From $0 to $4000/m with a "productized" consultancy
I reckon a lot of you are familiar with — and probably bored to death by — the idea of the "productized" consultancy by now. If not, DesignJoy is the most famous example of it, and possibly the one that kickstarted the entire craze.
As a long-time freelancer I'd been intrigued by the idea of "productizing" myself for a while. The commotion on everything Brett from DJ posted obviously did not help quell this interest. But I'd always figured this market was becoming oversaturated, and this niche too crowded.
After being laid off from my 9-to-5 some months ago though, I figured it was worth the risk to take the plunge, and see if I could carve out a tiny corner of this market for myself.
Enter, Incomparable, a tiny design studio helping you build big software.
You see, while the market was in fact quite saturated with the "agency subscription" model, I'd quickly come to the realization that these were largely focused on marketing design. Landing pages, email, copywriting, leaflets, etc. There was a gap in the market for a purely product-focused setup, backed by 10+ years of experience in the industry.
Which is exactly where I've managed to carve out a niche for myself (and my occasional front-end development partner).
What's worked so far
A Higher Price Point
Weird first thing to start with perhaps, but I've found it to ring true.
Product Designers are both in-demand, and expensive. A single Senior Product Designer hire runs you an average of $150,000 annually, or $12,500 monthly, in the United States. If you see a price point that's far below that — let's say $2,500 — wouldn't you also have your doubts about their capabilities?
This has been the best source of traffic bar none. Having been in the industry for a good amount of time, I had built up a relatively large LinkedIn network.
I made it my objective to post at least twice a week, sharing insights, new updates, and generally connecting with my audience. This was the source of the majority of prospects.
Design-focused Directories
Funnily enough, a large number of leads have been other design agencies. These agencies are often stellar in the marketing design department, but lack real product expertise.
Referral Rewards
I reached out to a good number of friends and ex-colleagues, and was put in touch with an even larger number of other interested folks as a result of this. To each and every one of these folks, I offered a 5-10% finder's fee for each referred client, on each monthly payment.
This blew up very quickly, and even lead to having to reject a number of potential clients.
What hasn't worked
X
Aside from my personal opinions on the platform's direction lately, it has also been straight up garbage for leads.
Admittedly, I started with 0 followers. And it's been a lot of sifting through refuse to find content worth engaging with, and to build an interested audience. Zero leads thus far.
On the to-do list
Between managing clients, dealing with occasional churn, and the insane response to referral rewards, there's a lot of things left unsaid and undone on the initial go-to-market plan.
- Cold emails to former and prospective clients: Definitely not my strong suit, but anecdotally worth the effort.
- Formalizing referral rewards: This is currently still very manual, mostly based on LinkedIn messaging. Absolutely open to suggestions for a software-based approach.
Hello,
Thanks for sharing. Web agency owner, here.
I like the idea of the "as a service" approach because it breaks away from the fixed budget mindset many clients have.
I'm curious about how this works out in real life. Platforms like Designjoy make it seem like everything's super quick and transactional, with tasks lasting a few hours. In our world, it's a lot about understanding clients, having meetings, and doing in-person workshops. How does this match up with your experience? I ask because, in my experience, there's a lot of back-and-forth and a lot of discussion involved with clients.
I would like to say one last thing, which concerns the use of the word "unlimited" in presenting this type of service. Clearly, it's an appealing aspect for a client to have unlimited requests and revisions. Personally, though, I've never really liked this kind of statement because it's not generally specified clearly that requests are unlimited only if the client is willing to pay more and more (because more requests take more time). I mention this because, generally, clients are very sensitive to the budget issue, and - putting myself in the client's shoes - this emphasis on "everything unlimited" would seem a bit misleading to me.
That said, I hope the best for your new business journey.
It can require a bit of massaging in the beginning to get tickets in the right shape. Basically, you want your clients to break tasks / tickets down into chunks, that you can quickly work through.
And while you work through one, they review another. And if any changes are needed, you can just re-add the "done" task to the backlog for further changes.
It also gives you the appearance of being busier than you truly are, as malicious as that sounds.
Love this post. I’m also interested in how client relations work during the course of a project, or part of a project. I’ve always experienced a lot of meetings and back and forth when dealing with clients. How does the refinement process work without them? How do you get clients to buy into your ideas before you start the actual design process?
Very interesting. I have recently been applying the same concept for my WordPress web design agency. Let's see how the adaptation of that concept to web design works.
My clients are mainly marketing agencies that need to outsource web design, so I found it interesting to be able to offer them a subscription service.
Thanks for being transparent.
I started with a $2490 price tag for my design subscription agency.
But I kept a trial period of 14 days only at $490.
I'm already getting clients within 3 weeks of launch, I signed up 3 clients.
I got a couple of leads from X but didn't convert.
I got my first client from LinkedIn, as I'm maintaining LinkedIn for almost a decade now.
Thanks for sharing!
I did definitely toy with pricing (e.g. running temporary discounts), but I found that a higher price point begets a higher quality of clients. For some reason, clients who came in at a lower price point actually demanded more.
I'm testing right now I would. All 3 of my clients showing promising collaboration, let's see after the initial subscription of $490 if they subscribe to the $2490 regular package.
That's when a real win will come. ❤️
Everyone makes this correlation between lower paying clients and demands
Yes true. We're all doing Trail and Error.
What does "productized consultancy" mean?
Subscription for freelance services?
Effectively, yes. Turning your consultancy / freelancing into a "product" that one can subscribe to.
Great post! I'm doing the same right now with my web agency. The main gripe of my usual project-based work was that I've spent roughly 25% of my time on client meetings and communication. That's a lot!
Growing the business without a huge network is not easy though.
Oh, you have a typo in your pricing section. "Zero billabe hours." Quite an important section so rather have it clean :)
the big problem with project based work is that they're always rushing and constantly wanting to have meetings. and little do they know that it just wastes time.
also, hello from the productized yourself community 👋
100% true I also launched a productized version of my consulting IT service. Honestly, I don't know if this will work as my customers organize dozens of meeting s for nothing ... It's part of the culture/job to be in the meetings...
Is there a way you explain to clients, without being insulting, that tons of meetings are a waste of time and that the Productized way creates better outcomes for clients? Is there a way to hybridize and offer some face time with clients?
Here's what I would say.
"We shouldn't have more than one meeting per week. Each meeting creates time away from completing the actual task, so limiting my meetings to once a week is optimal for my productivity. Let me know what day and time of the week best suits you."
Sup mate, I'm already quite active on discord :D
Thanks for highlighting that! Definitely a critical section.
Yeah, I would definitely say so!
I agree with your approach on LinkedIn.I am not good on social media and I belive that the genuine content like LinkedIn is actually a more effective platform, though it depends on the actual product. I am not sure if you advocate for high price tag just because that's the market. I think, and this is how I work too, that one needs to prove they are worth the risk or investment to pay them so much. Research needs to be done before justifying such price tag. I found that with marketing agencies it is very challanging since they all speak the same words of 'give me my fees and set aside 10's of thousands of dollars so we can check the market to see which ad performs best'.Seriously? If they know their job I don't think it is what I expect them to do.
As I prefer building relationships I prefer the lower chergers and and growing with them.I think it creates mutual loyalty. So overall I like your approach. Very much!
Cold emails to past connections is a diamond in the make! You will be surprised how amazingly your reputation will help!! Good luck!!!
Appreciate the feedback.
Do you have any pointers on cold emails, by any chance? Would love to learn more.
No problems!
Re cold emails - Looking at the list I would seperate it to 2 main lists. One is those strong connections that will definitley remember you (by your name) and have good experience working with you in the past. Those require an individually written email to update them on your new venture.
Second list is those that you may not feel as confident putting in the list number 1 ;-).
This list can be significantly longer than list 1 and a generic (still it has to sound personal) email letting them know you moved on.
On a related note: please make sure you don't sound like you are convincing them to leave your past place of work and move to you. That can be considered a breach of your past restrictive cevenant in your previous employment place.
Happy to be more specific if you need help.
Given your solution - not surprised at LinkedIn. I am hoping to start learning more about LinkedIn marketing since my latest project focuses heavily on the same market as LinkedIn. Any learnings that really worked well for you on LinkedIn posts?
Love these bullet points. I wouldn't have guessed or assumed many of these.
• Links go in the comments, not the body of the post. This seriously affects engagement.
Didn't know this.
•LinkedIn users love emoji-numbered lists.
Facts.
Congrats man, website looks crazy!
Much appreciated!
Thanks for sharing!
Really interested to see LinkedIn vs X. I feel like Twitter/X was the place for creators/consultants to be and build a following but I've seen a shift to LinkedIn. Like you, personal bias aside I just don't see/get much value from checking X like I used to.
I'm (admittedly) pretty bad at social media, but was looking for a channel to invest in and will likely try LinkedIn as well (I do SEO, so it's different but the trend you're seeing rings true for me).
I'm very impressed. I've dropped you a Linekdin connect. I've got something similar I've set up but struggled to A)Manage the expectations of the client and B)Outsource design (I can do it but eventually this is needed to scale and focus on marketing
I like how you approach to services you provide. I was thinking how to do it for backend software services. Not sure If It works or not:)
I hope things are going well on your side!
Can you share some design directories that you shared your startup?
Hi Paul,
That's a good win. I also have similar expertise in product design. But my productized design service is focused on the marketing side.
After dealing with 3 clients, I understood I should focus more on product design.
Here's my website https://www.pentaclay.com
Hey Paul,
I love your story man! Thanks for sharing this.
I currently run this site featuring indie founders like yourself, and I would love to be able to share your story and promote your business on my site.
We have been featured on the Indie Hackers newsletter, our site has 30,000 monthly average visits and currently at 4,000 newsletter subscribers.
You can check out my website: indiehustle.co
We do not charge anything for the feature.
Would you be interested in answering just a few questions for the feature?
Cheers,
AJ
Hi there Paul, I love the vision. I'm currently building a pool of contractors and productized agencies to help me with some web dev projects in the future. Would you mind filling out this agency form, I think Incomparable might be a good fit. The form will ask things like portfolio, pricing, email, etc: https://airtable.com/app9H0WmdT7g4CV7v/pagEQCG4lxIFCwRKN/form
Thanks, wishing all the best!
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Congrats on your traction! Its hard to find a profitable niche and it seems you've managed to do just that. I also love the idea of having a developer as an add on. Surely you considered a 3-tier pricing model for 3 personas/use cases, if at least for price anchoring purposes. Yet you only have one. I find it refreshingly original but thoughts on why you did that?
Congrats! I have a lot of the same feelings about the space, but am also pretty jazzed about the business model in general. From my experience, even with a crowded / saturated market, the am out of pain points in freelancing that are eliminated by condensing the offering down to a set time period and putting some of the responsibility on the client for having their @#^% together (or them paying when they don't) is huge.
As far as affiliate/referrals go I highly suggest you check out http://www.outseta.com/?via=brian (affiliate link, so just drop the query param if you'd rather). They have an integration with getrewardful.com which is automatically linked to all your subscriptions. In addition to covering all the bases in managing your subscription. Really great platform and a cool company to boot. I use them for my own as well as all my clients who need subscription functionality.
You've done a great job carving out a niche for yourself in the product-focused design industry. Your higher price point reflects your expertise, and leveraging LinkedIn and design directories for lead generation is smart. Offering referral rewards has been successful, but finding a software-based approach would be more efficient. Consider cold emails to former and prospective clients, and keep refining your strategy to grow your business.
Congratulations on the success with LinkedIn!
How long have you been posting on X? Maybe once you have LinkedIn leads coming in consistently and you can place that channel in "maintenance mode", you can switch your focus to X for a few months before deciding whether or not it's worth it for you.
I'm still very new to this and I'm just starting out but there are a number of designers getting leads from showing work and giving design feedback/quick redesigns.
Who is your target market on Linkedin? I always had a tough time there because every post i saw felt so...fake and obvious ploy for attention. Do you connect and then message or did you pay for the premium plan?
People underestimate the power of referrals. They're so cared of losing 5-15%, but they seem to be okay not having a single client for weeks 🥴.
What did you use for the referral program? Did you share a code with them or have them join a affiliate partner portal?
if you ever need a developer reach out to me on @heykandoi on X, or check linkedin abhishek-kandoi, or email abhikandoi2000 on gmail
Hi Paul, your business model, "productized" consultancy, is so inspiring to me!
I'm also running my technical consultancy. I was quite struggling to build a transparent payment structure.
Let me ask some questions.
I agree with x being terrible for leads. If You search for other content in your niche, You will find scraps...
IH post after IH post, LinkedIn seems to be a no-regret move for distribution. Thanks for your insights Paul!
Great job, Paul! Your story of taking a productized consultancy from $0 to $4000/m is inspiring and shows the power of leveraging your expertise. Keep up the awesome work!
Design-focused Directories
I would love to know about the directories, can you share some directories or elaborate on this one?
I'm running my design subscription agency https://www.pentaclay.com
Would love to take your advice.
Congrats Paul, I'm a UI/UX designer and currently also run a productized service subscription. Not sure if you're also based in the Netherlands? Your name sounds Dutch. I'm Dutch as well. Your tips are useful. I'd love to connect. Is there any way I could reach you?
Your planned actions, including investigating cold emails and formalising the referral rewards programme, demonstrate a proactive approach to growing and refining your business strategy.
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