32:39):
Braveheart?
I probably watched that thingabout a hundred times.
Russel (32:42):
What about you Russell?
Oh man.
When I was a kid it was commandoNowadays.
I end up really just loving Bandof brothers actually.
Oh,
Darwin (32:53):
funny thing you made in the Navy series.
Because I am a big military guy,I do love following them and I
always tell myself if I can'tbe, you know, if I fail before
I'm 30, then I would do like a,you know, join the military.
Eventually, obviously ScandinNavy Seals, right?
That was always my two goalsthat I always told my current
one and Entrepreneur thing wasworking, so I couldn't do it.
But I do love Banner Brothers.
(33:14):
What other war movies do I love?
I love Jarhead, right?
But yeah, I love watching War.
Russel (33:19):
Yeah.
I haven't seen Jarhead.
That's one.
Put that on the list.
Darwin (33:24):
Full metal jacket.
Oh yeah,
Russel (33:26):
that is a good one.
That's a classic.
That's the one with Army.
Army who set the basic precedentof what a drill sergeant looks
like.
But to a lot of people say, Iguess he was like a drill
sergeant or something in reallife.
I think I, yeah, I heard he wasright.
They're funny people.
I mean, my little bit ofexperience with the drill
sergeants was they, they're the,and I dunno honestly if they're
(33:46):
trying to be or if they justhave to yell at people so much,
so often that forced as think ofreally unique, funny to what's
Darwin (33:58):
did do military.
Yeah.
I was in the Air force.
Joke.
You know my call force?
Oh
Russel (34:06):
yes.
That's the greatest part aboutthe military is all inter jokes
and everything.
I'll a one favorite.
There was the notion of there'sa spider and a tent and a marine
guy smashes it with a boots, butan army guy eats it.
I can't remember what the Navyguy does.
(34:26):
And then the Air Force guy, youknow, calls and says, why is
there a tent in my hotel room?
And so there's so many goodjokes out there.
I know you're.
Darwin (34:38):
Before.
So yeah, obviously there is alot of interagencies out
Marines.
My marine buddies, all Air Forceare all very smart.
And then my army guys, everyonefor some reason.
But yeah,
Russel (34:54):
very different type of people that join the different,
different services for sure.
That is a very real thing.
That well been a fascinatingconversation.
Darwin, so many great takeawaysfor this journey and we've been
really just talking about somany things.
Entrepreneurialism.
So no better question to kind ofstart to wrap this up than to
ask, are entrepreneurs born orare they made?
(35:15):
That is a loaded question,
Darwin (35:16):
right Russell?
I honestly think it's both.
I mean, at the end of the day,if you are born with sort of all
the qualities that is requiredto be an entrepreneur, you're
already all good to go.
It's kind of like baking a cake,right?
Some people born knowing how todo it, and then others, you can
learn how to do it.
And they, if you learn, youknow, if you actually put in the
(35:36):
time and try to figure out whatthe requirements for being an
entrepreneur are and learn howto do it, you can learn how to
do it as well.
And I've seen folks who learnthe process.
I've also seen folks kind oflike maybe Born who's born
entrepreneur.
Russel (35:48):
Yeah, which is the most common answer and it does make
me think back to, you're kind ofalluding to this earlier, that
one of the commonalities thatgets said a lot and I see a lot
and kind of believe a lot, isthat we're all just a little bit
insane or off our rocker andthat we need that element to
boot.
Maybe that's a little bit of theborn part of a little bit
insanity, but Very cool, man.
(36:08):
Well, if people wanna know moreabout your journey at X Agency,
where can they go?
Darwin (36:12):
Yeah, well, I don't have my personal profile.
They can visit xag agency.com.
Follow our LinkedIn profile,right, xag Agency.
You can add me on LinkedIn, beyou ever have any questions.
Takes me forever to answer, butI'll always get to you before
the of the week.
You can email me atdarwin@xagagency.com.
Russel (36:29):
Thank.
Wonderful.
Thanks for sharing that, andthank you again for time.
Your busy schedule and sharingsand the different parts you've
gone through on your journey.
So many good takeaway, the powerof going all in, testing and
just getting comfortable,getting uncomfortable, doing the
unorthodox things and how that'sbeen so critical and pivotal in
(36:52):
your journey.
Really appreciate you taking thetime to share that with us
today.
Darwin (36:55):
Yeah.
Honestly, Russell, thank you somuch for providing me on this
podcast, by the way.
It's been one of the, I've donea lot of these by the way, and
I'd say this is one of the onesI've enjoyed the most.
It was a very fun, engagingconversation.
Russel (37:06):
Well, I appreciate that.
You're too nice.
Thank you so much, man.
Thank you for listening to anagency story podcast where every
story helps you write your own.
Subscribe, share, and join usagain for more real stories,
lessons learned, andbreakthroughs ahead.
What's next?
You'll want to visit an agencystory.com/podcast and follow us
on Instagram at an agency storyfor the latest updates.
Darwin (37:32):
Prior to starting my agency, I actually worked at an
agency.
When I worked at an agency, youknow, they actually paid me to
not meet.
So for me, in the back of mymind, I figured I could do
anything right.
Now.
With that said, I annually, weget to go to a party in, at the
corporate office.
So my whole team of Boston willhead up to New York and do the
office.
(37:52):
I mean, do the party.
While going up there, you know,and I manage a team of, I'm the
worst influence ever.
I had everyone on my team dotogether, party.
But that was the, I'd say one ofthe more funny stories that
we've had.
Russel (38:11):
I had to be a little bit of an interesting party.
Everybody making out alright?
Darwin (38:15):
Yeah, it was fine.
Obviously me.
No, I, I think I went, but youknow, it not, they were me, so I
didn't much
Russel (38:25):
Oh, yes.
To be young again.
I know, right.
Those days are gone.
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