ZenPilot's Brand Update and Service Model Evolution with Andrew Dymski
Key Takeaways
- ZenPilot dropped the panda mascot for a more tech-forward look because the brand should match its push for agencies to try new things
- Every engagement starts with a two-week Blueprint that maps pains, tech stack, team, client load, and revenue before anything gets built in ClickUp
- Signing up for a free trial and plugging stuff in works for a few weeks, then turns to chaos. Treat PM like a marketing campaign: strategy first
- Three implementation paths: ZenPilot builds it for you, a 10 to 12 week coached program with weekly homework, or a self-directed path on the same methodology
- The Elite Support retainer handles weekly spot checks and monthly optimizations, because if it's not in the system, it didn't happen
- Gray runs everything pre-sale and Andrew everything post-sale, and both were hiring for intrapreneurs with a bias for action and a heart for clients
Gray MacKenzie hosts his business partner and ZenPilot co-founder Andrew Dymski. No outside guest this time. Recorded in mid-September 2021, it’s a status update for listeners who had followed the show since 2015: the rebrand, how ZenPilot’s service model works (Blueprint, implementation, support), how the co-founders split the company, and who they were hiring.
Why the panda had to go
Gray opened with the rebrand. Andrew explained the thinking, starting with the one person who objected.
For anyone who remembers, we had a cute little panda as our icon before. And when I told my wife that we were changing the company brand, she was devastated. She’s like, “I love the little panda,” and she was trying to sell us on keeping the panda. But overall, we wanted to have a new feel to ZenPilot. We wanted to have a vibe that brought a little bit more life… than what an illustrated little panda could bring. So we wanted to take on something that was a little bit more of a tech feel.
The brand also had to reflect what ZenPilot asks of its clients: try new things and stay on the bleeding edge.
Start with a Blueprint, not a free trial
Gray asked Andrew how ZenPilot serves agencies now. The end state: leadership can see what’s on the team’s plate and how much work goes to each client, and services get delivered the same way every time. It starts with a Blueprint, usually two weeks spent learning the agency’s pains, tech stack, team, client load, and revenue before anything gets built in ClickUp. Most teams adopt software differently.
So many people start a new software by just testing it out. They want to open up a space, they want to sign up for a free trial and just start plugging stuff in there. And that works great for a few days, a few weeks, because the team is kind of enamored with new features. But after a while it loses its luster, because there’s just chaos in there and things are kind of disorganized. So just like you should start a marketing campaign with a marketing strategy, rather than just, “Hey, let’s jump into HubSpot or WordPress and start building out a site,” you should tackle your PM the same way.
Gray added the business reason for selling the Blueprint on its own: low barrier to entry, both sides vet each other, and the design work has to happen anyway. Same lesson they learned at GuavaBox, their first agency: sell the game plan, then sell the project.
Three ways to implement: done for you, coached, or do it yourself
After the Blueprint, agencies pick one of three implementation paths. Andrew described the first two.
We can do it for you. So that’s going to give you the fastest uptime there… The second one is we’re gonna guide you through the process… Our team is going to guide you through a 10 to 12 week process where we’re basically your coaches moving through it, teaching you each week, giving you homework each week, following up on that homework. But you’re divvying up the work amongst the team and kind of delivering it out together.
The coached model works, he said, because there’s skin in the game on both sides. The third path is do-it-yourself: the same methodology as training, templates, and resources, for a self-motivated agency. Most land in a two to three month window.
After launch: “if it’s not in the system, it didn’t happen”
Nothing stays static after launch. Templates break, missing ones need adding, and departments left out of the first build need bringing in. The Elite Support retainer came out of that: ZenPilot runs the weekly spot checks and monthly optimizations and keeps the team accountable to the framework it chose. That matters because the data is only as good as the inputs.
One of our mantras: if it’s not in the system, it didn’t happen. So if we’re operating under an environment where some people are putting their stuff in, some people aren’t, then the data is just useless and it’s not helpful for anybody… That’s a lot of work. There’s no way around it. There’s a manual step to behavior change.
Gray noted the limit: ZenPilot can run the reports and reviews, but if someone consistently won’t follow the guidelines, the agency still has to deal with it.
How the co-founders split the company, and who they were hiring
Andrew’s seat, simply put: Gray takes care of everything pre-sale and Andrew everything post-sale. He oversees the delivery team (client coaches, ClickUp solution team, support specialists) and still sits in the Blueprint strategist seat most of the time, building the strategy in the trenches with each new agency. Gray runs growth: six years of content marketing, a sales team that went from Gray alone to Gray plus Brandon and John, and partner relationships. Then recruiting. Gray asked what they look for in a ZenPilot team member.
We’re looking for the intrapreneur, the person who has a bias for action and is always looking for the next problem to solve… We’re looking for someone that’s curious, that cares about clients. Whether you’re on the sales and marketing side or you’re on the delivery side, you’ve got to have a real passion for helping people do their job better. That’s the simple cut of it.
Gray’s caveat on “humble and hungry”: at a lot of software companies, hungry is code for 78-hour weeks. At ZenPilot it means assuming there’s always a better way than the one you just shipped. Open roles at the time: agency advisors in sales, a marketing manager, client coaches and ClickUp solution engineers in delivery, and an early automation engineer.