Why Agile Digital Agency chose a professional services niche
Juan Pineda is Managing Partner of Agile Digital Agency, which helps professional services firms improve search visibility, websites and digital strategy. The conversation traces how existing relationships brought early customers, why the agency chose a defined niche, and how it is adapting as customers research firms across search and AI tools.
A clear niche can help an agency build expertise and make its value easier to understand, but growth also needs a broader client base. Pineda’s experience points to balancing specialization with diversification while adapting to how customers research firms.
What’s the short story of how your business started, and what makes it genuinely different from the other options your customers have?
Agile started in 2018, building on a longer partnership with Simeon Prokopov. We had already co-founded Sofyma in 2009, a nearshore digital development studio, so Agile grew naturally from that technical and delivery foundation.
What makes us different is that we approach websites and search from both sides: the technical side, through development, WordPress and site architecture, and the commercial side, through SEO, AI search visibility and conversion. We are not trying to be a full-service agency for everyone. We focus on professional services firms, particularly law, finance, consultancy and specialist B2B businesses, where credibility, expertise and qualified enquiries matter more than volume.
How did you win your first customers, and where does most of your new business come from today?
Our first customers came largely through existing relationships, referrals and the credibility we had built through Sofyma and earlier agency work. Because we had experience delivering websites and digital platforms for established organisations, early clients were willing to trust us with strategy and delivery.
Today, most new business comes from referrals, repeat work and prospects finding us through search and AI tools. That is useful validation: prospects often tell us they compared several agencies using Google and AI assistants before contacting us, and we were consistently among those recommended. We also receive enquiries from businesses that have seen our content, case studies or reviews and approach us because the work feels relevant to their problem.
What’s one decision that changed the direction of your business, and one mistake that taught you the most?
The decision that changed our direction was focusing Agile on professional services rather than trying to serve every type of business. It clarified our positioning, improved the quality of our work, and allowed us to build deeper expertise in sectors where reputation, trust, and qualified enquiries matter most.
The mistake that taught me the most was relying too heavily on a small number of large clients earlier in my career. When one client changed direction, it had a disproportionate effect on revenue. Since then, I have placed much more value on diversification, repeatable positioning and building a business that does not depend too heavily on any single account.
What has changed in your industry or in what your customers expect over the last couple of years, and how have you adapted?
The biggest change is that visibility no longer means ranking alone. Customers now research businesses across Google, reviews, directories, social platforms and AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. They expect a business to be easy to understand, credible and consistent wherever they look.
We have adapted by treating SEO, content, technical performance, local signals and AI visibility as one connected system. That means making expertise clear across the website, business profiles, directories and third-party sources, rather than optimising isolated pages. It also means being more selective about the clients we work with, because the best results come from businesses willing to invest in clarity, quality and long-term visibility.
If you were advising someone starting out in your industry today, what would you tell them to do first, and what would you tell them to ignore?
If someone were starting an agency today, I would tell them to choose a clear audience and a specific problem before trying to sell a broad range of services. Learn the customer’s commercial reality, build proof through real work, and make it easy for prospects to understand why you are credible.
I would tell them to ignore the temptation to chase every trend, every platform and every possible client. A smaller, well-defined market with genuine expertise will usually beat a generic agency trying to appeal to everyone. I would also tell them not to build their business around one or two large clients, however attractive those clients may seem at the start.
Thank you to Juan Pineda and the team at Agile Digital Agency for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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