Episode 40: How a 65-Person Agency Broke Through the 20-Person Wall

Ownership & Exit

Nov 19

Written By David Hoos

Interview: Relationship-First Biz Dev + The Managed Services “Try Before You Buy” Play

Behind the Agency Podcast with Joe Barsness, Co-Founder at Fjorge

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Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

Early growth wasn’t “sales.” It was word-of-mouth and quick yes/no quoting… with basically zero follow-up.
As the team grew past ~20 people, they had to add real outbound + marketing to keep the pipeline stable.
Their best growth lever for years: partnering with creative agencies that needed dev capacity or deeper technical capability.
In-person meetings beat online-only when trust is the real buying filter (people decide fast, emotionally).
Follow-up that works isn’t “any work for me?” — it’s staying top-of-mind with value and real human touches.
Partnerships die when both sides wait for the other to refer first. Best partnerships start with fit, not paperwork.
Their “gateway offer” is Managed Services (taking over + maintaining software they didn’t build).
Managed Services is a big deal: 35–40% of revenue, 18 of 65 employees, and it feeds project work (and the reverse).

Does This Sound Familiar?

You got here on word of mouth. Somebody calls, you quote fast, you win or you don't, and you never really follow up. That worked beautifully right up until it didn't.

Around twenty people the math changes. Payroll gets big enough that a quiet month is a real problem, and word of mouth doesn't arrive on a schedule. So you know you need outbound, and outbound feels wrong for a business built on people liking you.

Joe Barsness hit that wall at Fjorge and solved it with an offer rather than a sales team. Fjorge's way in is Managed Services, taking over and maintaining software somebody else built. It's a low-risk first yes for a client, and it now runs 35 to 40% of revenue with 18 of the company's 65 people on it.

And it feeds the rest. Managed Services turns into project work, and project work turns into managed services, which is why he treats it as a pillar instead of a side line.

Joe's line on partnerships is the one most agencies need. They die when both sides sit waiting for the other to refer first.

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Meet the Guest

Joe Barsness is the Co-Founder of Fjorge, a Minneapolis-based development agency (dev shop / tech agency) that helps agencies and end-clients with design, development, and managed services. Joe started in corporate (Target), then ran a staffing-style franchise business for 7 years before joining forces with his brother Tim (Fjorge’s founder/CEO). Today Joe focuses heavily on new business and business development, and has helped grow the company from a tiny shop into a ~65-person team.

(Optional: Before Fjorge, Joe owned and operated a College Nannies and Tutors franchise — which is where he built a lot of his “consultative selling” muscle.)

Episode Summary

1. From Target… to staffing… to dev shop co-founder

Joe’s story starts in Minneapolis: two years at Target in merchandising (including a hilarious “I didn’t know what a onesie was” moment), then seven years running a franchise business. When he sold that business, he began helping his brother Tim, who was building a freelance dev practice into a real company.

They started as Barsness Solutions (2012), then rebranded to Fjorge around 2015. Joe eventually gravitated into business development while Tim stayed in the CEO/founder lane.

2. The real tension: growth forces you to “learn sales” whether you want to or not

Early on, sales was basically:

Someone asks for help
You quote X
They say yes/no
No follow-up, no process

That works at small size… until it doesn’t.

Once they pushed beyond 10 and then 20 people, they hit the wall most agencies hit: you can’t rely on word-of-mouth forever.

“Going in I was an account director. Coming out… business development lead. No department. Just ‘Joe, go figure out how to get new clients.’”

3. Their unique way of solving it: relationships, trust, and agency-to-agency partnerships

Fjorge built a major engine by selling to creative agencies who needed strong engineering.

Examples Joe called out:

Agency is over capacity → Fjorge fills the gap
Agency is WordPress-only → client needs Drupal → Fjorge fills the capability gap
Agency wants to design only → Fjorge handles development

Why it worked: agencies have project after project, which creates steadier demand than random one-off end clients.

4. What changes at 10 people, at 20, and after

Here’s the simple “growth evolution” Joe described:

0–10 people: word of mouth + fast quoting
~10–20: “account director” hybrid (sell + manage + PM)
20+: you need outbound + marketing + deliberate pipeline creation

And here’s his follow-up / relationship model:

Don’t follow up with “any work for me?”
Follow up with awareness + value, like:
- “I’ll be in your city — where should I stay?”
- “Here’s an article you’d like”
- “Who should I meet while I’m there?”
- Personal tie-ins (“how’d that soccer season go?”)

He also uses a podcast as a “relationship accelerator”:

invite prospect as guest
build trust over multiple touchpoints
learn their pain points naturally

5. “Just checking in”

The biggest cringe habit he called out:

Transactional follow-up.

The “just checking in” / “any work for me” loop that makes people avoid you.

Fix: treat relationships like a bank account. Make deposits before you ever try to withdraw.

6. Buying decisions are emotional, and faster than you think

Joe’s view is that buying decisions are emotional and fast — people evaluate you subconsciously. That makes leadership’s job less about clever messaging and more about building real trust:

show up in person sometimes
be consistent
be human
stay top of mind without being needy

7. Selling to agencies and to end clients at the same time

Two big operational takeaways showed up:

The company’s go-to-market focus matters. Trying to sell both “agency partner” and “direct end client” at the same time can dilute messaging and effort.
Managed Services is a win-win or lose-lose: it feeds builds when you’re doing it well, but if service quality drops, it poisons future build opportunities too.