The Andrew Faris Podcast The Biggest Threats Facing Our Agency Right Now (With Patrick Coddou)
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Mar 6, 2026 Patrick Coddou, COO and product lead at AJF Growth who builds AI tools like AJF OS. They dig into agency revenue models and pod staffing. They debate whether clients value dedicated strategist time. They explore AI’s impact on capacity, creativity, and team wellbeing. They describe building AI tools, avoiding feature noise, and choosing sustainable growth over frantic scaling.
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Three Clients Per Pod Strategy
- AJF Growth intentionally staffs pods with only three full-growth clients to preserve deep, high-touch strategy while targeting 40–60% gross margin.
- Andrew worries the market may not value fewer clients per strategist if competitors charge a bit less, risking deal loss.
Why Patrick In-Housed From Agencies
- Patrick left agencies to build in-house teams because he felt strategists only gave a fraction of their attention to each client while juggling many accounts.
- He recalls getting roughly one day per week of a strategist's brain when he was a client, which drove him to in-house.
Operationalized Agency Advantage
- Agencies hold an advantage through operationalized knowledge from seeing many ad accounts, which creates strategy patterns not available to single brands.
- Andrew argues that replicable frameworks plus focused human creativity together deliver superior outcomes versus pure in-housing.