Most agency owners are figuring it out alone, making expensive mistakes that someone who's already been through it could have prevented in a 5-minute conversation. PowderKeg gives you a direct line to me. Access to an operator who has built, scaled, and sold two agencies and three companies total. I'll tell you what to do, what to stop doing, and how to stack the odds in your favor.
Think of me as the operator on your speed dial.
When you hit a pricing wall, I'm the one you message. When a hire isn't working, I'm the one who tells you why. When you're staring at a proposal at 11pm wondering if you're underpricing it, I'm the one who answers. You're not buying a membership. You're buying me in your corner.
And every week, I'm documenting everything I've ever learned about operating an agency and dropping it into the library. Pricing, hiring, sales, AI, ops, exits. The longer you're in, the more of my playbook you have.
"Just one cold outreach tactic Zach recommended (and showed how to execute) generated $60K in ARR for my agency. Not bad for $297."
Every decision you make as an agency owner either increases or decreases your probability of success. The problem is, you're making hundreds of these decisions with no pattern recognition, no operator experience, and no one who's already made (and survived) the expensive mistakes.
That's what PowderKeg changes. You get direct, ongoing access to someone who has been through the entire agency lifecycle twice: the early hustle, the first hires, the scaling pain, the operational chaos, and the exit. I'll tell you the things you shouldn't be doing that are killing your growth. I'll tell you what to do instead. And I'll show you how AI changes the math on all of it.
This isn't a course you watch and forget. This isn't a Slack channel with a thousand strangers. This is an operating system run by someone who's done it, built specifically to increase the probability that you'll do it too.
I'm Zach Strauss. I've built and sold two agencies and three companies total. I started as an individual contributor, earned Rep of the Year, and worked my way to the CEO seat.
I've been the agency owner who was the entire sales team, the owner who hired the wrong people, the owner who figured out how to build systems that scaled, and the owner who sold on the other side. My companies have been recognized on the Inc. 5000 four times and named the fastest growing company in our category twice.
I'm not your typical coach. I'm not a detached consultant. I'm the operator you call when you need someone who's already made the mistake you're about to make. You get me. Directly.
You won't find me flaunting a rented Lambo in Miami. I have 4 kids under 4, a house in the suburbs, and a constant need for a good cup of coffee. I just happen to know how to build high performing companies extremely well.
PowderKeg isn't a community where you scroll through posts from strangers. It's direct, ongoing access to me, plus a continuously growing library of short, tactical video guides, templates, prompts, and frameworks built specifically for agency owners. Log in, grab what you need, ask me anything, implement it today.
How I turned 8-hour proposals into 45-minute proposals using AI without losing a single close. The exact workflow, step by step.
The exact new business system I ran across two agencies. Prospecting, nurturing, qualifying, and closing without feast-or-famine cycles.
Stop reinventing onboarding for every client. This SOP handles intake, kickoff, and project setup so your team runs it without you.
How to restructure your pricing from hourly/project to value-based retainers. The framework, the script, and the math behind it.
Prompts that build competitive analysis, audience insights, and strategic recommendations. Your client will think it took a week.
I hired for skill when I should have hired for system. Here's the framework I use now and why it changes everything about your team.
3-4 new short, tactical videos every week. Not theory. The specific things I did, the mistakes I made, and what I'd do differently.
Proposals, SOPs, pricing models, onboarding flows, campaign templates. Download, customize, deploy today.
Tested prompts for every agency function. Client strategy, content creation, prospecting, reporting, competitive intel.
Step-by-step systems for the hard parts: pricing, hiring, new business, operations, and AI implementation.
Not a community manager. Not a chatbot. Not a forum where you wait three days for a stranger to weigh in. The guy who's built and sold two agencies, responding directly.
Bring real agency problems. Get real answers. These aren't webinars. They're working sessions where we solve things together.
Quarterly deep dives on a member's real challenge. Pricing, hiring, client retention, growth. You learn as much watching as participating.
A curated group of agency owners. Share referrals, compare tools, discuss pricing, find white-label partners.
No fluff. Straight answers to what you're actually thinking right now.
Everything lives inside Circle, which is the platform PowderKeg runs on. You can message me directly, post in member channels, jump into live sessions, and access the full library all from one place. Mobile app, desktop, whatever you prefer.
When you message me, you'll get a direct response from me. Not a VA. Not a community manager. Not a chatbot.
Anything. Truly, anything. Pricing a proposal. Firing a client. Hiring your first AE. Restructuring comp. Whether to take on a sketchy retainer. Whether your positioning is actually working. How to think about an acquisition offer.
The boring operational stuff and the existential strategic stuff. If it's something an agency owner deals with, I've either lived it or watched another owner live it.
Honestly? Because I didn't have it when I needed it. When I was building my first agency, I would have paid almost anything for one person who'd already done it. Someone to bounce ideas off of. A sounding board. Someone in my corner who could tell me when I was about to make an expensive mistake.
I had to figure it out the hard way. PowderKeg exists so you don't have to.
I thought about charging $5K, $10K a month. I could. But I've already made my money. Three exits, two agencies sold, I'm good.
What I care about now is that this is actually accessible to the agency owners who need it most. The ones who can't drop $50K on a coach but desperately need an operator in their corner.
$297/month is intentional. It's the price of one bad client meeting, and it changes what you can build.
Marketing agency owners. That's it. Whether you're pre-revenue and figuring out your first offer, doing $500K and trying to scale past founder-led sales, or running a $5M shop and getting ready to exit, the playbook applies. The earlier you join, the more mistakes you avoid. The more established you are, the more leverage you'll get from the systems and AI tactics.
If you're a marketing agency owner serious about building something real, you're who I built this for.
Yes. Monthly membership, cancel whenever. No annual contract trap, no hoops.
If it's not working for you, leave. I'd rather have 100 members who actually want to be here than 1,000 who feel stuck.