When an Agency Merger Falls Apart: Lessons on Reinvention with Tom Snyder | Ep #864

Tom Snyder lived through the dot-com boom, a dream rollup, a merger meltdown, and one of the rarest things in agency history — an unmerger. His story shows agency owners how to navigate chaos, reinvent when the market shifts, and build a business that actually lasts.

What You’ll Learn

• Why chasing a big exit can derail your agency if you're not careful
• The hidden chaos behind most agency rollups and mergers
• How Tom navigated a failed merger and a post-9/11 market collapse
• The power of recurring revenue in stabilizing an agency
• How to spot the next wave of tech before your competitors do
• Why resilience matters more than speed in the agency world

Key Takeaways

• Rollups look sexy… until you lose control of your own agency.
• Unmerging is rare—but possible—when you’re clear on what matters.
• Retainers changed everything for Tom’s agency: stability, predictability, growth.
• Every downturn is followed by a new wave (web, SEO, mobile, social, AI). The winners adapt early.
• Stop comparing yourself to agencies that look like they’re winning… you don’t know the real terms of their deals.
• Longevity = resilience, not perfection.

What would you do if the merger you believed would change everything suddenly collapsed? Agency owners often dream of the big exit: the acquisition, the payday, the validation. But if you’ve been in this industry long enough, you know the story rarely goes as planned. Today’s guest lived through the dot-com boom, a merger gone sideways, a rare “un-merger,” and multiple reinventions across three decades.

Today’s featured guest is an agency owner who lived through the dot com boom, a merger gone sideways, an unmerger (a rare event), and multiple reinventions over three decades. He’ll talk about his journey and the lessons he’s gained in resilience, clarity, and what it means to build a business that lasts.

Tom Snyder is the founder and CEO of Trivera, a Milwaukee-based agency that originally launched in 1996 under the name Website Solutions. He got his start back when tables ruled the web, Netscape Navigator was leading the browser war, and you had to explain to clients what the internet even was.

Tom’s agency grew quickly through the dot com boom, became part of an early multi-agency rollup, unmerged after the dot com crash, and later rebuilt itself around strategic services, recurring revenue, and emerging technologies. Thirty years later, he has seen nearly every high and low this industry can deliver and has the scars and wisdom to match.

In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• The roll up that seemed like a dream and the subsequent meltdown.

• The rare chance to unmerger.

• Learning to adapt to new technologies.

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Sponsors and Resources

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The Early Days of the Web: A Front Row Seat to Digital History

Tom got into websites before most people even understood what a web browser was. He recalls visiting a friend in 1995 who showed him a website for a local jeweler. The fact that someone in Milwaukee could suddenly sell jewelry to anyone in the world blew his mind. That spark soon became Website Solutions, a one-man shop in his duplex basement that grew into a million-dollar agency within three years.

These early days were defined by scrappiness. There were no WordPress installs, no Mailchimp, no Shopify. Agencies wrote their own CMS platforms, email tools, and ecommerce systems.

For years, Trivera worked on project-based engagements. Sell a website. Build it. Launch it. Then hunt for the next one. It created a revenue roller coaster that made it hard to grow.

Then the breakthrough came when someone asked a simple question: Why are you not offering annual retained services?

Once they shifted the model, everything changed. Retainers gave them predictable cash flow, stability during downturns, and the ability to build deeper, longer-term partnerships.

Inside the Dot-Com Boom and the Rollup That Promised Millions

By the late nineties, agency rollups were happening everywhere. Big groups on the West Coast were buying smaller shops at high valuations, promising stock payouts that would multiply as the group grew. Tom’s agency was acquired by one of these rollups. The offer was attractive: $1 million in stock with the expectation that it could balloon into ten million within a couple of years.

For Tom, this was more than a payday. It felt like a way to secure better opportunities for his team. Higher salaries, better benefits, more resources. All the things agency owners often think a larger parent company can provide.

But as the ink dried on the deal, the dot com crash hit. Internal battles erupted among the agency owners inside the rollup. Some wanted to scale fast and sell. Others were emotionally attached to their agencies and resisted change. As the economy collapsed, so did the plan.

When an Agency Merger Falls Apart

Tom describes the internal environment as chaos. Agencies within the rollup started blaming one another for the downturn. Some owners viewed Tom’s Midwest operation as a weak link and argued it was a mistake to acquire them.

Then came the breaking point. At a Las Vegas meeting that was supposed to chart a path forward, Tom learned that he would lose control of his agency. His wife, who served as CFO, would be dismissed. His team would report to another agency owner.

This happened on September 10th.

The next morning, as they sat in their hotel room trying to process what to do, the news broke that planes had hit the World Trade Center. The world changed, and so did their priorities. In that moment of clarity, they made the decision to walk away and unmerge.

How a Rare Un-Merge Saved the Agency

Unmerging from an agency rollup almost never happens. But because the rollup was already fracturing, the leadership was surprisingly open to it. They returned most of the shares, let Tom keep a small portion, and released the original agency name. From there, Tom and his wife rebuilt everything from scratch under a new identity.

Although it felt like the right decision to make, they were still exiting what was still a financially stable operation to start from scratch, which was a scary but necessary step to take. They brainstormed names that felt Greek or Latin until they arrived at Trivera. The name itself was available only because the previous owner had just let the domain lapse. It felt like a small sign that starting over was the right move.

This reset allowed Tom to build the agency the right way. No irrational exuberance, burn rates, or pressure to sell. Just strong culture, smart financial discipline, and an eye on durable business fundamentals.

How Adapting to New Technology Helped Survive in Crisis

After the dot com crash, new technologies created fresh opportunities. SEO, email marketing, mobile, and social opened new revenue streams that helped Trivera rebound each time the economy dipped. Tom noticed a pattern. Every downturn was followed by a brand new marketing wave that rewarded the agencies willing to embrace it early.

One of the most pivotal moments came during the 2009 recession. The agency had lost clients, payroll was tight, and they needed a breakthrough. Everyone was asking about social media at the time, so Tom and his team built an event called Social Media University. They hustled for two months and ended up selling 400 tickets. The sales and sponsorship revenue kept their payroll alive and catapulted them into a new service category.

Events like this do more than create revenue. They cement authority, give an agency a story in the market, and in Tom’s case, it opened doors to new clients and positioned them for the next evolution of the agency.

Letting Go of Comparison to Stay Focused on the Journey

Despite the wins, Tom admits there were years he compared his agency to others and wondered why they scaled or sold faster, especially some that got the tools from his very social media event. It is easy to feel behind when you see competitors raising money, getting acquired, or shouting big revenue numbers.

However, there’s very little one can actually know about other agency’s purchase deals. These stories are incomplete. You never know what the real terms were. You never know the headaches behind the scenes. And you definitely never know if they actually took money home.

Success in the agency world is rarely a straight line. It is more often a messy, winding path filled with reinventions, hard conversations, and moments when you question everything. So agency owners struggling and watching others reach new milestones should remind themselves that longevity comes from resilience, not a perfect upward curve.

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