u/antsangram

Hey everyone,

I’m currently building an ERP designed specifically for communication, creative, marketing, and digital marketing agencies.

I’ve worked in digital marketing for years, and one thing I keep seeing is agencies running their operations across a Frankenstein stack of tools: project management software, spreadsheets, Google Drive, email, WhatsApp/Slack, invoicing software, password managers, editorial calendars, random docs… and a lot of tribal knowledge living in people’s heads.

So I’m experimenting with the idea of bringing the most useful parts of agency operations into one system.

But before I disappear into the classic developer trap of building 200 features nobody actually wants, I’d love to learn from people who run or work inside agencies.

I’m especially interested in hearing about:

• What does your current agency stack look like?
• What processes are still painfully manual?
• What information do you constantly have to search for?
• What gets lost between sales → onboarding → production → approval → invoicing?
• What creates the most chaos between clients, PMs, creatives, marketers and management?
• What dashboards/KPIs would actually help you run an agency?
• What automations would save you the most time?
• What do existing agency management tools do badly?
• Have you ever tried implementing an ERP/CRM/agency management system? What went wrong?
• What features sounded great in theory but were useless in practice?
• What features would make you say: “Ok, I actually need this.”

Some areas I’m currently exploring include client management, project profitability, quotes, contracts, recurring services, editorial planning, approvals, quality control, passwords/access management, documentation, email integration, resource allocation, deadlines, client portals, reporting and AI-assisted workflows.

But I’m deliberately not looking for validation of my current feature list. I’d rather discover things I haven’t thought about yet.

So agency owners, project managers, account managers, marketers, creatives, developers, freelancers working with agencies, etc.:

What would your ideal agency ERP actually do?

Success stories, horror stories, weird workflows, feature ideas, mistakes to avoid and examples of tools you love/hate are all welcome.

I’m happy to share what I’m building as it evolves too.

Thanks!