Case studyBuilt and looked afterHow Fame automated its own agency - now we do it for yours.
Fame is the small podcast production agency that built Forge. Everything we automate for clients we needed ourselves first - a client portal because ten clients' files were scattered across Drive folders, a status page because we couldn't write another Friday report, a team hub because the team kept asking the same questions in Slack. Then we realised every small agency has the same problems. Here's exactly what we automated at Fame, why, and what it changed - and why we now do the same for other agencies as a done-for-you service.
2-week ops audit · nothing technical on your side · runs on your own accountsWe automated our own agency first. Now our team builds and runs the same for yours.
The problems every small agency has
Fame had the problems every small podcast agency has, and they're the same problems every small *anything* agency has. Files scattered across Drive folders nobody could find at 5pm on a Friday. Status updates assembled by hand for every show, then never sent during a busy week. Time logged inconsistently, so we couldn't tell which shows were actually profitable. New starters asking the same fifteen questions on day one. And the founder, predictably, in the middle of all of it.
We tried the usual stack first - Notion for ops, a generic time tracker, weekly PDF reports, a shared Drive. It worked the way it always works: fine at four clients, painful at ten, broken at twenty. The tools weren't bad; they just weren't shaped to how we worked. Every workflow needed a custom layer on top of a generic tool, and that custom layer lived in someone's head.
So we started building the tools we needed. Not because we wanted to be a software company - we wanted to be a podcast agency that ran like one. Forge is that work, offered as a service.
What we built and run at Fame
Client portal: one branded home per show
Each podcast client logs into a branded portal where every episode lives - the brief, the asset, the transcript, the show notes, sign-off status. The Drive-folder hunt stopped the week we shipped it.
learn more →Status page: episode pipeline at a glance
Per client, a live page showing every episode and where it is - recorded, in edit, awaiting sign-off, scheduled. We retired the Friday status email; clients check the link before they message.
learn more →Time tracking: shaped to shows, not stopwatches
Logs time against the right episode and the right phase of production - so we can see which shows actually earn their margin. We use the same data to price the next contract.
learn more →Team hub: the operations manual that's actually used
The single place SOPs live - editing checklists, sign-off rules, the AI usage policy, the new-starter walkthrough. Linked from the project tool so the team opens it at the moment of work.
learn more →Chrome extension: guest research in one click
Captures a guest's profile from any site into the show's brief - the kind of small workflow our team does fifty times a week. Removing the copy-paste saves more time than any productivity app we tried.
learn more →What it's like to run the agency now
The honest summary: the agency runs more like a product company and less like a craft business. Onboarding a new client is a known sequence with the same portal at the end of it, not a fortnight of scattered emails. Status is something clients check, not something we send. New starters are productive in days because the SOPs they need are linked from the work itself, not buried in a wiki. And the founder isn't the only person who knows how anything gets done.
Nothing here is magic. It's the result of doing the unglamorous thing - writing down how the work happens and giving each piece a tool shaped to its job. The compounding effect is what makes it powerful: every documented workflow saves time every time it runs, and the savings stack across the year. The reason most small agencies don't do this isn't that they can't - it's that nobody on the team has the time or the technical skills. That's the job Forge now does for them.
Why we now do it for other agencies
Once Fame was running on the tools, the same conversation kept happening with other small-agency founders we knew. The portals problem. The status-page problem. The time-tracking problem. The team-hub problem. The same problems, in marketing agencies, design studios, dev shops, SEO agencies. We weren't unique - we just happened to be a podcast agency with an engineering muscle.
Forge is what happens when you turn that work outward. We find the hours your people lose to manual work, build the tools that give them back, and look after them on a monthly plan - around the tools you already use, on your own accounts, with nothing technical on your side. We still run Fame on the same approach, so we're our own most demanding client.
Frequently asked questions
What is Fame?
Fame is a small podcast production agency - we do strategy, production, editing and distribution for B2B podcasts. We're the team behind Forge: we automated Fame first, and now we build and run automations for other agencies.
Why did Fame build Forge?
Because the generic tools we tried (Notion, a generic time tracker, a project-management app) weren't shaped to how a small agency actually works - and the custom layer on top kept living in the founder's head. We wanted tools shaped to the work; nothing on the shelf was, so we built our own - and then started doing it for other agencies.
Do you really run Fame this way?
Yes - the automations we build for clients are the same kinds we run at Fame, and we try new ideas at Fame first. Most of the workflows we describe in the blog are ones our team uses.
Can I see Fame's actual portal?
Not the live one - it's our clients' data. But we're happy to walk you through how it works on a call, and the portal we'd build for you follows the same shape.
Can Forge do this for an agency that isn't a podcast agency?
Yes - that's why we offer it as a service. The patterns (onboarding, portals, status pages, reporting, time tracking, tool syncs) are universal across small agencies; we shape each automation to your work, not ours.
Guides & playbooks
In-depth guides on taking the manual work out of running an agency.