Most automation gigs seem to involve GHL (GoHighLevel). What are your thoughts on it, and do you have any experience with it?
Yeah, plenty of experience. My SaaS, Clarvo, is actually built similarly to GHL — a lot of our clients were using GHL, which is part of why we thought we could do better and turned it into a call-specific speed-to-lead solution instead. My old roommate also tried running a GHL white-label startup for a year, so I watched him work in GHL daily — he actually learned to code by customizing it. So yeah, you can definitely figure GHL out.
I understand the concern about friction, but GHL isn’t as cumbersome as it seems. The onboarding process is relatively straightforward, and once a client adopts the platform they’ll stay with it for a while, leading to recurring revenue. However, I believe there’s more opportunity in building a general‑purpose automation platform rather than white‑labeling an out‑of‑the‑box CRM. That’s why I suggested focusing on broader solutions.
So, should I build and manage automations for clients using GHL or do it all myself? It depends. I think GoHigh Level is an awesome platform that gets you about 80% of the way there. If you're running naive offers or something like home services, you don't really need much more than 80%. You could get to 80% and then focus on getting as many leads into that pipeline as possible, say through ads. And honestly, you could crash. We have a lot of businesses that do crash. One business I worked with until recently, Dental Media Corp., ran everything 100% through Go High Level and they're making a couple hundred grand a month. They started about a year and a half ago, two years ago, and had a big run-up, working with dentists running simple offers. I've also worked with dozens of other businesses. One of my old roommates, actually one of my best friends, ran up a GHL sub-account business, which was pretty interesting. And even a big home services company I work with, doing a few million dollars a month, was on GHL until recently. So you can do really good things with GHL. However, if you're in a very high competition industry where the additional 20% is margin you can squeeze, optimizing a speed-to-lead system or adding extra functionality can be valuable. I like going above and beyond that because I think I can bridge the gap between 80% and 100% and make a bit of arbitrage, which is ultimately what business is.
I’d dip my toe in GoHighLevel by watching a 30‑minute tutorial and setting up a test environment (which costs about $297 for agency access). I’d spend only a couple hours experimenting—maybe building a simple automation—until someone actually asks me to build a GHL solution. That’s my general approach to new platforms: learn just enough to deliver value when a client needs it, rather than trying to master every feature upfront. Let clients guide what you learn based on the opportunities and money they present.
Yes, you can productize your automations into a SaaS. It requires time and effort to build a production‑ready solution, including authentication and other infrastructure. My advice is to validate demand and achieve some financial stability (e.g., $10‑15k/month) before building the product. Once you have stable revenue, you can transition from agency work to a SaaS, which typically grows more steadily after an initial slower ramp.