Selling equity - what’s next?

Hey all,

Seeking some guidance / advice as I plan my exit from a marketing agency I helped grow to $5M

Long story short, I was hired part time to build their digital marketing department that sat at around 40k annual agency revenue.

Since then I’ve become a minority equity partner, and at one point the agency was above $5M in gross agency revenue.

The digital department that I run had up to 13 FTE employees at one point

And digital revenue accounted for 60% of all agency revenue for the last 3-4 years.

So, why am I leaving? Things are groovy, right?

Well, we have dropped from $5M to now $3M this year and we’ll be lucky to hit that.

As a minority equity party it’s been hard to watch leadership continue to disregard our agency as a digital agency. They don’t want to niche down, and they don’t want to identify as a digital agency, but instead by a full service “strategic agency”.

Clients have felt our lack of expertise and direction, so they leave for someone who is an expert in xyz platform or industry.

I no longer see their vision, and so I’m planning a sale of my equity and looking for new venture opportunities.

While I am perfectly capable of running Google ads and Facebook ads campaigns, and as an accomplished SEO I know how to rank sites, and still find it fun. But I’m not interested in the labor arbitrage model of agency work anymore.

I’d rather build a portfolio of in-house properties or digital assets where I have more control.

Lately my obsession has been using AI and zapier to automate business processes, documentation, project management etc.

Agency life has also exposed me to a lot of industries and business models, which I am always fascinated by.

Eventually I will launch my own business, but I’m supporting my partner while they finish school. So I’m a single income household..

Therefore a W2 would be ideal but I’m open to contract work.

So my question is- what positions or roles would I fill?

I’ve done my share of research but this community has always given me new things to consider.

Any feedback or questions are welcomed.