The MicroConf Europe 2015 Talk Recaps can be found on the central “hub” page.
Website: casjam.com
Twitter: @casjam
Slides:
Key Points From the Talk
- Build a service first, learn, develop software from there
- Customers want results, not tools
- Combining a Done For You Service with software delivers results
Talk Recap
- 3 goals:
- What a productized service looks like as an actual business
- Combining a productized Service and (SaaS) software
- Showing opportunities to use productized service to transition from freelance to products
- Restaurant engine history
- freelance developer/designer – living project to project
- Plan/Dream: within a year transition from freelance to customer
- build software
- first customers
- $10k/month
- Quit! (and focus on product)
- Fast forward a year:
- some customers, growing – not quite $10k/month
- ready to take a leap of faith and quit freelancing
- no relation between time and money lead to a number of bad decisions
- within a year back to taking client work
- This is how it went
- build software
- first customers
$10k/monthQuit! (and focus on product)
- Factors of Resistance (things that slow you down)
- Client work
- Day job
- Bills
- Kids
- Family & Friends
- No experience (working in a product business)
- No chops
- No help
- No network
- No idea
- RISK
- time investment with little to no payoff initially (hard to sell to family & friends)
- Actual timeline for Restaurant Engine
- Build software
- First customers
- Quit freelancing
- Resistance, Mistakes, Back to client work,
- Re-Focus
- $10k/month
The Path of Least Resistance
- Audience Ops – actual timeline:
- Launch
- First Customers
- $10k/month
- Building software
- Launch software
- SWaS – Software With a Service
- Software product with a “Done For You” component (DFY)
- The Software provides the tool
- The Service delivers the result
- Services = higher form of onboarding – ensures great experience
- SWaS is easier to buy
- no/minimal learning curve for the customer
- SWaS is easier to sell
- you are identifying ONE problem
- you’re delivering the perfect method to solve ONE problem
- “Onboarding/learning curve” no longer a valid objection by the customer
- Cancellations become less of concern as customers are seeing results –> customers are happy –> lower churn –> higher LTV
Case Studies & Tactics
- LeadFuze – DFY cold emailing lead generation
- “Invisible Software” – they use software internally, but customers never see it
- software streamlines & scales the Service
- Used revenue from the Service to turn internal Software into a SaaS product
- owning the tool is optional!
- build your service on top of existing tool
- Leverage popularity of existing tool OR keep it opaque
- Test Triggers – runs & manages A/B test on your websites
- built on top of Optimizely
- 3 clients ($1500 MRR) within 30 days – from 50 hand-crafted outreach emails
- AuditShark – security auditing software
- enterprise sales territory –> 6 month sales cycle
- “The Service sells the Software”
- 3 sales in the first month of offering the DFY service
- much faster & more efficient delivery of service, thanks to tool
- Podcast Motor – DFY podcast editing & production
- “Launch with a day job”
- 20+ paying customers in less than 6 months
- Targeting business podcasts
- Re-investing all business revenue to grow team & product
- Plans to launch a software component later
But Can it Scale?
- Benefit of SWaS: revenue and results (and business lessons!) from day one (for the founder)
- customers want the RESULT, not the tool ==> DFY component for Restaurant Engine
- I removed myself to the point that I spend <3 hours/month managing the business
- outsource and automate using freelancers
- First: Get the solution right – then: remove yourself from the delivery
- Focus
- on one problem, one solution for one ideal customer
- standardized and predictable delivery of the solution
- come up with a marketing plan for your ideal customer
- Your DFY solution is a no brainer value proposition
- Audience Ops
- “10x The Speed”
- 4 months in:
- 90% removed
- $10k/month MRR
- self-funding software product
- If you’ve done it before, you can do it again 10x faster
Price on Value. Scale the Costs.
- value-based pricing is key
- price high, charge upfront
- tool + service == more value – charge accordingly
- Streamline with predictability
- lowers costs
- delegate work / remove yourself
- software boosts efficiency
Leverage Everything
- leverage existing software to deliver a service
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