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Our ecosystem carries strong logos, but what matters most is the community behind them.

What Happens When E-commerce Agencies Start Building Products.

There’s a point in every builder’s life where you realize you’re building for everyone but yourself.

That’s where Andrey Gadasevich found himself.
A few years ago, his Shopify agency MakeBeCool was thriving.
Dozens of clients. Endless projects.
And then one day, Shopify built the same feature he had just spent months developing.

Overnight, it was gone.

He could have complained about the platform.
Instead, he built something of his own.
That was the birth of CPTN Limited a SaaS company born out of frustration, turned into opportunity.

And this week, alongside Tim Gaunt CEO and Co-founder TSD. They both shared what it really means to evolve from service to product, from outsourcing to ownership.

For agencies, change used to mean new clients or tools.
Now it means new rules.

Shopify updates its API, Meta changes attribution logic, AI rewrites your code in seconds and everything you thought was stable suddenly isn’t.

Andrey was clear:

The ones who survive are those who adapt fast, not those who resist.

Tim nodded, describing his own shift: from building campaigns to building products, from managing deliverables to managing outcomes.

That’s where the industry is heading towards people who own what they create, not just deliver it.

Both Andrey and Tim spoke about platform dependency — what they called the illusion of control.

You can have clients, processes, even revenue — but if the platform changes the rules, it can all vanish.
One API update, and your business model evaporates.

The only insurance is to build something that’s truly yours — a product, a system, or intellectual property that doesn’t disappear when someone updates their code.

And that’s how MakeBeCool became more than an agency.
It became an ecosystem serving merchants, yes, but also building for itself.

Andrey’s story isn’t just about Shopify.
It’s about identity.

The shift from doing work to owning work.
From short-term deliverables to long-term value.

He didn’t abandon services he transformed them into something scalable.
Every lesson from client work became code.
Every pain point became a product feature.

That’s how CPTN was born a SaaS platform that now manages over $50 million in GMV for brands across the world.

The same mindset Tim echoed when describing his own evolution:

It’s not about building faster it’s, about building smarter.

AI came up, of course.
But not as a threat as a mirror.

Tim pointed out that AI doesn’t eliminate expertise; it exposes who actually has it.

Andrey took it further:

In other words:
It’s not taking your job. It’s forcing you to do the real work thinking, connecting, solving.

The future of agencies won’t be measured in billable hours.
It’ll be measured in clarity how well you see the problem, and how fast you adapt to solve it.

At one point, someone from the community asked Andrey how he built trust across teams in different countries — Ukraine, Poland, the UK.

His answer was almost philosophical:

He didn’t hire for skills first.
He hired for curiosity, honesty, and the ability to grow through chaos.

Because when platforms shift and AI accelerates, the only stable thing you can build is culture.

Tim agreed.
He said the best leaders he’s met are the ones who can say, “I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out.”

That humility rare and powerful is what keeps a business alive when certainty disappears.Questions from the room

💬 “When do you know it’s time to stop servicing clients and start building your own product?”
Andrey: “When you start repeating yourself. That’s your signal. Turn repetition into automation.”

💬 “How do you fund the transition without breaking your agency?”
Tim: “By being disciplined. One product, one problem, one customer segment. Don’t chase ten ideas.”

💬 “Will agencies still exist in five years?”
Andrey smiled. “Only the ones that think like product companies.”Closing thought

This wasn’t a technical session.
It was a mirror for everyone building something in a fast-changing world.

Andrey and Tim reminded us that:

What they shared connects deeply with our bigger why.

EVOLVE exists because leadership today demands reinvention.
Markets shift. Platforms evolve. Roles blur.

But what doesn’t change is our need for trust, for peers who’ve been there, for conversations that go beneath the surface.

That’s what this session embodied not just expertise, but evolution.
Real leaders questioning, adapting, and redefining what excellence means in a global, fast-moving world.

And that’s exactly what EVOLVE stands for:
to become the most trusted and global house of senior commerce experts the Michelin-level standard for excellence.

This week reminded us that innovation isn’t always about new tools it’s about new thinking.

Grateful to Andrey Gadasevich and Tim Gaunt for bringing candor, clarity, and proof that reinvention isn’t optional it’s survival.

And to our members, for turning another conversation into momentum.

Curated. Personable. Global.
That’s EVOLVE.

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