$0 to $4.9K MRR in 1 month
I'm thrilled to share the exciting progress I've made with designfly.io in our first month, generating a total of $4.9K in revenue. Along the way, I encountered a few challenges that I believe can offer valuable lessons for fellow entrepreneurs like you. By sharing my experiences, I hope to help you navigate these hurdles and achieve your own success.
Initially, I set the price point for our service too high, ranging from $3,700 to $4,900 per month. While I engaged with some leads, I faced difficulty in closing sales. However, after careful evaluation, I made the important decision to lower our prices to a more accessible range of $1,000 to $1,900 per month during the early stages of growth. This adjustment proved to be instrumental in our initial success.
Additionally, I realized that our landing page, though visually appealing, lacked clarity in communicating our service and process. Seeking valuable feedback from the creator community, I dedicated an entire week to revamping the website. By streamlining the content and focusing only on the essential information, I significantly improved our conversion rates and onboarded 3 additional clients within 1 week of revamping the site. This valuable lesson taught me the power of simplicity and effective communication.
Now, let's discuss the challenges I encountered and how I plan to address them. One aspect I am constantly striving to optimize is the value I provide at our price point. While I initially offered 3 business day delivery for most design requests, I discovered that this timeframe was often too long for most clients. As a result, I have reduced our delivery time to 2 business days, ensuring a faster turnaround. I am actively working on reflecting this improvement on our website to align with our client's preferences.
Another challenge I faced, and continue to face, is driving traffic to Designfly. However, I have discovered an effective method that has yielded promising results. Here's what has worked so far and what I plan on continuing to do...
During my journey, I embarked on another venture, roasti.co (achieving #2 UX product of the week on Product Hunt), just two weeks after launching designfly.io. This sparked significant attention and generated valuable backlink traffic to Designfly, effectively serving as an upsell. By actively engaging with others, offering assistance, and leveraging the power of networking within the creator community, I not only attracted clients but also nurtured a vibrant sense of community and collaboration.
In conclusion, my journey from $0 to $4.9k MRR in just one month has been filled with valuable lessons and exciting achievements. I hope that by sharing my experiences, I have inspired and provided you with insights to overcome similar challenges on your own entrepreneurial journey. Remember, success is within your reach—always stay open to learning, adapting, and connecting with others in your industry.
Hell yeah!! Congrats on such a great start, Brad. One thing that sticks out to me is that you don't have to be obsessed with generating 100k hits in traffic. You need just a few of the right people to find you and it's all magic from there.
Excited to follow your growth!
Thanks man! I agree, the week I converted the most leads had an average of 50 visitors per day vs 500 per day during launch, with no conversions.
Also, I'm trying to follow you but can't figure it out (I'm fairly new here).
Yeah, haha it's kind of limited. Let's connect on linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/mihailsavov and we can exchange emails. I'd love to chat about a few things.
Just followed you. 👍
How did you find early customers?
Networking on Indiehackers and private communities from courses I purchased.
Good and inspiraitonal. Thanks for sharing your story and congrats!
Thanks! 😁
just out of curiosity, what tech stack is using to make this website, cause it looks amazing. what ui library or component is using to create it ( if you don't mind
I custom design my sites in Webflow. 👍
Congrats! I'm curious - how do you find the leads? What's your sales funnel and approach?
Thanks! I've been utilizing various forms of social marketing (This post being one of them).
Awesome! What has shown as the best channel so far?
The private community from this course: https://www.productizeyourself.co
For landing clients?
👍
I just made a breakthrough while reading this post. Thank you!
Yess!!! 🙌
This is inspirational, Brad. Well done.
Appreciate it 👍
Your next step might be finding out how to make 4.9k/m be not just reasonable, but an irresistible offer for potential clients by adding tremendous amount of value.
What's the next step in your vision?
My goal is to get a few more clients to sustain me while I pursue my music career. 👍
Cool! Do you play in a band or something?
I'm a professional music producer.
Congratulations 🎉
Thanks! 😁
I loved both of your website designs.
Thanks! 👊
Hey Brad, awesome work brother! Heard about DesignFly when you had 1.9K MRR. Crazy growth and hope you keep growing man.
Which communities were you involved with? Would love to look around and see if I fit there.
Thanks so much man, I'm actually at $6k now! 🥳
Mostly IndieHackers and a private community from this course: https://www.productizeyourself.co
I'm planning on getting the course. Would you say the community is worth it? After finding out about Brett I was inspired!
Planning on launching soon a similar productized service only for video Ads.
Do you have Twitter? Would love to chat some more.
I'd definitely say the course and community are worth it. I hardly use Twitter, it would be best to connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-adkins-275a0981/
Just DMed you 👌
Man, I'm happy for you and I hope you'll continue get great success along the way but I cannot stop thinking about the fact that your company is the exact copy of designjoy(dot)co How can you copy another people's business idea and not give any credit to it or even feel bad about it? I'd genuinely love to have an answer from you to understand your point of you. And sorry if I am too honest here or that I might be missing out on something
The unlimited productized service is nothing new, and in fact, Designjoy was a copy of DesignPickle and Penji. The smartest entrepreneurs see what works, then copy it. Why do you think there are 1,000's of the same businesses all around you, all selling the same products and services? Here's a link to Brett from DesignJoy's course that teaches you how to replicate his business model. https://www.productizeyourself.co
Hi Brad, thank you so much for taking the time to answer my question. It's a great answer! Nothing else to say. I really wish you the best of lucks man!
Interesting insights!
I like how you created a product from what would have been a service business. I also noticed you have a lot of product led growth tactics on your website such as the customer support chat, the easy sign up flow, the info modals if you click self destruct on raosti, the product checklist etc.
However, you mention low conversion and self serve sign up and more heavy sales approach.
I'm wondering how you're evaluating which go to market strategy to use for this type of product - Product led Growth, Sales Led growth or more Product Led Sales approach? Happy to have a chat about it!
Great job!
Thanks!
That's awesome @bradkins, congrats on your success!
I see that you are using Intercome.
Have you converted customers using that or is it all happening on the call?
I have a similar service and I'm considering adding a chat.
Honestly, hardly anyone uses it. Only got a couple of demos booked through it. But it's always good to have a chat widget for faster support.
I see.
What's the conversion rate of your demos?
Did people ever buy without a demo?
3 of 4 clients signed on with no demo.
That sounds nice!
Thanks for sharing Brad!
Congratulations on generating so much MRR in your first month.
With a price point at $1,000 - $1,900 that would equate to approximately 4-5 customers. If these are genuine new leads and not prior contacts then that is a fantastic start.
I think it's always best to evaluate the viability of a product based upon the behaviour of strangers. It can sometimes be too easy to think that a product will be successful when you are selling to warm leads... these are good to get, but they can be quickly exhausted.
Friends, family and acquaintances are a biased cohort when it comes to feedback and true product-market fit.
Thanks so much! They were all new leads generated from Indie Hackers and a private community from a course I purchased recently. My next step will be to reach out to my Linkedin Network, but it's not necessary yet. I used to share stuff with friends and family all the time during my 10+ years of entreprenuership, but quickly learned they have no valuable input as they're usually not my target audience. Now I get more satisfaction from privately building and launching in public online, then telling my friends and family about it long after my success. Don't tell, show! 😁
Congrats Brad!!!!, Keep it up
Thanks! You know it. 💪
DUDE congrats! I'm willing to bet once you get movin, you'll nudge those prices up again. Your happiness / revenue sweet spot is likely around the $3k mark. I am 100% here for the productized service revolution. Love the Roasti LP too. It's delightfully evil, like willingly signing up for pain. Keep us updated on both!
Thanks so much, that's the best compliment I've gotten for Roasti.
And that's the plan for Designfly. 😉
Looks super legit man. Think the testimonials work nice for reassurance and the easily accessible faq addresses people’s concerns about design work right away
Thanks, I appreciate it!
Congratulations 🎉
Thank you! 😁
Looks awesome
Thanks 👊
Congratulations Brad, that's an insightful information.
Thank you, glad you found it helpful!
Great start!
Where else have you been posting?
Within private communities from courses I've purchased.
Has this been effective? Are people supportive?
Definitely!
amazing brad
Thanks!
Congratulations Brad!👍📈
Thank you. 👊
Let’s discuss collaboration possibility. We can cover software development for your clients.
Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-adkins-275a0981/
great insights!
👍
Congrats. This is amazing.
Thanks!
The landing page looks amazing!
If you don't mind me asking, how did you find your first customers? Were you already established in this field?
Thanks! Just networking on Indiehackers and private communities from courses I purchased.
Following the https://www.designjoy.co/ playbook!
Site looks slick. I have a couple suggestions. The double crossing portfolio scroll effect puts chrome through its paces and feels clunky (even on a $4,000 MacBook Pro).
A 35 lighthouse score means you should run your images through tinyjpg. You'll get a faster loading site for your customers and when you begin to index on google, you'll get ranked higher because Google loves those scores :).
LMK if you want to tack development services on to your offering I can help out.
best,
Parker
Thanks for the feedback! I've been procrastinating on optimizing the portfolio images, not the best reflection of my development skills. 😅
Site looks amazing, I actually had a subscription based unlimited graphic design business... Definitely will be fun for you and congrats on the launch and dealmaking, but you'll need to build some moat or just maintain a solid clientele to keep this going.
I got sick of the services world and had planned to maybe blend in a Canva style product; ultimately got busy, realised I wasnt passionate about the problem space and slowly wound down the graphics work we were doing
Thanks, I appreciate that! I took a break from graphics as well for the same reasons, my biggest passion is music so I focused on that for 4 years (Still doing all my own design and marketing), but I'm hoping this business will help sustain me while I can still work on my music career. With a lower price point, I'm hoping to build up a moat of clients before I continue scaling the price up.
I've seen this kind of model more and more lately.
But I don't get it quite yet.
✨outsourcing✨ - the game is labour arbitrage 😉
I actually manage all design requests myself. As a senior designer, I work fast! To give you an idea, I just designed a logo in 30mins.
Still.
Even if a client keeps you busy for 1/3 month, this would mean they basically get 10 days for $1500 (incl. weekends). That's a daily rate of $150. That's crazy cheap.
Is 10 days per client per month a fair estimation?
Also,
A lot of your questions are answered in this course, and will give you a better understanding of how this business model works: https://www.productizeyourself.co
India/South America/Nigeria via Upwork.
You have 1 designer in-house who vets their work until they are legit for sure. Or you operate loss making by having multiple designers do 1 clients brief until you have your reliable contractors.
No.
This comment was deleted 3 years ago.
I still can't get it. How do the unlimited requests work?
It’s simple! You add an unlimited number of design requests to a queue, then I work through them one at a time, delivering each request/revision within 2-3 business days. 👍
Wow man! inspiring. Would be great if you can shed some light on how can one get leads
Thanks! I've been utilizing various forms of social marketing (This post being one of them).
Thanks for reply. Do you run paid ads on social media or it is all organic?
Not yet, although I did manage to obtain 1 client from a paid ad on Product Hunt, the 3 that followed were all organic.
Congrats! Looking forward to more insights!
Appreciate it! I'll be posting more updates 👍
Sick! Congrats!
Thanks! 👊