1:1 Founder Consultation (Agency Owners Only) with Ehmad Zubair

I'm the founder and CEO of Cogent Labs, an Agentic AI development agency headquartered in Lahore, serving clients across 22 countries with a team of ~60 engineers.

I've spent the last several years building the agency through every phase founders ask me about: the cold-start, the first ten clients, the painful middle, repositioning for AI, navigating the shift from project work to retainers, and breaking into North American markets from Pakistan.

I'm not a coach. I run a real agency, with real client fires, real BD pipelines, and real margin conversations every week. What I share is what's working (and not working) right now — not theory from five years ago.

This is useful for you if

• You're thinking about starting a software or AI agency but aren't sure if it's the right move
• You have an agency that's stuck under $50K/month and can't figure out the bottleneck
• You're winning projects but bleeding on delivery — utilization, scoping, or retainer conversion
• You're trying to reposition your agency around AI and don't know where to start
• You're a non-US-based founder trying to break into North American or European markets
• You're caught between hiring sales, doing BD yourself, or going through partners
• You have a specific deal, proposal, or client situation you want a second pair of eyes on
• You're looking for other sales channels than marketplaces like Upwork and Fiverrr

What we'll actually cover

Bring one specific problem. We'll go deep on it rather than skim five things. Common topics I help with:

• Positioning and pricing — moving from hourly to project to retainer, packaging AI services, raising rates without losing clients
• BD and pipeline — partner channels (where most of my best clients come from), Upwork-to-direct transition, outbound that doesn't feel like spam
• Proposals and closing — Good/Better/Best structures, discovery-to-proposal flow, handling pushback on price
• Delivery and ops — utilization math, performance reviews, when to hire vs. contract, building the second layer of leadership
• The AI repositioning — what "agentic AI agency" actually means in practice, what skills your team needs, what to stop selling
• Founder-specific stuff — burnout, decision fatigue, when to fire a client, when to fire yourself from a role

How the call works

• 60 minutes on Google Meet or Zoom
• I'll ask you for a short brief 24 hours before we meet — your agency stage, revenue range, the one problem you want to solve
• I'll come prepped. We won't waste the first 20 minutes on context.
• You'll leave with concrete next actions, not vague frameworks