[Top Agency Series] Turning Agency Struggles Into Profit Power With Eli Rubel 

Eli Rubel is the Founder and CEO of Profit Labs, a strategic finance and bookkeeping firm exclusively for agency owners. Profit Labs provides financial clarity, profitability insights, and forecasting tools tailored for creative, marketing, and service agencies. Eli has generated over $10 million in agency profit since 2020 and is widely followed for his expertise in building high-margin, scalable service businesses. He previously founded Glider, a venture-backed SaaS company, and later launched Matter Made and NoBoringDesign, which served clients like Dropbox, Loom, and Sequoia-backed startups.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [4:16] How Profit Labs brings agencies true financial visibility
• [6:40] Lessons Eli Rubel learned from Profit Labs’ failed launch and pivot
• [12:52] Messaging mistakes that made Profit Labs seem like a software tool
• [19:22] How Profit Labs gave their first client instant clarity on staffing choices
• [23:16] Why bootstrapping offers more freedom than venture capital
• [25:52] How Eli scaled with nearshore and offshore finance talent
• [34:54] A costly mistake of keeping staff too long in a downturn
• [38:51] The non-negotiables Eli enforces in agencies: time tracking and price testing

In this episode…

The entrepreneurial journey is rarely a straight path; more often, it is marked by missteps, hard lessons, and unexpected pivots. Even seasoned founders can launch a new venture only to see it stumble at the very beginning. When this happens, how do you regroup, refine, and rebuild into something stronger?

Eli Rubel, a seasoned entrepreneur and agency finance expert, experienced this firsthand when his latest venture faltered due to misaligned messaging and poor market fit. Rather than walking away, Eli leaned on his network of fellow founders, adjusted his positioning, and revamped his sales approach. These changes quickly turned early struggles into wins, landing his first clients and building momentum. He emphasizes the power of bootstrapping for flexibility, leveraging offshore teams for efficiency, and testing pricing to uncover true profitability. His journey exemplifies how adaptability, clarity, and persistence can transform setbacks into lasting growth.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Eli Rubel, Founder and CEO of Profit Labs, about turning early failures into profitable growth. Eli shares why he chose bootstrapping over venture capital, what he learned from a failed launch and pivot, and the costly mistake of keeping staff too long in a downturn. He also discusses scaling with offshore talent, the importance of time tracking, and how price testing can transform agency profitability.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Eli Rubel on LinkedIn
• Profit Labs
• Matter Made
• NoBoringDesign (NBD)
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss

Special Mentions:

• Duncan Alney on LinkedIn
• Tyler Lane on LinkedIn
• Fineas Tatar on LinkedIn
• Adnan Khan on LinkedIn
• Kyle Hunt on LinkedIn
• Jason Ayachi on LinkedIn

Related episodes:

• “[Top Agency Series] Expanding Your Brand Impact Through Social With Duncan Alney of Firebelly Marketing” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “Building a Great Team and More Helpful Insights with Jason Swenk Host of The Smart Agency Master Class Podcast” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[One Question] Building a Platform to Empower Others with Jason Swenk Host of The Smart Agency Master Class Podcast” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Agency Series] Most Valuable Advice When Selling Your Agency With Todd Taskey of Potomac Business Capital” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable moments:

• “I think more podcast episodes should be about the failure track than the success track.”
• “I realized most agency owners are flying blind, and I wanted to fix that.”
• “There’s a lot of freedom and relaxation that can be had in bootstrapping.”
• “I knew if I got hit by a bus, everything would be fine with the team.”
• “You have no idea what people are willing to pay until you reach a wall of nos.”

Action steps:

1. Develop true financial visibility in your business: Regularly review and organize financial data, including profitability, forecasting, and scenario planning, to make better decisions and reduce chaos.
2. Test and update your pricing regularly: Experiment with pricing changes, especially when nearing capacity, to reveal true market value and boost profitability.
3. Implement detailed time tracking and monitor team utilization: Ensure accurate time tracking and monitor utilization of staff to effectively control costs and adapt quickly to changes.
4. Delegate financial admin and operational tasks: Outsource or delegate tasks like payments and payroll to focus on high-value work and support growth.
5. Promote internal talent and build succession plans: Identify and develop team members for leadership roles to strengthen culture, ensure continuity, and allow flexibility.

Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:15

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here, Founder of inspiredInsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. Today is no different. I have Eli Rubel. You can check it out. Profit Labs.

It’s Profit-Labs.co. You can check them out there. Eli, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out. Big shout out to Duncan Alney. Duncan Alney actually introduced us. Firebelly. He has a great show, Firebelly Marketing show. And he helps CPG companies, beverage companies grow on social. Check out that episode. It’s a really good one. 

Also Jason Swenk was another good one. Jason Swenk, had two episodes with him. Eli, actually one was he built his agency to eight figures and sold it. And then the second is he actually built a group agency, Mastermind Agency 360 because he wished he had that when he was an agency owner. So he kind of built that up. And he talks about some really cool, interesting concepts, like the North Star of a company and how that kind of directed him. 

And Todd is another good one. Todd, I don’t know if you’ve seen his podcast, The Second Bite Podcast. So he pairs agencies with private equity and he helps sell agencies essentially. And he calls it the second bite, because sometimes when they sell and they roll equity in and they get a second bite of the apple, then the private equity sells again. So he’s got some great stories of agencies selling and you know, kind of the ups and the downs as well you know. So check that out, the episode I did with him on InspiredInsider.com. 

This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. We do that in a few ways. 

One, we’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the strategy, accountability, and the full execution production. We get people on podcasts. Also, we’re an easy button for a company’s corporate gifting, so we make gifting and staying top of mind. It could be clients, partners, prospects, staff. You give us their addresses, we do a campaign. So it’s not like one gift. We usually do a series of 3 to 4 gifts per year for 3 to 4 years. 

And so, you know, we like to call ourselves the magic elves that run in the background, to make it stress free for companies so they can build amazing relationships. You know, for me, over the past decade, the biggest thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways how I can give to my best relationships, and I’ve found no better way over the past decade to profile the people and companies I admire, share with them, you know, with the world what they’re working on in the podcast. Also, send them sweet treats in the mail. So you can check us out at Rise25.com or email us to [email protected]. 

I’m excited to introduce Eli Rubel. He started and ran multiple companies from SaaS to agencies. Now he runs Profit Labs, which I mentioned, which is a bookkeeping and strategic finance firm for agency owners. He had over $10 million in agency profits since 2020. And people follow him to learn more about building a profitable agency. He was Founder and CEO of Glider, which was acquired, started Matter Made. They’ve worked with companies like Dropbox, Loom, Yelp, Calm, and he also started NoBoringDesign because he has not enough to do with the family and kids and other businesses, which is a go to design agency for, you know, they help portfolio companies at Sequoia Capital, A16Z, Y Combinator, and many others. 

Eli, thanks for joining me.

Eli Rubel: 04:01

Hey, thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 04:03

Yeah. So let’s start off with just talking about Profit Labs and what you do, and we’ll dig into some of the learnings as you do that. I’m going to pull up your website since there will be a video here. But talk about Profit Labs.

Eli Rubel: 04:16

Yeah, absolutely. So Profit Labs, you know, it took me a while to figure out what I think I’m meant to do with my time here in the working world. And after building a variety of businesses, the thing that kept coming back to me as a challenge was visibility into the business. Like true visibility, really feeling like I could wrap my arms around the business from a financial perspective and understand all the ins and outs, what’s going on, you know, forecasting forward and planning for various scenarios. And it just always felt like there were so many fires and there was so much stuff going on in the business that it was hard to ever take that step backwards and get organized enough to have that level of clarity.

And so I ended up building my dream solution when I was scaling Glider, and realized that most of the other agency owners that I talked to didn’t have that same level of clarity. And so I also and I also around that time, I developed a passion for just hanging out with other entrepreneurs and talking about how we can make our businesses more profitable. And so I ended up combining these two concepts, this passion for helping other business owners make their agencies as profitable as possible, and this passion for bringing financial clarity to digital business owners. And so that’s why I started Profit Labs. 

We do bookkeeping, accounting, we provide dashboards that give true financial visibility, profitability by client forecasting, scenario planning, all the things that I think every agency owner probably would love to have if they had the time. And, you know, unfortunately, a lot of us don’t end up having the time. So that’s what we do.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 06:08

One of the things I love about the interviews, Eli, is I get to hear about people, not just the high points, but like the challenging times, the lessons learned. I feel it’s kind of entrepreneurial therapy because like when I see someone who’s super successful, you always think you know nothing. You know, everything they touch turns to gold. And so I’d love for you to talk about, even with all of your experience, we were talking before we hit record on how you screwed up the launch of Profit Labs.

Eli Rubel: 06:40

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s you’re totally right there. I think more podcast episodes should be about the failure track than the success track, just because it’s more entertaining, frankly, and more probably a lot more relatable for everybody because we’ve all been there. So yeah, I felt like I had a pretty good playbook when going into launching Profit Labs, and I’d had two great agency successes prior to that with Matter Maid and NoBoringDesign.

So I was like, okay, I’ve got this, follow the playbook. And, you know, I spent six months building up my audience on LinkedIn so that I had a good following of agency owners that were engaged. And when I launched, no problem booking sales calls. We had like 14 sales calls booked in the first two days. So things felt like they were going to go great, and then it just totally fell flat on its face. 

The messaging wasn’t right, the pricing wasn’t right, the packaging wasn’t right. And it took me 14 sales calls to realize all of that. And a bit of ego swallowing, too, for sure. And so, yeah, I kind of had this moment of decision where I actually was chatting with some of my CEO friends and who also run agencies, and I was like, I don’t know, maybe I’ll shut it down. Like, I don’t know. It just is like maybe the market fit isn’t there. 

I have a kind of a hypothesis of what it needs to be messaging, positioning, packaging and pricing. If I were to continue on, but maybe it’s just not worth it. And one of my good buddies who’s part of this group, his name’s Jason Ayachi. He runs, he’s like one of the most badass recruiters out there, runs a really great recruiting firm for top level exec talent. They place people at like, greens and ag1 and all these crazy legit companies. So anyway, he was like, man, I feel like you owe it to yourself. You’ve been so excited about this. You’re so passionate about this problem space. Give it ten sales calls like, don’t let yourself give up until you’ve given it ten more sales calls with a new messaging, new positioning, new packaging, new pricing. 

And so I like did a little sprint, revamped the pricing, revamped all those other things. Had my first sales call later that day. Actually, I’d already kind of revamped the stuff, but I just hadn’t published it, so I published it for sales calls later that day after the meeting with Jason and some other buddies, and it was a one-call close, close the deal right there. So I was like, okay, this feels good, but maybe it’s a fluke. 

And so then the next day had another sales call. That one. That one took two days to close, but it was, you know, essentially a two call close. And at that point, I love sales. I don’t know, it’s one of those things that’s weird to admit because I think sales has such a stanky reputation historically. But man, it fires me up. And so once I could kind of taste.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 09:42

I guess, I like what you said that, but I visualize sales personally because people have this hangup with sales or the word sales. A lot of people do. You don’t. I just almost insert helping people with sales. So like when I’m thinking of sales, I’m just thinking, how do I help this person? And if what I have is not a fit for them, that’s cool. And so that gets me in the mindset of like, it’s not, as you know, off limits, I guess.

Eli Rubel: 10:12

Totally, 100%. And that’s I think it’s easy. It’s much easier for me to have that level of conviction right now with this business, with Profit Labs, because I’m hearing people who are the same profile as I am agency owner, you know, trying to make the business as profitable and stable as possible, create a good work environment, all these things, have a good lifestyle, lifestyle balance. And I’m hearing them say all of the same problems that I’ve lived and that I’ve solved, and so when I’m in a sales call, I just get fired up because I’m like, yes. Like all I need to do is make it clear to them that this will be a solved problem. If they say yes to me. And then my team is going to go solve that problem for them or the problem set. And so yeah, it just fires me up. 

So anyway, I got those first two deals closed. And at that point I was game on. Gave me a bunch of energy. We were still really early days. So that pivot came, I want to say two months ago we had zero customers at the time and now we’re at this month we should hit 30K in MRR. And these are all like recurring subscription, subscription based revenue. 

Our plans start at $2,500 a month and go up from there. You know, get as fancy as having like a fractional CFO, FP&A function, all of these things. And so yeah, I’m just really excited. Things are starting to hum. But man, I messed up. I messed up the start. We probably lost 2 or 3 months worth of the year. That could have been high quality sales conversations just based on me screwing the launch up. So you live and you learn.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 12:03

I want to get a little granular with what you said, right? So like, we can look, if you’re listening, there’s a video piece, right. And we can go on the website here and we can see the messaging now. So I’m curious, I want to hear what the wrong messaging was like. Obviously the website’s going to reflect your learnings here.

But you can see here some of the messaging stuff you hate which I can relate to this. Bookkeeping, accounting, client invoicing, chasing down late payments, paying bills. Stuff you rarely do, tracking margin by customer scenario models for staffing changes, profit models and growth forecasts, advanced financial reporting. Right. What was the messaging before that was not hitting home?

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