The Lean Agency Revolution: How BaD Mktg is Dismantling Traditional Holding Company Models with Proprietary AI

By Michael Bürgi
Published: October 13, 2026

Main Facts

In the fast-evolving landscape of modern advertising and marketing, efficiency is no longer just a competitive advantage—it is an existential necessity. Enter Ian Buck and Yotam Dor, industry veterans and the co-founders of the Toronto-based independent agency BaD Mktg. Operating with a lean, two-man core team backed by an agile network of freelancers, Buck and Dor have redefined what a boutique agency can achieve through the strategic integration of artificial intelligence.

Established in 2023 following a departure from traditional holding company structures, BaD Mktg (named after the initials of their last names) has generated over $2 million in revenue in just three years. The secret to their outsized output? A combination of proprietary AI tooling, strict adherence to project-based pricing (eliminating retainers and billable hours), and an operational framework that allows them to function with the output of a dozen-person staff while compressing traditional six-week concepting timelines down to six days—or even hours.

Chronology: From Agile Video Pioneers to AI-Driven Disruptors

The Rise and Fall of Notch Video (2011–2023)

Buck and Dor’s partnership spans at least 15 years, beginning in 2011 when they founded their first agency, Notch Video. Launched in conjunction with a PR firm that served as a steady pipeline for clients, Notch Video caught the early wave of social video demand.

As traditional ad agencies struggled to scale content production for social media platforms, Buck and Dor stepped into the gap. Leveraging technological advancements that allowed a fully equipped cinematic production studio to be built for roughly $10,000, they delivered high-end video content at a fraction of legacy agency costs. One major credit card firm remained a client for nearly a decade, steadily expanding project scopes. Crucially, Notch Video never relied on billable hours, operating strictly on a project-by-project basis.

The Holding Company Collision

Sensing an opportunity to scale, the founders ultimately sold Notch Video to a holding company. However, the integration exposed a profound cultural and structural mismatch.

Buck recalled a presentation in Detroit for a major automotive client that represented 99% of one holding company agency’s business. After presenting innovative work and breaking down its cost-efficiency, the room fell silent. The head creative thanked them for the work, only to turn to the audience and state, "We can never show any of this to any of our clients."

The core issue was fundamental: the startup’s agile, low-overhead model directly threatened the legacy billable-hour architecture of the holding company.

A subsequent acquisition by a second holding company proved equally friction-laden. While the agency was profitable within its first month—earning the adoration of the CFO—the holding company’s bureaucracy could not process a business model that rejected timesheets. Because the founders refused to log time, the holding company was forced to assign an administrator to manually fill out eight hours of time entries for them daily simply to process payroll.

The Birth of BaD Mktg (2023–Present)

Frustrated by traditional holding companies’ resistance to operational innovation and their myopic focus on purely generative AI gimmicks, Buck and Dor split from the corporate fold in 2023 to launch BaD Mktg.

Rather than chasing the latest text-to-image or video hype cycles, the duo focused on a foundational question: Can an agency run more efficiently as a business? Utilizing custom-built LLM integrations, they engineered a workflow that automates administrative overhead while supercharging human creative output.

Supporting Data & Operational Mechanics

BaD Mktg’s impressive financial and operational metrics highlight the viability of the micro-agency model in the mid-2020s:

• Revenue Milestone: Surpassed $2 million in revenue within three years of operation.
• Staff Efficiency: Operates with a two-man core leadership team, rivaling the output capacity of agencies with a dozen full-time staffers.
• Timeline Compression: Reduced creative concepting phases from a standard six-week window down to six days or less—with initial conceptual drafts often materialized in a matter of hours.
• Proprietary Tooling: Developed specialized internal AI applications ("Goody" and custom ChatGPT frameworks) built by a college developer over a two-week span for a few thousand dollars.

The Technology Stack: "Putting Our Brains into AI"

BaD Mktg’s operational backbone relies on two distinct technological pillars:

1. Back-Office Automation ("Goody"): A proprietary tool that connects disparate business systems to automate administrative coordination, vendor management, priorities, and payments. Crucially, the system maintains mandatory human financial oversight checks.
2. Strategic and Creative Copilots: Built within secure, locked-down ChatGPT environments to prevent intellectual property leakage, these tools are trained on the founders’ historical work, transcripts of business strategy conversations, and relevant industry studies.

According to Buck, the AI is deployed early in the workflow. Before even responding to a client’s pre-brief, the system can generate upwards of 100 headline options. While the vast majority of raw AI outputs are discarded as unusable, the sheer volume acts as a cognitive springboard.

"Are they all great? Absolutely not. Most of them are shit, worse than humans. But there’s 100 of them to choose from. I could see something interesting there that I didn’t think about, but it sparks something," Buck explained.

Official Perspectives and Industry Insights

The philosophy driving BaD Mktg centers on the synthesis of machine speed and human intuition. While many agencies view generative AI as a replacement for human craft, Buck and Dor view it as an accelerator for experienced operators.

The Limits of Generative AI in Production

While acknowledging that generative AI is a game-changer for tasks like rapid versioning (producing 100 variations of an asset), the founders maintain that true craft remains paramount. Rather than delivering abstract pitch decks, BaD Mktg utilizes AI tools to construct fully realized video concepts during the pitch phase—complete with camera angles, shot selections, tailored voiceovers, and pre-laid music tracks. This allows clients to visualize the final product immediately, eliminating the ambiguity of traditional pitches.

The Paradox of Speed

A unique psychological hurdle faced by lean, AI-augmented agencies is managing client expectations regarding turnaround times. Because the AI infrastructure allows concepts to be fully mapped out in half a day, the agency often deliberately delays delivery to match conventional industry rhythms.

"We actually have to sit on our work because we can’t send it that soon. We’ll say, ‘We’ll come back to you in a week with our creative ideas,’ but we’ve got it figured out in like half a day. And our budgets are so low because we’re not spending literally two weeks of time on this," Buck noted.

Industry Implications

The success of BaD Mktg serves as a case study in the broader structural shifts occurring within the global marketing ecosystem.

• The Erosion of the Billable Hour: Models built on billable hours and bloated headcount face mounting pressure from lean, project-based alternatives that leverage automation to deliver faster, more cost-effective results.
• Democratization of Enterprise Capabilities: The ability of a two-person shop to commission proprietary, enterprise-grade workflow tools for nominal costs signals a permanent lowering of barriers to entry in the agency space.
• The New Creative Skillset: As foundational tasks like initial ideation and administrative overhead are automated, the value of senior human experience spikes. AI does not replace taste, strategy, or editorial judgment; instead, it amplifies them, allowing seasoned professionals to curate brilliance from oceans of algorithmic data.

As holding companies continue to grapple with the structural integration of artificial intelligence, independent shops like BaD Mktg demonstrate that the future of agency operations belongs to those willing to redesign their businesses from the ground up.