From Agency to AgencyReviews.io: Marketing Max’s Entrepreneurial Journey Comes Full Circle

For as long as he can remember, serial entrepreneur and marketing influencer Marketing Max has always had entrepreneurial DNA. He came from a family of entrepreneurs, with his grandfather immigrating to the US to work for a stainless steel company, eventually buying that company. Both his parents were also entrepreneurs, so he grew up being familiar with how a business is run. His grandfather’s most memorable advice to him was “Whatever you do, you have to own the business,” and this fueled his entrepreneurial obsession.

Max started his first company at age 16. An avid golfer, he partnered with his high school golf coach to create Groupars, a business that offered group discount coupons for golfers in Southern California. He then opted to go to Hofstra University in New York to study entrepreneurship, as well as to play Division 1 golf. He co-founded the university’s Entrepreneurship Club, gathering students who are passionate about entrepreneurship and startups.

Despite his grandfather’s advice of having to own the business and never working for anyone, Max finished his bachelor’s degree with six internships under his belt, gaining experience in fields where he felt he needed more hands-on knowledge, such as finance, venture capital, investment banking, and private equity.

In 2016, one of the clients Max was working with to raise a $5 million Series A round asked him to handle her business’ Facebook ads. To the client’s surprise, Max said he had no experience running Facebook ads, despite being a Millennial. He asked the client why she was asking him to do it instead of hiring an agency, and she said: “All agencies suck. They don’t give me results.” Challenged by this, Max taught himself about advertising on Facebook and he accepted the job, taking a $2,000 ad budget and turning it into $20,000 in revenue in just two weeks.

Encouraged by this quick success, Max took on more clients, eventually saving enough to quit his investment banking career. He then approached one of his Entrepreneurship Club co-founders and they decided to establish a marketing agency in 2017. Over the next five years, they grew it into a seven-figure business. Their agency worked with more than 130 brands, driving over $100 million dollars in attributable revenue for their clients.

Max also gathered a significant following on the internet, where he shared his various marketing insights and became known as Marketing Max. This includes more than 40,000 followers on Twitter, 75,000 followers on TikTok, and around 100,000 subscribers to his daily newsletter. His marketing content currently reaches more than 200,000 people every day.

All that time, the client’s statement that “all agencies suck” stuck with Max. He knew that not all agencies are bad, but it was a matching issue, with clients and good agencies unable to connect. After selling his agency in 2021, Max decided that his next venture would facilitate a smoother agency selection process and allow client brands to choose the right agency for them by reading genuine reviews.

This led him to found AgencyReviews.io, an online marketplace and review site that matches brands with the best-rated agencies that meet their needs. This includes agencies of all sorts, from branding to email marketing, SEO, market research, PR, and many more. Having launched its Beta phase in October, AgencyReviews.io will fully launch in early 2024.

According to Max, existing agency review sites foster a pay-to-win environment, which creates the wrong type of incentive for everyone involved in the ecosystem. One of his main objectives for AgencyReviews.io is to democratize, streamline, and simplify the agency selection process. Brands can quickly get matched with the agencies that meet their needs within 60 seconds by answering three simple questions.

On the other side, AgencyReviews.io allows agencies to verify their listing through a low-cost paid subscription, giving them access to a suite of agency growth tools, previously unavailable to agencies of all kinds. However, all verified agencies are ranked solely on reviews, and agencies, regardless of size, pay the same price to be verified, creating a more level playing field.

“I know there are a lot of good agencies out there, and not everyone sucks,” Max says. “My goal for AgencyReviews.io is very simple – helping good brands and agencies find each other. I am going to make AgencyReviews.io the number one resource that helps brands find the best agency partner for them and the number one resource for agencies to help grow their business.”