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In this episode of the SaaS Operators Podcast, we talk to Taylor Holiday, the Founder & CEO of Common Thread Collective, about the line between ecom SaaS and marketing agency services. Taylor explains how CTC evolved from an agency into a software enabled service business, why he doesn't call it a software company, and how a single growth map spreadsheet became their operating system. We talk about the differences in gross margin, NRR, and risk of ruin. Why agencies can actually have better unit economics than many SaaS companies, and why PE quietly loves marketing services. The episode closes on packaging and positioning, when to sell what you do as software versus service, and the very real arbitrage for operators building “Seans”, Software Enabled Agencies.

In this episode of the SaaS Operators Podcast, we talk about how Fermat is building AI search analytics and optimization as an acquisition channel for FERMAT. Rishabh explains how a free AI search product is compatible with a premium saas product that starts at $500 a month, why monitoring should be priced at zero, and how the real value is in workflows that generate shoppable, LLM friendly content. We get into how AI search outcompetes gray and black hat SEO tactics, how models like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok actually rank products, and what it means to win with truthful “white hat” content. The episode ends by looking at the end of chat first AI, FERMAT’s agentic AI search product that feels more like a hot or not UI than a prompt box, and what operators should be building now if they want their SaaS products to be competitive in the future.

A simple guide on choosing the right products for your ads by focusing on demand, supply, and margin to maximize profitability and long-term customer value.

How creative strategists can move their clients forward by using Foreplay to deliver clear inspiration, tight briefs, and a weekly creative rhythm that actually gets results.