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Your first ten clients decide everything. They set your ceiling before you’ve even realised there is one.
Those first 10 names on your client list don’t just keep the lights on. They define how your agency will be positioned, priced, and valued in the years ahead.
Buyers look at your early clients and see a signal: who you serve, what you specialise in, and how predictable your business is. The right mix builds a foundation for scalability. The wrong mix locks you into fragility.
The Early-Stage Illusion: Revenue vs Reputation
At the start, it feels like any client is a good client. You say yes to variety because revenue equals survival. But variety also equals volatility.
To an acquirer, your client base is proof of your focus. If your first 10 clients are scattered across unrelated sectors, they won’t see specialisation. They’ll see randomness.
Luke Tobin: “Every invoice you raise teaches the market how to value you. If it’s random, your valuation will be too.”
Agencies that build their first relationships around high-value, repeatable work in strategic sectors grow valuations up to 2–3x faster than generalist peers.
Takeaway: Variety feels safe early on, but it tells buyers you have no focus.
The Three Hidden Levers of Early Client Selection
In the early days, it’s tempting to take any client who says yes. Revenue feels like validation, and momentum feels like growth. But those first ten clients don’t just pay the bills; they define your positioning, your pricing power, and eventually, your valuation.
1. Pricing as a Signal
Pricing in the early stages quietly defines everything that follows. Once you anchor your value too low, every future conversation about rates becomes a negotiation uphill. Founders who take time to identify their ideal client profile and align pricing to outcomes, not effort, typically see 30–40% higher margins within two years, not because they charge more, but because they build their model around the right clients from the start. Pricing isn’t just a financial decision; it’s a strategic signal to the market about the kind of agency you are building.
2. Positioning Through Client Mix
Every client you take either sharpens or dilutes your positioning. Work with too many unrelated sectors, and your message becomes generic. Focus on one vertical or audience problem, and your case studies start compounding credibility. When buyers eventually evaluate your agency, they’re not just looking at revenue; they’re assessing clarity, the sharpness of your market narrative.
3. Process as the Multiplier
The best founders treat early delivery as R&D for scale. They document, test, and refine how results are achieved so that each project feeds the next. This operational discipline is what separates agencies that plateau from those that scale. A repeatable process is what buyers pay a premium for, because it signals the business can grow without its founder in every meeting.
Together, these three levers quietly determine your trajectory. Agencies that treat early clients as validation end up building fragility. Those who treat them as calibration, testing the right pricing, positioning, and process, compound strength.
By the time a buyer looks under the hood, those first ten decisions will already be priced in. The question isn’t whether you’ve grown fast, but whether you’ve grown on purpose. That’s what separates the agencies stuck at 5x EBITDA from the ones commanding 12x.
And that’s where most early-stage founders get stuck, knowing they should choose clients strategically, but not knowing how to quantify it. Gut instinct works for the first few deals, but it doesn’t scale.
To turn instinct into strategy, we built a tool that forces founders to look at their book like a buyer would. The Client Value Matrix helps founders move from “who can we sign next?” to “who compounds long-term value?”, turning client selection from guesswork into strategy.
The Client Value Matrix
Data Insight: Patterns Across £200M+ in Exits
From Unusual Group’s analysis:
- 60% ideal-fit clients → 2x valuation growth in 3 years
- 70%+ recurring revenue → 12–15x EBITDA multiples
- <15% client concentration → 4x higher diligence success
These patterns hold across sectors. The difference isn’t size, it’s structure.
Common Founder Traps
1. Say-Yes-to-Everyone Trap:
Spreads resources thin and dilutes positioning.
2. Big-Logo Trap:
Overdependence on one enterprise client kills valuation predictability.
3. Cheap-Win Trap:
Discounting early to close deals locks you into low-margin cycles.
Case Study: How One Founder Rebuilt Their Client Mix
An early-stage agency had grown to £1.8m revenue, with 80% coming from one large retail client. After joining Unusual Group, they rebalanced their roster, diversified into three core verticals, shifted half of project clients to retainers, and raised prices by 20%.
Within 18 months:
- Client concentration dropped from 80% to 25%.
- Recurring revenue increased from 30% to 68%.
- Valuation doubled.
This wasn’t about growth; it was about architecture.
The Buyer’s Lens: What PE Firms Actually Look At
Acquirers aren’t buying creativity; they’re buying predictability. They’re scanning your books for fragility, because fragility kills multiples
Buyers don’t ask, “How creative are you?” They ask:
- How much revenue disappears if your top two clients leave?
- What percentage of clients renew annually?
- Is the margin consistent across the client base?
- Can this client mix scale without adding headcount?
Your answers decide your multiple.
So how do founders build agencies that buyers see as predictable, not fragile? It starts with three early decisions.
The Decision Framework: How Early Choices Compound Value
Positioning → Pricing → Process → Valuation
Use this framework to guide your checklist; each decision in positioning, pricing, and process directly informs how your clients shape long-term valuation.
- Positioning defines who you serve and how the market perceives your focus. Every client choice reinforces or dilutes it.
- Pricing communicates value and confidence. Once set too low, every future negotiation starts from a weaker baseline.
- Process is how you turn creative intuition into repeatable results, what buyers eventually pay a premium for.
Together, these form the compounding engine that separates founders who build busy agencies from those who build bankable ones.
From Survival to Strategy: A Framework for Early-Stage Client Decisions
The Valuation Compounders Checklist
Ask yourself:
- Do 70%+ of my clients fit a clear ICP?
- Is 60% of revenue recurring or retainer-based?
- Does any client represent more than 15% of turnover?
- Are my top clients in sectors buyers value highly (SaaS, tech, professional services)?
- Can I tell a coherent market story through my client list?
If you answered "no" more than twice, you have a valuation problem, not a sales problem.
The Unusual Lens: What High-Value Founders Do Differently
Founders who scale beyond survival think in leverage, not labour:
- Pricing that reflects transformation, not hours.
- Systems that turn chaos into consistency.
- Leadership that makes the business scalable, not fragile.
The pattern is clear across Unusual Group’s partners: the agencies that scale don’t move faster, they move cleaner.
Luke Tobin: “Valuation isn’t built at exit. It’s built in who you choose to serve when you’re still hungry.”
FAQs
Final Word
Your first 10 clients are not just contracts; they are the blueprint of your future valuation. Build selectively, price strategically, and structure early. Activity pays bills. Architecture builds wealth. The first ten clients decide which path you’re on.
Next Step: Map your client base like a buyer would.
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