People still tell me Magento is dead. We are still onboarding new Magento clients, and still supporting merchants who have been with us for years. We have also been working with Shopify since we first saw where it was going, and that side of the business has grown too. Both platforms have their place. The skill is knowing which business belongs on which one.
That is the comfortable part of the story. Here is the uncomfortable part.
Upwork Was Our Main Channel, Until It Was Not
For years, most of our clients came through Upwork. Then that stopped. Algorithm changes, market shifts, who knows. The channel dried up and we had no say in it.
This is the risk nobody talks about when things are going well. A channel that works feels like a strategy. It is not. It is a landlord. When it changes the rules, you find out how much of your business was really yours.
I have written before about what happens when organic traffic collapses overnight, and the lesson is identical whether you are a merchant or an agency. One channel is not a business. It is a bet.
What We Rebuilt Instead
We doubled down on the things that cannot be switched off by someone else. Real conversations. Meetings in person. Events. Relationships that exist because two people know each other, not because a platform decided to show us to someone.
That is slower. It is also durable. It is why we get in the car and visit customers instead of sending another PDF, and it is a large part of why I started Ecommerce Camp. Both of those started as instincts. They ended up being the pipeline.
It is also why LinkedIn has beaten Google for us on client acquisition. Not because the platform is magic, but because it is where the conversations happen.
The Team Is Everywhere, and We Kept Going
Our team is spread across more than ten countries. Some of us are here in Chester. Part of the team is in Ukraine, working through a war. That context is not a footnote. It is the reason I take the word resilience seriously and do not use it as a slogan.
And it worked. February brought a run of new clients, including UK businesses Shadow Foam, Wilsons Pet Food, Gravel Shed, Goodwin Smith Aura Glow, and ANYBRAND from Germany.
What I Would Tell Another Agency Owner
Look at where your last ten clients came from. If more than half came from one source you do not control, you do not have a growth problem yet. You have a concentration problem, and it will become a growth problem on a date you do not get to choose.
Tough times force you to evolve. I would rather evolve on purpose than be forced into it twice.
If you are weighing up a tech partner and want a straight answer rather than a pitch deck, come and find me at the next Ecommerce Camp.