🔧🧠 Service-Product Hybrids (Upgrade)

Hey there 👋,

I’ve been in the game long enough to see this shift coming. Clients want more for less, timelines are shrinking, and thanks to AI, the barrier to entry has all but disappeared.

Everyone’s becoming a vibe creator now, and traditional service offerings are becoming harder to defend on margin alone.

That’s why I believe the future of digital agencies lies in becoming software-enabled. Not full-blown SaaS companies, just smart, nimble, productized offerings that scale with systems, not headcount.

You don’t need a team of developers. You need leverage. And the best leverage today is tech that delivers value when you’re asleep.

This is exactly what we’ve been building behind the scenes at LetterOperators - a business I now believe will grow into a 7-figure company, with a valuation far beyond what a traditional digital agency could achieve.

At AgentStacker, we’re using vibe code and lightweight agentic workflows to turn service businesses into service-product hybrids. It’s faster, more defensible, and honestly, way more fun.

If you’re still billing by the hour or juggling custom projects, you’re not just competing with other agencies. You’re competing with startups, solopreneurs, and AI.

That’s a race to the bottom. But if you evolve now, you can lead the next wave (continued in new section below 👇).

📰 Top News Stories

🐝 When vibe building, make sure you’re optimizing for the right things - Link

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🚀 Since start of year, $PENGU down 85%, $GARY up 419% - Link

😱 AI videos are getting scary good - Link

💸 Making $20M from poker and crypto and losing everything - Link

🕵️‍♂️ Agent’s stay on top domain keywords list is short-lived - Link

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📈 The Next Digital Asset Boom?

Most investors are still looking at SaaS, crypto, or content as separate plays. But there’s a new hybrid emerging, one with the recurring revenue of SaaS, the distribution of content, and the speed of AI.

I’m calling them Service-Product Hybrids.

These aren’t traditional agencies. They’re lean, software-enabled service businesses that use AI, automation, and proprietary systems to scale delivery without scaling headcount.

Here’s why they matter:

• High-margin, low-overhead - they operate without bloated teams, using smart systems to maintain fat margins.

• Recurring revenue baked in - think productized retainers, not one-off projects. Predictable, compounding cash flow.

• Exit multiples are climbing - buyers are waking up to the value of these operationally efficient, tech-enabled businesses - especially those with clear IP and subscriber-style billing.

If SaaS was the last wave, this is the next. It’s why I’m betting big on ventures like LetterOperators and AgentStacker - and why I think the smartest investors will start looking beyond the usual playbook.

This is the digital asset class nobody’s pricing correctly… yet.

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That’s it for this week, until next time, buy my product and catch me in the community!

Cheers!

Richard (@richardpatey)

Disclaimer: Nothing in this email is financial advice and I am not a professional investment adviser. I send weekly updates on digital asset news and what I'm doing personally - consider it informational and for entertainment purposes only. There are native ad sponsorships from the beehiiv ad network (such as Writer in today’s issue) and ones I source independently via Passionfroot (such as Cloudica in today’s issue). Plus I often add affiliate links to software I use and website marketplace listings such as Flippa who also pay me to feature listings.