What a Growth Partner deal actually looks like.

There's a kind of agency engagement that doesn't get talked about enough: revenue share. We call it Growth Partner, and it's the model we run with Mai Rugs (50% equity) and VMEP (10% equity). Here's how it actually works.

The model

You pay a small monthly base fee. We earn a percentage of revenue above an agreed baseline. The baseline is your trailing six or twelve months — whatever's representative. Our share only kicks in on the lift we create together.

So if you're at £50k MRR and we get you to £150k MRR, ZEU earns a share of the £100k lift, not the whole £150k. That last part matters: charging a percentage of revenue you'd have earned without us isn't fair, and we don't.

Why we do it

Most agency-client relationships are misaligned. The retainer arrives whether revenue moves or not. The agency's incentive is to keep the client, not to grow them. We wanted the incentive to match the outcome.

It also forces us to be selective. We can't take on twenty partner brands at once — the work is too deep. We take two or three at a time. If you don't fit, we'll tell you on the discovery call.

Why founders take the deal

For the founder, the math works like this: lower monthly fixed cost than a typical retainer, plus genuine alignment. We win when you win. There's a real visualiser on the Growth Partner service page — drag the sliders to see what the deal looks like with your numbers. Most founders are surprised how favourable it is once they see it laid out.

Who it's right for

You need real revenue (typically £50k+/month), capacity on the fulfilment side, and decision-making authority. The model breaks down when every change needs three layers of approval, or when fulfilment can't scale to meet demand.

Term and exit

Minimum six months so the work has time to compound. After that, rolling monthly with sixty days notice either side. We don't trap clients.

Why this isn't more common

Two reasons. First, most agencies aren't structured for it — they need predictable monthly revenue to make payroll, which retainers provide and revenue share doesn't. Second, it requires a level of trust and data access that not every founder is comfortable with. We're structured for it because that's how we structured the studio. The data access piece is a feature, not a bug: if we can't see what's happening in your Shopify admin and ad accounts, we can't do the work.