#858 Paying for Growth in 2026
Tropical MBA: Entrepreneurship & Founder Lifestyle
Dan Andrews; Ian Schoen
4.9 • 527 Ratings
🗓️ 28 May 2026
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is 2026 the year you finally run paid ads? Something shifted at DC Mexico this year — more founders than ever are seriously considering paid ads as their next acquisition channel. Between AI making creative cheaper to produce and competitive research easier to do, the barriers are lower than they've been.
Max Sinclair has run a paid ads agency for eight years. In this episode he breaks down what actually works for founders spending under $30K a year — how to start, what to expect, and whether it's even worth it for your business.
Plus: how Max used AI to turn his agency's internal tools into a product, and what that transition looks like in practice.
Guest: Max Sinclair — Snowball Creations & SaaS Ads Studio
Sponsor: wayfront.com/tmba
Thanks to this week's sponsor Wayfront — the AI-ready operating system for productized agencies. One client portal. One team dashboard. All your data, AI-accessible. TMBA listeners get an extra free month on top of the trial at wayfront.com/tmba.
Links:
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🎙️ Tropical MBA is a podcast for entrepreneurs building location-independent businesses. 🔔 Subscribe for weekly episodes on business, money, and the entrepreneurial lifestyle.
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CHAPTERS:
(00:00:00) Welcome and Sponsor
(00:00:52) Episode Setup Paid Ads 2026
(00:02:54) Meet Max Sinclair
(00:03:13) Why Ads Feel Mental
(00:04:21) Beginner Tip Product Fit
(00:07:12) Picking Channels S Tier
(00:11:52) Intermediate Trust Algorithms
(00:15:07) Creative Workflows Win
(00:17:34) Advanced Scaling Strategy
(00:19:37) Small Budget Remarketing
(00:21:15) DIY Learning Roadmap
(00:24:22) Wayfront Sponsor Break
(00:25:47) Agency Sales Mastery
(00:30:19) Agency Pricing Models
(00:32:41) Pivot to AI and SaaS
(00:38:49) AI Native Team Systems
(00:41:26) Biggest Financial Lesson
(00:43:57) Wrap Up and Resources
CONNECT:
Dan Andrews is the co-founder of Dynamite Circle, author of Before the Exit, host of the Tropical MBA podcast, and an entrepreneur who has successfully launched and scaled multiple 7-figure businesses.
Email Dan@tropicalmba.com
PLAYLIST:
The $10K Projects You Never Do (AI Just Changed That)
How to Build a 6-Figure Digital Business with Claude Code
We Got Claude-Pilled
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, oh, it's Thursday. Welcome back to the TMBA podcast. If you run a location independent business, know that today you are joined by thousands of others who are doing the same. |
| 0:24.1 | You can learn more about what we do at tropical MBA.com or dynamite circle.com. |
| 0:28.8 | I want to also give a warm shout out to the good people over at Wayfront.com, formerly SPP. |
| 0:36.9 | They help you scale your productized service agency without |
| 0:40.5 | the tool sprawl. It's a very simple all-in-one solution to help you scale your agency. Since we're |
| 0:47.0 | talking agencies today, why don't you click on over to Wayfront.com and see what they're up to. |
| 0:52.4 | So today's episode is inspired by a lot of bootstrappers in |
| 0:55.8 | 2006 looking to expanding out into paid ads as that next layer of customer acquisition. |
| 1:04.7 | Pick this up down in DC, Mexico. It's easier than ever to build creative or to do competitive |
| 1:10.5 | research. |
| 1:11.6 | So I thought as many of us consider what paid ads might look like in |
| 1:14.8 | 2006, we'd invite an expert onto the show. |
| 1:19.0 | Take a little money to make some money, get some of that sweet Roas juice. |
| 1:23.2 | Today's guest is Max Sinclair. |
| 1:25.1 | He is the founder of Snowball Creations, a paid ads agency, |
| 1:28.9 | and more recently, SaaSadsstudio.com. We'll speak about that pivot later on in the episode. |
| 1:36.1 | But this episode is really for those of you who are currently spending less than $30,000 a year |
| 1:41.6 | on ads. We're going to discuss some tips, how we can get started, and also some |
| 1:47.5 | lessons we can learn from those with much larger ad spends. We'll talk about the first steps you |
| 1:53.7 | can take if you're looking to start or scale ad campaigns, some of which are very easy wins |
| 1:59.3 | that you can implement right after listening to the episode. |
| 2:02.0 | And some tips will require us to roll up those sleeves a little bit. |
... |
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