Helping Software House Founders Architect Their Singular Growth Engine for Predictable Scaling | Ex-CEO ($5M+ Agency) | Author @ SH Growth Engine
Gdansk, Poland
Joined March 2009
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Premature optimisation is dangerous in software and even more so in business. Build your model around a small group in one market, and you risk turning local assumptions into global GTM.
Mat Gren retweeted
Looking for 5 new global implementation partners for Open Mercato before the end of the year.
Q4 for Open Mercato means one thing: going global.
Open Mercato is an AI-supportive CRM / ERP framework. It ships with 80% ready. Someone has to build the last 20% for the client. That someone is a partner.
The model is simple. We sell the enterprise license. Partners do the implementation and keep the services revenue. We certify, train and send leads.
Oct 15 - Warsaw - Tribes Day
Oct 27 - Katowice - European Congress of SMEs
Oct 28 - Wrocław - Made in Wro
Oct 29-31 - Goa, India - React India
Nov 7 - Poland - Forest Planting for Entrepreneurs (yay!)
Nov 9-12 - New York - ElevenLabs Summit
Nov 15-16 - New York - JS Nation
Nov 15-19 - San Francisco
Nov 19-22 - Las Vegas
Dec 8-11 - Warsaw
If you are in one of these three groups, let’s meet.
The moat is not the model. The moat is Token-to-Market.
The winner won't necessarily have the smartest or fastest model.
It will have the ADE that enables businesses to generate the highest market value from AI tokens.
Market value per dollar of AI inference.
Mat Gren retweeted
i feel like swe interviews could probably collapse into just 2 technical rounds:
• system design (how well can you articulate your ideas, do you actually know how to engineer something)
• onsite project to build a real thing with agents (can you translate your intent into high quality outcomes)
everything else we used to ask is no longer necessary
🗞️ if your team is too busy doing their 'normal job' to experiment with AI, you're preparing them to be replaced
ghuntley.com/replaced/
In this post, I guess this's the last time I'll say it. AI use is no longer optional if you wish to be employed. What follows is advice for current employees and hiring managers on how to hire in 2026 to source AI-first candidates.
Mat Gren retweeted
Yesterday I led a workshop at the Harvard Club in NYC.
A long way from being a 10-year-old kid selling tomatoes in a 500-person village in Poland.
My biggest lesson after 25 years in business:
Don’t just get better at selling.
Build something that becomes easier to buy.
Blog → demand.
Specialization → demand.
Open source → demand.
Great product → demand.
I’m in NYC until Sunday, Oct 11, looking for Open Mercato’s first serious US agency/software consultancy partners.
If AI is changing how you build enterprise software, DM me.
#NYCEntrepreneurs #HarvardClub
Mat Gren retweeted
If you’re young and thinking about starting an agency, here’s the playbook I’d use.
I’ve done it twice.
I started my first business with no money, no network, and no impressive CV.
Years later, I built and exited two software agencies (64M, 140M USD valuation, no earnouts).
reddit.com/r/agency/s/Ugw5bt…
Mat Gren retweeted
Hey - I’m looking for a new gig: 15+ yrs Ruby/Rails, remote/EU. Backend at scale, tech lead, TDD, LLM/RAG in prod. I ship. DMs open - gotar.info/?v=20261004
After interviewing 100+ top software agencies building around agentic engineering, one thing stands out: Scoring.
With 90%+ of prospects chasing their own build dreams, winning agencies know who to work with.
Want to win in the agentic era? DM me to join @OpenMercato partners.
Cooking day! 23 jars, five dishes, and peace of mind for the next two weeks - warm lunchboxes sorted for my three hungry teenagers. 😅
Mat Gren retweeted
Your coding agents shouldn’t need a full-time babysitter.
Coding agents that work 24/7.
On your own server.
What makes Cezar different?
→ 100% open source.
→ Automatic setup.
→ Multiple models and subscriptions managed together.
→ Claude Code can delegate work to Codex.
→ Task queues, schedules and triggers.
→ Support for multiple issue trackers and Git providers.
→ Full visibility into what your agents are doing.
Queue the work.
Let agents coordinate.
Review the results.
cezar.run
Mat Gren retweeted
I sold two software agencies. I wouldn’t build a third one the same way today.
AI is breaking the economics of selling developer hours.
For 20+ years, the formula worked:
more developers → more hours → more revenue.
Now one developer with AI can do the work that used to take a team.
I believe the next agency model is:
IP + AI + responsibility.
Build on existing software. Use AI to deliver faster. Charge for the problem you solve, not the hours you spend.
If you run a software agency: what happens to your business when one developer can do the work of three?
My substack is dedicated to this topic.
open.substack.com/pub/tomasz…
There is a good path to really good margins in software consulting, even in the agentic engineering era.
We see a huge return to fixed price offers. When your expertise can is scaled by agents you can deliver more value to customers.
Mat Gren retweeted
AI won’t kill software consultancies.
But AI makes you 2x faster. If you sell hours, that can mean 2x less revenue.
I’m at Bits & Pretzels in Munich until Wednesday.
Running an agency? Let’s talk AI, pricing, agency exits & Open Mercato.
DM me.
Mat Gren retweeted
when @dhh says it's the end of Rails and go all Rust, you're the RoR developer - well... it means you should give it at least a try! :) The easy way is to try it on openmercatocloud.com/allstac…, as I did: youtube.com/watch?v=EC8XGWxa…
Great talk at Rails World by @dhh. Great timing with our sandboxes where you can do exactly that: use agents to make programs in virtual server IDE on your preferred tech stack. Would be awesome to see you trying it! it's free. openmercatocloud.com/
Everyone are talking about multiple, parallel agents, tons of tokens burnt overnight.
It doesn't have to be crazy when you are in charge and have enterprise grade 24h/7 development environment at your disposal.
Battle tested on 1.8mln agentic
ERP with over 140 contributors.
Think Lovable for your ERP & CRM… but with your stack and architecture.
Open Mercato Sandboxes are live 🚀
- Close your laptop. Agents keep working.
- Any tech stack
- Jev, Claude Code & Codex
- VS Code, Git, live preview & sharing
- Free AI + compute credits to start
- Compute billed by the minute
youtu.be/0jdlGSlZusI?is=ylGN…
Back then, hackathon was about onboarding to new technology and building some fancy hello-world. Now - a complete production ready systems are built in less than 48 hours, by domain experts, people who know the real pain of their customers. Great time to live in!
New way of doing the Hackathon.
The same pattern repeated all the weekend: 80% was already there, thanks to Open Mercato, teams built only the edge. The hard part moved from writing code to deciding what the business needs.
A dentist, a freight forwarder and a barrier manufacturer walked into a hackathon. They walked out with working systems.
Companies came with real problems: dental clinics, freight forwarding, manufacturing, foodservice distribution. They left with working solutions, built over one weekend.
The full list:
- Scalo - dynamic pricing for foodservice distributors: margins per client, warehouse losses, delivery zones.
- Excelmed - the dentist dictates, the system draws the tooth chart; 7-15 minutes becomes 2.
- Invoice - an agent reads the brief and drawings, drafts the renovation quote for owner approval.
- Open Logistics - one agent quotes freight within 15 minutes, another hunts co-loads on the exchange.
- NutrionX - EU-compliant food labels generated straight from the client brief.
- Antresystem - clients mark safety barriers on a PDF hall plan, the system prices it.
- Machinekind - a digital twin from an iPhone lidar walk plus a robot arm reporting into the ERP.
- Photographer lead scoring - agents research 3,000 dormant accounts at about $0.30 per lead.
- The Woodcoats - full CPQ for wheel loaders with a 3D configurator, from zero, two people.
- Ronstar - US market localization: formats, 50 states, an Avalara tax connector.
- OMZ - offline-first POS: sells with no network, syncs once when the connection returns.
- WMS barcodes - scanning and label printing on the native WMS, with a $25 printer.
- Sales Team - lead routing by language, skills and the salesperson's real availability.
- Fusta House - the owner edits a product in chat, an agent opens a PR, the website updates.
- LinkedIn outreach - 28.5% invite acceptance versus 0.45% on cold email.
- A full software house process: one brief produced a design system and a working site.
- The 38-agent marketing agency - strategy and content for about $10 in model calls per client.
- Mercatify - declare your SaaS stack, agents map it onto modules and build your workspace.
- Voicebot - law firms miss 80% of first calls; a self-service bot configurator fixes that.
- Cezar x Jira - a bug lands from Jira, Cezar reproduces it, fixes it, opens a PR.
- Mission Control + autoscaling - a live view of the agent swarm, resource-based scaling; PRs were merging mid-demo.
