Agency Business #60: CourtAvenue Co-founder Dan Khabie
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Mar 2, 2026 Dan Khabie, cofounder and CEO of Court Avenue and veteran agency builder, discusses digital ecosystems, retail media, physical-digital experiences, AI transformation and building engineering scale. He outlines contract and pod models, how in-housing and SaaS tools reshape teams, and the firm’s approach to acquisitions, centralized ops and content/data priorities.
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Feed In House Teams With Strategy And Research
- Bring consultative strategy and proprietary research tools to in-house teams to provide fresh perspectives.
- Court Avenue invests in strategy, AI research platforms, and exploratory work to 'go into the abyss' and surface high-impact ideas.
Sell Services First And Offer SaaS As An Enabler
- Don't force clients to buy SaaS; sell integrated services while offering optional SaaS to enable delivery.
- Court Avenue charges for pod services and uses SaaS as an enabler for reorganizing and scaling client teams.
Scaling Too Many Offerings Dilutes Creative Strength
- Dan defends holding-company scale but criticizes dilution of creative focus; JWT scaled offerings too broadly and lost core creative identity.
- He values creative ideas as the upstream driver of everything and would revive legacy creative brands if possible.