How An Ex-Academic Built An Agency On Radical Transparency
Behind the Agency Podcast with Andrew Drach, Head of Solway Consulting
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Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.
TL;DR – Key Takeaways
Andrew’s agency DNA comes from academia: share what you learn, collaborate, and don’t attach strings to advice.
He intentionally tries to make himself obsolete for clients—teach them enough that they don’t “need” him.
That philosophy can limit “hypergrowth,” but it produced steady 20–30% YoY growth (and ~25% this year) mainly through referrals.
The ceiling hits around ~$2M: referrals can’t be your only engine if you want to scale to $10M.
His big mindset flip on outbound: the difference between “spam” and “best email I got today” is often brand recognition + relevance.
Outreach failed for years because he tried tactics before prerequisites: no clear brand voice, no trust signals, no presence.
What finally worked: build trust assets first (content, SEO, PR, awards), then do focused outreach to the right prospects with the right message.
The 2 keys for messaging: relevance (it fits) + resonance (they care).
To go upmarket, you can’t stay horizontal. You have to pick a vertical + a clear pain.
His best niche wedge: “I’m an engineer, we solve industrial engineering problems. Software is just one tool in the toolbox.”
Meet the Guest
Andrew Drach runs Solway Consulting. His path is weird in the best way: he came from academia (ran a research lab, published a lot, lived in the “open knowledge” world), then moved into entrepreneurship and agency consulting.
His worldview is direct (he attributes some of that to growing up in Ukraine) and it shows in how he runs the business:
strategy/advice should be objective
recommendations shouldn’t be influenced by referral fees
clients should leave stronger than they arrived
Episode Summary
1. The “unusual transition” (academia → agency)
Andrew said the “find a mentor” advice didn’t work for him because… who exactly has a roadmap for: academia → lab → entrepreneurship → agency?
But he took the best parts of academia with him:
people help each other
you share what you learn
mentorship is normal
your work gets validated publicly
That became the DNA of Solway Consulting.
2. A contrarian philosophy: free advice, no kickbacks, no strings
Andrew makes a sharp point: he doesn’t want his advice to feel like a product with an hourly price tag.
Not in a “sales trick” way—more like “this is how I think the world should work.”
Same with tools/platforms: if someone offers reseller fees, he’s not interested. If there’s a discount for clients, sure. But the recommendation has to stand on its own.
That’s a pretty big middle finger to the usual agency incentives.
3. “My job is to make sure you don’t need us anymore.”
This part is wild because it’s the opposite of what most agency growth advice says.
He tries to make himself obsolete by the end of the engagement:
empower the client
teach their team
remove dependency
He admits this creates constraints on scaling, but it’s also why referrals are strong: clients feel treated like colleagues, not “accounts.”
4. The growth story: steady, referral-led… until it isn’t
Solway started in 2016.
They’ve grown every year with ~20–30% organic growth, and Andrew mentioned about 25% growth this year.
But here’s the honest part: they never really “learned sales” because they didn’t have to.
And then the ceiling showed up:
0 → $1M: mostly organic + network
$1M → $2M: still mostly organic, but he started thinking about control/predictability
$2M+ and aiming for $10M: different game, different tools, different approach
5. The cold outreach misconception (and why his first attempt failed)
Andrew’s hatred of cold outreach makes total sense when you hear his lived experience:
dozens of random calls offering dev services… to a dev agency
tens of thousands of junk emails
he basically gave up on his inbox
So when he first tried outbound (late 2019), he told a hired sales team:
“I hate cold outreach. We’re not doing this.”
That led nowhere.
Then his perspective changed after a friend (a successful D2C marketing consultant) explained the difference:
There are two “cold emails”:
“Why is this in my inbox?”
“This is my luckiest day.”
And sometimes the copy can be basically the same.
The difference is recognition + timing + relevance.
If they’ve seen you before, it lands differently.
6. What actually worked: sequence + prerequisites
This is the most useful lesson in the whole episode:
He wasn’t doing the wrong tactics. He was doing them in the wrong order.
The fix was sequencing:
Step 1: build trust signals
consistent publishing (they did ~1 blog post per week for 2+ years)
backlinks + SEO traction
PR articles
awards
stronger social presence + personal network
He mentioned their site went from basically invisible to something like ~1M impressions and ~50k clicks/year (he said he didn’t remember the exact numbers, but it was way more traction than expected).
Step 2: build a brand voice
so your message doesn’t sound like generic “we do custom software”
Step 3: run focused outreach
only approach prospects likely to need your services
go slower on purpose for higher quality outcomes
lead with proof + credibility, not “hey do you need software?”
He even gave the simple before/after:
Before: “We do custom software. Need help?”
Now: “Award-winning team. 100+ projects. Testimonials. Built X for NASA.” (plus other proof points)
7. Moving upmarket: vertical niche + engineering lens
To target bigger companies, he realized:
you can’t go after every vertical
your existing reputation in “startup land” doesn’t transfer into enterprise
you basically start over, but with clearer focus
So he leaned into his roots:
manufacturing + mechanical engineering
computational sciences
biomedical lab experience
Now the pitch is:
“I’m an engineer. We understand industrial pain. Let’s talk.”
And he frames software correctly (this is the part I loved):
Software isn’t the product. It’s a tool.
The real solution is software + operations + people + data working together to remove friction and improve efficiency.
8. Two words that matter: Relevance + Resonance
Andrew drew a clean line:
Relevance: it matches the situation
Resonance: it hits something they actually care about
And he learned the hard way: you can’t have resonance with “everyone.”
9. Family-run story as a trust anchor
Andrew and his wife run the agency together, and early on he worried it would make them sound like a “mom and pop shop.”
But he found the opposite:
in a noisy market, people look for a human hook.
“Family-owned” became a credibility anchor because it signals:
long-term alignment
stability
real partnership
values you can feel
He even referenced that pandemic-era moment we all remember: kid runs into a live interview—suddenly the world realized work and life are linked, and being human is fine.
10. The future: control the demand
Andrew’s vision is clear:
In 3 years, Solway is not “hoping” for referrals.
It’s a company that can control:
visibility
presence
demand
reputation inside specific sectors (especially industrial)
Still doing startups because it’s fun… but building a durable engine in the niche.
Notable Quotes
“My time and my advice and strategy comes for free.”
“By the time we finish our engagement, you should not need us anymore.”
“It wasn’t that we were trying the wrong ideas… it was the sequencing and the prerequisites.”
“It’s relevance… and it has to resonate.”
Learn More / Get in Touch
Andrew said: not email.
Best ways:
LinkedIn (fastest replies)
Twitter
In-person at events
He also emphasized: door is open, questions welcome, no strings attached.
