Agency Hackers Ibiza 2026: What agencies need to do now
A summit at a critical time
Agencies can no longer grow their way out of trouble. They need to change the business itself. That was the message from Agency Hackers Ibiza 2026.
This was my third time at the event, and undoubtedly the best one yet. I committed to reporting back on what I heard was being said. What I heard is very important. Over two days and eleven sessions, I heard founders, advisers and operators describe the same picture. The agency world is in turmoil. AI is making execution cheaper every month. Clients are asking what they are really paying for. Buyers are valuing agencies differently.
The conversations between sessions were just as valuable. I met some brilliant new people and caught up with industry friends, and almost every chat came back to the same question: what do we do now?
Here are the themes that stood out, my key takeaways, and what I think agency founders need to do next.
Theme 1: Work out your business model
The first job for every founder is deciding what kind of agency they are building. Different models need different ways of working, different structures and different ways to measure the business. Trying to run a productised agency with a time-and-materials mindset simply doesn't work.
Three ideas came up again and again.
Price on value. Sell outcomes, and explore outcome-based payments where you can. Daniel Priestley, Laura from Uncharted and Blair Enns all made the case in different ways.
Selling time is dead. Hours are a cost to manage, not a product to sell. Blair went further and suggested most agencies don't need timesheets at all if their gross profit per head is healthy.
Turn agentic. Simon Penson talked about building "loops": the smallest repeatable unit of work, with measurement built in so it keeps improving. One agency he described went from 70 content staff to 9, at the same output.
The reality is that AI is moving value away from doing the work and towards the thinking, the judgement and the outcome. Your commercial model has to follow.
Theme 2: Some business principles still apply
For all the talk of disruption, the fundamentals haven't gone away. If anything, they matter more.
A profitable pipeline. Ryan Hall and Jay Neil shared that 59% of agencies grew new business, but only about a third grew profit. More work is not more money. Focus on right-fit clients at the right price.
Positioning and differentiation. A clear niche and a simple proposition still win. Simon Bollon's test: can you explain what you do in ten words?
Vision is more important than ever. When the market is in turmoil, a clear picture of where you are going is what holds the plan together.
Financial literacy. This is still lacking in too many agency owners. Fee income per head is the one number every founder should know. Around £90–100k is good, over £100k is excellent, and under £70k is a risk.
Jack Porter Smith summed it up well. He survived a team walkout, legal battles and a serious health crisis, and still sold his agency. His advice was simple: you fall to the level of your governance.
Theme 3: New ideas worth stealing
Analogue is making a comeback. In a world where AI makes everything easy, high-touch stands out. Blair Enns challenged the room to send one handwritten note every working day. Ryan and Jay made the case for relationship-led selling over volume. Time in the room with clients is becoming a differentiator again.
Add constraints to think differently. Blair's session was a set of thought experiments. Each one forces you to rethink how the business runs:
What if you could never sell your agency?
What if you capped your headcount?
What if you couldn't sell time?
What if every proposal had to fit on one page?
The first reaction is usually "I can't do that". Stay with it, though, and you often find a better way of running the business.
My key takeaways
The biggest one for me: the conversation has moved from growth to change. Founders don't need a bigger version of today's agency. They need a clear picture of the business they are changing into, and a plan to get there.
Beyond that, these are the points I keep coming back to.
Vision planning is more critical than it has ever been. You can't navigate a change of this size without knowing where you are heading.
Buyers are valuing businesses differently, so we need to build them differently. IP, productised offers and recurring revenue matter more than headcount and hours.
The transitions are the hard part. Moving from one model to another needs a playbook, not guesswork.
AI development is now a core capability. Agencies need to understand how to build with it, or find partners who can.
People are cost cutting. Clients and agencies alike are watching every pound, so value has to be obvious.
Core-flex is a real model. A small core team plus trusted flexible talent. Laura runs Uncharted with a small core and around 80 contractors around the world.
Time tracking becomes time intelligence. Track time to understand profitability and set future pricing, not to bill clients by the hour.
Personal brand matters. Daniel Priestley argued a founder's brand is far more powerful than the agency's.
Build bridges, not islands. Partner, refer and collaborate. Nobody gets through this on their own.
What agencies need to do now
Simple, not easy. Here are seven practical steps any founder can start this quarter.
Decide your business model. Be clear which model you are building towards. Then check that your structure, team and measures match it.
Paint your three-year picture. Describe the agency you are changing into, then break it into a 12-month plan and 90-day priorities.
Cut to two or three priorities. Julian Reuter's point was that plans rarely fail for lack of ideas. They fail because there are too many priorities and nobody owns them. For each one, ask: what has to be true, what will I stop doing, who owns it, and how will I hold them to it?
Know your numbers. Start with fee income per head. Add a monthly budget review and a short weekly scorecard.
Productise one offer. Package one service around an outcome, with a clear scope and a fixed price. Make it easy for a client to say yes.
Map one service for AI. Pick one service line and map it step by step with your best person. Then decide what AI should do, and where you need a partner.
Invest in trust. Work on your personal brand, check your website for typos and AI clichés, and send more handwritten notes. In an AI world, human touch stands out.
The opportunity
The opportunity is real. The agencies that come through this well will be the ones that decide what they are becoming, and act on it now.
If you are an independent agency founder working out your next move, start with the Agency of the Future Assessment. It takes a few minutes and shows you where your agency stands today. From there, our Three-Year Picture Workshop helps you build a clear vision and a plan to get there.
Thanks to the Agency Hackers team for another brilliant event. See you next year.
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