From Agency to Product: The Buildable Transformation
As Product Manager at Buildable.io (now IntegrationOS), I played a crucial role in transforming the company from a services business into a product-centric organization—launching 20+ microservice products, building an enterprise client portfolio, and contributing to a successful Series A fundraise.
Company Context
Buildable.io started as a digital agency building custom software for clients. The founding team recognized the inefficiencies in repeatedly building similar integration logic and saw an opportunity to transform into a platform business. I joined as their Product Manager to lead this critical pivot.
The Challenge
Pivoting from Services to Product Without Losing Revenue
The company faced the classic agency-to-product dilemma: how do you build a scalable product business while maintaining the revenue from client work that keeps the lights on? The challenge involved:
- •Resource allocation: Balancing team time between billable client work and non-revenue-generating product development
- •Product-market fit uncertainty: No clear validation that a microservices platform would resonate with the market
- •Process transformation: Agency workflows (client-driven, waterfall) needed to become product workflows (hypothesis-driven, agile)
- •Sales motion shift: Moving from relationship-based agency sales to product-led growth and self-service
- •Team mindset: Developers accustomed to custom solutions needed to think in reusable, scalable abstractions
The Strategic Question
How do we identify the highest-value, most reusable integration patterns from our agency work, package them as microservices, and build a platform that delivers value to developers—while transitioning the organization's culture, processes, and revenue model from services to product?
Strategic Approach
1. Mining Agency Work for Product Insights
I started by analyzing our agency projects to identify patterns. Rather than guessing what developers needed, I looked at what we were repeatedly building:
- • Reviewed 20+ client projects
- • Identified common integration needs
- • Quantified engineering time spent
- • Mapped to market opportunities
- • Payment processing (Stripe, PayPal)
- • Authentication/OAuth flows
- • Email delivery services
- • Data transformation/normalization
2. Implementing Agile Product Development
I introduced product management frameworks that were new to the organization:
3. Hybrid Business Model During Transition
I proposed a pragmatic approach to manage the pivot without financial risk:
4. Building in Public & Developer Community
To gain traction quickly, I championed a "build in public" strategy:
5. Converting Agency Clients to Product Champions
Our existing clients became our best validation channel:
Impact & Results
Product Transformation Success
Business & Fundraising Success
Organizational Transformation
Key Learnings
1. Agency Work is Product Research in Disguise
Many agencies sit on gold mines of product insights but don't realize it. By analyzing what we built repeatedly for clients, we identified the highest-value abstractions. The best product ideas often come from observing patterns in real customer work, not brainstorming in a vacuum.
2. Process Change is as Hard as Product Building
Introducing agile methodologies and prioritization frameworks was met with resistance. Teams comfortable with client-driven work struggled with hypothesis-driven development. Change management—explaining the "why," celebrating small wins, coaching teams—was just as critical as the product roadmap itself.
3. Hybrid Business Models Reduce Risk but Require Discipline
Maintaining agency revenue while building products was the right call—it gave us runway to find product-market fit. But it only works with strict time allocation. Without dedicated product time (protected from client escalations), you'll never make the transition. We had to say "no" to lucrative agency projects to protect product development time.
4. Your First Customers Should Be Your Harshest Critics
Converting existing clients to product users was powerful because they already trusted us—but they also had high expectations. This forced us to build quality from day one. If your product can't pass the scrutiny of people who know your capabilities, it won't succeed with strangers.
5. Fundraising Success Requires Product Traction, Not Just Vision
We raised our Series A because we could demonstrate real usage metrics, enterprise customers, and a clear product roadmap. Investors want to see that you've moved beyond idea validation to execution. The product work— shipping 20+ microservices and acquiring named customers—made the fundraise possible.
6. Rebranding Signals Transformation Completion
The company's evolution into IntegrationOS wasn't just a name change—it represented the successful completion of our transformation journey. When your product identity becomes stronger than your service heritage, you know the pivot has worked. This validated that we'd built something with lasting market value.
Interested in the Full Story?
Want to discuss product transformation, agency-to-product pivots, or building developer platforms?