#idea-validation Hey, IH 👋!
#idea-validation
Hey, IH 👋! I've joined IH a few months ago but this is my 1st post.
Today, I've just come up with an idea about an outsourcing platform with multiple services such as design, development, marketing, etc.. that will help people to easily launch their business with just an idea.
For the MVP, I'm thinking to go with design and development first. So is this helpful for you? And would you use this if those services come at an affordable price?
Thanks in advance!
Note that you've described a digital agency, of which there are many.
Thanks for reply. Yes but I think not many of them have an all-in-one platform like I just describe. Also, I've tried many agencies and none of them can provide me a flexible and customizable way to build a product from just an idea
How many agencies have you engaged with and what are you asking them?
I'm curious because I can't think of an agency that couldn't provide what you are asking for.
One thing I'd like to point out: many agency pricing models are not supportive of the lean method of building software. If you think about you as a developer build, you can iterate as often as you want until you find the right recipe. This is how EVERYONE needs to build, but the agency model doesn't facilitate that. Typically, agencies ask for the requirements, they give you a price, and they build what you ask for. This is problematic to me, because you can't really learn anything and apply feedback until parts of the application exist.
Solve this problem, and I'll funnel a bunch of traffic to you.
So, something like an on-demand rapid-prototyping team?
Like, you could pay $X/week or month and get a PM, a full stack dev, and a designer to design and build out products for you.
The limiting factor would be the capital requirements. Not a lot of people with ideas can afford to pay what that would cost.
Still, this could be a lot faster to start and more affordable than building a team from scratch for people who are serious about getting to product market fit.
We offer something similar @ https://formico.io, though we've been doing more traditional agency-style gigs up to this point.
With the right marketing and a lot of good thinking on the management side it could work.
https://gigster.com/ is kind of similar as well, but they seem to be focusing more on enterprise.
What you described is exactly the problem. I work with a number of non-technical founders that can put $5-10k to bring their idea to market. I use tools like Bubble to bring the cost down, and adjust my pricing model such that a customer can go through multiple iterations and releases within their budget. That's great, but I'm only one person, and I do it out of kindness, not for profitability.
If someone were to build an agency with this type of model, that may be very low-margin work that can solve some big problems. Not sure if it's worth solving if you're looking to make tons of money.
Yea, you'd need some kind of secret sauce to make it work.
Probably at least two of:
None of those would be easy problems to solve.
Thanks a lot for your reply. Yes, I agree with you and I think many people also facing that problem. In my case (my previous project), I've to built an in-house development team for that. So I'm still thinking solution for it