The AI-First Agency Model YC Just Revealed (6 services to sell)

Agencies have always been crazy hard to

scale. Low margins, slow manual work,

and the only way to grow is to add more

people. But AI changes this. Now,

instead of selling software to customers

to help them do the work, you can charge

way more by using the software yourself

and selling them the finished product at

100 times the price. Think of a design

firm that uses AI to produce custom

design work for clients upfront to win

the business before the contract is even

signed. Or an ad agency that uses AI to

create stunning video ads without the

time and expense of setting up a

physical shoot. Or a law firm that uses

AI to write legal docs in minutes rather

than weeks. That's why agencies of the

future will look more like software

companies with [music] software margins.

Y Combinator, the company that founded

Airbnb, Stripe, and Dropbox. They just

described exactly what I've been

building word for word. So today, I'm

going to break down exactly what YC

said, why the economics are insane, and

most importantly, I'll give you six

specific services that you can sell with

this model with real prices, real

customers, everything. Let me decode

what YC just said because the language

sounds simple but the implications are

really massive if you understand how it

works. So YC said quote instead of

selling software to customers to help

them do the work you use the software

yourself and sell them the finished

product at hund times the price. Let me

translate that. So most people in the a

space right now are selling tools. They

sell a chatbot. They sell a dashboard.

They sell an automation workflow and the

client gets the tool and then they have

to do the work with it. YC is saying

flip that. Don't give the client a

recruitment dashboard. Give them a hired

employee. Don't give them like billing

software. Give them a resolved insurance

claim. Don't give them an automation

workflow. Give them the results. You've

got the idea. That's the difference

between selling access and selling

outcomes. And the price difference is

massive. Let's say a recruitment SAS

tool might charge maybe $15 to $100 a

month. A recruitment agency that

delivers a hired employee, they charge 5

to 15,000 per placement, right? Because

the client doesn't want the tool, they

want the outcome. YC also said agencies

of the future will have software company

margins. So what does that mean in real

numbers? A traditional agency makes 15

to 25% margins. You charge a client like

5,000 a month, but three to 4,000 goes

to salaries, tools, overhead, all the

costs. So, you keep maybe a,000. A

software company makes 70 to 90% margins

because they build the product once and

the cost of serving each additional

customer is almost nothing. There is

almost no marginal fee of replication.

Here's what changes with AI. The cost of

delivering the service drops by about

80%, because AI handles most of the

execution. So you're not paying human

salaries for every deliverable. Most of

the work is done by AI at a fraction of

the cost. Your agency charges the same

$5,000 a month, but your delivery cost

drops from 3 to 4,000 down to $6 to

$800. So that's where the 60 to 75%

margins come from. Same price to the

client, but 80% less cost for you. The

third thing that Vice said is that these

agencies will scale far bigger than any

agencies that exist in these fragmented

markets today. Think about how many

service niches exist. There are

recruitment, medical billing,

bookkeeping, content creation, lead

generation, legal documents, customer

support, logistics, many more. Each one

of these is a billiondoll market and

each one is fragmented into thousands of

agencies. Each one limited by how many

people they can hire. So the reason they

can't scale is simple. More clients

means more humans, more employees. More

humans means more management, more

overhead, more problems. So growth is

linear. Every new client cost you almost

as much to serve as the previous as the

last one. And AI breaks that. When AI

handles 50 to 80% of the execution, one

small team can serve dramatically more

clients. You're not hiring 10 people to

go from five clients to 25. You are

building skills and systems that work

for all 25 simultaneously. So that's

what YC is telling their startups right

now. Pick a fragmented market. Use AI to

deliver the outcome and then scale

without adding more headcount. YC gave

three examples. A design firm and ad

agency and a law firm, right? But they

were very vague. They didn't tell you

who to actually sell or how much to

charge. This is something a founder, an

entrepreneur has to figure out, right?

And by the way, it's not just YC saying

this. Listen to what Alex Hermosi said

recently.

>> What kinds [music] of businesses do you

think are going to succeed because AI is

so prevalent [music] and people get

tired of it?

>> I think the businesses that will have

disproportionate returns are ones that

are very opssh. [music] So a marketing

agency for example that heavily

introduces AI, there will never be a

lack of businesses that want new [music]

customers. the difficulty with scaling

that particular type of business is the

operational drag and the headcount and

the coordination of people. And so if

you can have something that has amazing

product market fit, which is get more

customers from somebody, [music] there's

lots of demand there, um, but do it in a

way that allows you to scale the ops so

that you have increasing margins and you

have [music] less complexity, that

becomes incredibly valuable business.

>> He's actually saying the exact same

thing. And the example that he provides

is marketing agencies. Agencies that

heavily introduce AI will have a

disproportionate returns because the

demand for new customers in this case

never goes away. Every business wants

more clients, right? The problem with

scaling agencies has always been the

operational drag, right? The headcount,

the coordination of people, etc. Jose is

saying if you can deliver that same

result getting businesses more customers

but do it with AI handling the

operations and delivery so your margins

increase and your complexity decreases

that becomes an incredibly valuable

business. So you have Y cominator

telling their startups this is the

future you have Alex Hermosi a guy who

is crushing it in business saying the

exact same thing and I've been living it

for for the last several months. Now let

me get specific. So, I have identified

six services that work incredibly well

with this approach. For each one, I'll

tell you who buys it, what you can

deliver, how AI handles most of the

work, and what you can charge. And

Hermosi just gave us a a very good

starting point. He said there will never

be a lack of businesses that want new

customers, right? So, let's start there.

Number one, AI lead generation as a

service. So, this one is massive. Who

buys it? pretty much any B2B company,

agencies, SAS companies, consultants,

constructors, etc. Anyone who needs

meetings booked in their calendar with

potential clients, right? So, what can

you deliver here? You can deliver

qualified leads with verified emails,

personalized outreach sequences, and

booked meetings on their calendars.

Here's how AI handles it. I've actually

built this system from scratch myself.

So, step number one is scrape. You pull

leads from different directories, from

Google maps, from Google search or

various industry specific directories.

Then AI finds businesses that match your

client's ideal customer profile. The

cost here is about 1 cent per lead. Step

number two is enrich. So AI finds their

email addresses, phone numbers, company