CGK Linens never asked where my team sat. Neither did Puma. Then tariffs hit and
By George Barnett Reid 👀 · October 19, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
CGK Linens never asked where my team sat.
Neither did Puma. Then tariffs hit and suddenly everyone had opinions about my cost base.
How that month went:
> Early 2025, US tariffs land
> Clients recalculate landed cost per unit
> Ads become the easiest line to cut, because it's the only one with a human attached to it
> $18k of MRR gone in 8 days
None of them cut because the ads were bad. They cut because a retainer is a bill and a bill is a decision you can make on a Tuesday.
That's the agency-margin trap. You are structurally the most cancellable thing a brand buys, no matter how good you are.
The brands that didn't cut? The ones where the ads person was on their team, in their Slack, arguing about margin with them.
Harder to cancel a colleague.
So I went and built that instead.