Moving from freelancing to productized service. Got my first customer! 3k MRR
I've been freelancing for some years now working as a senior software developer. I mostly develop web applications as a full-stack developer (Laravel/Vue/TailwindCSS).
Last month I decided to move towards productized services. I always try to earn more and work less and I want to try this business model.
Today I'm proud to say I signed my first customer for 3K MRR! Although this was an old client I used to work for I still am happy that businesses are willing to work this way.
One of the reasons I also want to try productized service is that I've noticed I'm extremely fast when it comes to front-end development. Most companies don't use systems to build their front ends which makes them reinvent the wheel every time.
After this small achievement, I decided to write a landing page for this as well.
My next goal is to sign a customer that is not familiar with me yet.
I have decided to focus mainly on front-end development (Vue/TailwindCSS) as productized service.
Any feedback on the landing page is much appreciated :-)
Really impressive Sjor! How do plan to market it btw?
I just launched my design subscription service - Slingshot Design
(https://www.slingshotdesign.co). Trying to get my first client.
Really cool stuff man, congrats!
Are you hiring other people to take on those projects? Or for now, are you doing it yourself?
Thanks man. So far I'm doing the work myself. But if it will be too much I start delegating to other freelancers.
Just a small nit I noticed:
"That’s why I don’t deliver HTML or CSS. I deliver business value for you so you can earn more moneyss."
Should probably be:
"That’s why I don’t deliver HTML or CSS. I deliver business value for you so your business can generate more revenue."
Well, I think the landing page definitely needs some work on the design and communication front - it's a bit tough because you're most likely not a designer or copywriter, but I'd definitely put some work in there. I do think this page is good to use as a "business card" to send to people you have already spoken to as it does communicate the service well, but I wouldn't drive cold traffic to it! Here's one guy who makes over 1M ARR from his productized service, so well done https://www.designjoy.co/
Thanks for your feedback. I will mostly focus on cold outreach and use the website as a business card indeed. However, I will improve the copy in the upcoming time. And I definitely took some inspiration from designjoy to switch to productized service!
Also, what does the experience look like for clients? Is it just standard freelance, do you have some sort of dashboard/tracker, etc
Good question. I use Notion to track all issues unless the client prefers something else (JIRA e.g.).
It would be good to really productize the whole experience from a-z, instead of just the pricing
Good bezig Sjors! Badminton je nog?
Groetjes Luuk Botzen ^.^
Hey Luuk, deze zag ik niet aankomen, grappig! M'n badminton carriere is lang geleden gestopt. Nu meer bezig met ondernemen en development!
Could you please share details about your productized service ?
I convert UI designs into actual HTML & CSS code with Vue and TailwindCSS. It's not completely productized but since I am really fast with this I'm able to turn designs into code quite fast.
The productized part is that I can reuse a lot of Vue components with basic styling and enhance them with specific styling according to design.
Good to hear about your capability with Vue and Tailwind.
But I don't understand how do you arrive at MRR ?
Because the customer don't pay you every month. They pay you for a service and then stop paying once they are done converting all designs.
This customer has ongoing development for several applications in his company. So he expects to hire me for at least a couple of months!