Why Agencies Stall at the $1

Why Agencies Stall at the $1–2M Mark

Published 6 days ago • 1 min read

There’s a reason so many agencies hit the same wall between $1–2M.

The symptoms are nearly identical: founder burnout, quality inconsistencies, rushed hires, client churn risk, financial blind spots, and a general feeling that everything is harder than it should be.

This week, in The AgencyHabits Podcast, Peter and Sei-Wook unpack why that happens, and what it actually takes to scale beyond this plateau.

Here’s what’s inside:

→ Why the founder becomes the bottleneck
→ What typically breaks first
→ The systems you need to build (and why they matter)
→ The mindset shift required to grow

Everything they talk about in this episode speaks to one core truth:

You can hustle your way to $1M.
You can muscle your way to $2M.

But beyond that?

You need to trade “doing everything” for “building the machine that does everything.”

👉 Listen to the full episode here.

If you're feeling stretched, scattered, or strangely “successful but stuck,” this episode will give you the roadmap for what comes next.

Liked the podcast?

Forward this e-mail to a fellow agency founder.

Who are we?

Hi, we're Peter and Sei-Wook, co-founders of Barrel Holdings, a portfolio of agency businesses. We also run AgencyHabits, a resource for agency operators featuring lessons learned from our various agency businesses.

Thanks for being a subscriber. If you or anyone you know is interested in selling their agency business, please check out what types of agencies we're looking for and email hi@barrel-holdings.com.

Also: Peter posts a lot of agency content on LinkedIn, give him a follow!

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