Hey there đ
Welcome to an issue of Arc - it was on pause, back now - learn more by clicking here.
Basically, Arc is where my rough ideas go, some work out nicely, some donât - so if you are ever reading an issue in this category - please understand that it is my âwriting sandboxâ.
Letâs get into todayâs topic.
âWhy does every service business in Pakistan feel like a clone?â
Youâve felt it too. The design agencies, web dev agencies, SEO agencies - they all blur together.
Same stack. Same pricing. Same tired pitch about being the "cost-effective partner" or the "full-stack team" ready to do everything under the sun.
In my office building alone Iâve counted at least 25 âagencies.â Thatâs in one building. One.
And the irony? I myself am in the process of opening an AgencyâŚ.
But whatâs more interesting is the real question behind all this repetition: Why does everyone start an agency? And more importantly, why do they all look the same?
The Services Trap
Letâs start with the obvious. In Pakistan - and similar ecosystems - starting a services business feels like the smartest move.
You donât need to build a product, raise funding, or spend years perfecting some SaaS. You have a skill, maybe a bit of experience, and a laptop. You offer the skill to someone overseas, maybe outsource the work locally, and suddenly youâre a founder.
In a way, itâs brilliant. Low risk, fast returns, and no gatekeepers.
But this ease is exactly why weâre stuck.
The market becomes bloated
Everyoneâs offering the same things
Everyone competes on price by default
The $5/hr gig race begins on platforms like Upwork and Fiverr, and with it, the death of margin, differentiation, and growth.
So in todayâs issue I want to go over a concept, Perfect Competition Vs Monopoly.
Perfect Competition: The Commodity Trap
In economic theory, perfect competition is an ideal state of the market.
At one end of the market spectrum, you have perfect competition. Itâs an idealized state where every seller offers the exact same thing. No one has power over pricing. No brand loyalty, no differentiation. Just a sea of identical offers, each one undercutting the next.
Every product is the same
Every business has equal opportunity-and the same limitations
No one can raise prices or dominate the market
Profits vanish as soon as someone else enters and undercuts
On paper, it sounds fair. Equal access, no monopolies, no abuse of power.
But the more you move closer to that end of the scale in real life, it becomes a trap.
Youâre not seen as a partner. Youâre seen as a commodity. Just another profile, another agency, another âwe do everythingâ pitch. Your value gets reduced to a number. Clients scroll past your work and land on your rate.
This is where most service providers in Pakistan find themselves today. Not because theyâre not skilled - but because theyâre operating too close to the commodity line.
The smart move isnât to compete harder there. Itâs to move away from it entirely.
Monopoly Thinking: The Power Play
At the opposite end of the spectrum lies monopoly.
In theory, a monopoly is when one player owns the entire market. They control pricing, standards, distribution, even demand. No one else really has a shot.
Monopolies typically -
Set the price
Control the standard
Are hard-if not impossible-to copy
Maximize profits instead of scraping by
Thatâs not what weâre chasing here. What weâre after is monopoly thinking.
Monopoly thinking is what happens when you position yourself in a way that makes you hard to replace. You define your niche, control your process, and set your own terms.
Clients come to you not because youâre cheap - but because youâre the only one who does what you do, how you do it.
Itâs not about building Google. Itâs about building enough focus, clarity, and leverage that you stop being compared entirely.
This isnât done by offering more services. Itâs done by narrowing your scope, sharpening your process, and delivering value in a way thatâs built to last.
Why Services Rarely Become Monopolies
But letâs be honest - services are hard to scale in a defensible way.
Anyone can enter the market. Anyone can learn how to use Figma, whip up a landing page, or offer a Website template. The barrier to entry is almost nonexistent.
On top of that, most service work is manual. If you get more clients, you need more people. If you want to grow revenue, you have to work more hours - or hire someone who can.
And unless youâve built a truly unique system, most of what you do can be copied. Your pitch deck. Your deliverables. Even your branding.
So unless youâre building something on top of infrastructure - like healthtech, fintech, telcos - you canât rely on natural moats. You have to build your own.
Three Levers That Move You Out of the Commodity Pile
You donât need funding. You donât need a team of ten. You just need to rethink the way you frame and deliver what you do.
Start by Niching Ruthlessly
Forget âwe build websites.â That statement puts you in the same boat as a thousand others. Try reframing to something like: âWe build appointment booking sites for dentists in UAE.â
See the difference?
You shrink your market, yes. But you immediately become the go-to choice for a very specific kind of client. The result is less competition, higher trust, and far more pricing power.
This is uncomfortable for many founders. Saying no to 90% of leads feels risky. But saying yes to everyone keeps you stuck at the bottom.
Then, Turn Services Into Products
Hereâs the truth: services donât scale. But products do. And you donât need to be a dev shop to build products.
Look at your most common service and ask: can this be turned into a repeatable, packaged offer?
It could be a templated landing page package. It could be a recurring SEO audit tailored to real estate businesses. It could be a dashboard for Shopify stores with pre-built analytics.
The key isnât automation - itâs productization. Take the thing you already do well and shape it into something that feels tangible, repeatable, and outcome-focused. Clients donât want hours. They want results they can predict.
Finally, Build a Moat - Even If Itâs Small
Ask yourself two things:
What makes this hard to copy?
What gets better the more clients I serve?
The answers might be a unique onboarding experience, a content system tailored to one vertical, or proprietary data from serving a specific niche.
Monopolies win with network effects, proprietary tools, brand trust, or deep integrations.
You canât build all of that. But you can start with one. Build something your competitors canât just download or replicate from your portfolio.
A Website template isnât a moat.
But a booking site youâve built for 20 dentists in UAE - one that saves them time, ranks on Google, and gets passed around on their WhatsApp groups?
Thatâs the start of something no one else can touch.
Monopoly Thinking Doesnât Mean Monopoly Behavior
Letâs get this clear. Real monopolies; Facebook, Google, Apple, deserve the regulatory heat they get. They restrict competition and innovation.
But monopoly thinking doesnât mean hoarding power. It means owning your process, your lane, your clients.
It means youâre not forced to undercharge because âsomeone else can do it cheaper.â
It means your clients donât leave you for a 10% discount.
It means you grow on your own terms - not the marketâs.
And most importantly, it means youâre building something that can last, not just survive.
The Hard Part is Saying No
Hereâs the trap: most agencies try to escape sameness by adding more services.
Design plus dev. Then copywriting. Then SEO. Then ads. Then video. The service list becomes a buffet menu, and the business becomes a dhaba.
It feels like growth. But itâs just dilution.
The real work? Itâs in restraint.
Monopoly thinking is a long-term game. And most of us are still playing yesterdayâs strategy.
We say yes to whatever lands in the inbox. We reshuffle our offerings based on the last client who ghosted.
We try to sell to everyone - because saying no feels risky.
But being a monopoly means holding a higher standard - and standing by it.
It means focusing relentlessly on the slice of the market you want to own, not the entire menu.
It means designing systems and services with enough clarity that you stop adjusting your business every time a client asks, âCan you also do X?â
It means understanding that control doesnât come from more services-it comes from sharper ones.
You donât need to dominate the world. You just need to dominate your corner of it.
That only happens when you stop chasing and start choosing.
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