Productized Services. Anyone working on one?
In the last months I've also been building different side-projects, with the intention of sharpening and acquiring new skills and testing ideas on the market, and my end goal is to obviously stop selling my time :)
Quick story short: I was very attracted by the business model behind a productized service (since I have some experience with SOPs and business system improvement) and decided to build an MVP around it this month.
Now I have some candidate business ideas, and that's where I'd love to listen to your thoughts.
As I searched for more info on productized services, I stumbled at this excellent post from Lead Cookie's @JakeJorgovan (https://jake-jorgovan.com/blog/lessons-learned-from-6-months-of-advising-with-co-founder-of-wp-curve-alex-mcclafferty) highlighting some lessons learned from Alex McClafferty (@productizedotco / WP Curve).
One sentence caught my attention: "If you can’t sell to 3-5 people within your network, then you probably don’t have a great value proposition or you are playing with an idea that is outside of your core competencies."
It is clear that using our own network is one of the fastest ways to get early customers, and by this line of thought I am tempted to focus on the real estate industry, where I already have many previous clients and connections.
But what if there is no clear need (demand) among my network? Would you rather invest more time on customer discovery and interviewing a group of contacts you are closer to, or move to a more promising and "needy" niche? What is the shortest way to acquiring early customers?
PS: I'm also putting together a list of founders of productized services to connect with one-on-one. Would love to learn from you guys :)
How do I find these first 5-10 members?
I built a site that finds book recommendations from tweets using Grok's X Search API
Shameless plug but here is my free book you can start with: www.productizebook.co
I will release my other free book tonight, specifically on marketing (and how to market when you have no audience). It will be a non-bs book with tons of actionable content.
I've read and recommend www.productizebook.co, and can't wait to see your next one tonight! A big thank you for all the work and content you've been putting out there @Vinrob
Thanks for the heads up on this one @genfurukawa
@DaniloKreimer - to answer your questions.
But what if there is no clear need (demand) among my network?
Either find a new offer or find a new market, or both.
Would you rather invest more time on customer discovery and interviewing a group of contacts you are closer to, or move to a more promising and "needy" niche?
I guess this is more of a personal question and will be driven by: your urgency to get traction, your interest in the market you're going to serve and lots more individual motivators. Promising is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. Personally, I like to really understand my customers, the language they use and the problem they think they're solving versus the one they are solving, but everyone's different I guess :)
What is the shortest way to acquiring early customers?
Paying for them. It's going to be the fastest way to acquire customers versus all other channels because you can turn on acquisition immediately.
Thanks a lot Alex, not only for the feedback but also for all the valuable content you've been putting out there. You can be sure I'll contact you personally once I get the whole thing moving :)
I'm trying to build out low friction software development help for individuals or small companies/startups with https://personal-cto.com . Most of my friends are from the development side of things too though so not necessarily potential customers, I would more rely on them being part of the offering (e.g. by connecting the right people). Would love to talk more about productizing services though 👋
Sure, PM me where I can reach you :)
I've built a traditional cybersecurity consulting company and exited in 2019. Currently, I'm productizing some of the same cybersecurity services I used to sell back then. See Compliiant(.)io.
Just launched my productized service biz recently! Really excited about the business model - so much more scalable than traditional service-based businesses. Excited to continue connecting with the community!
I'd highly recommend Alex McClafferty and Productize.co as you already mentioned....he has a free course on his site (you can just opt in to receive access for free). there is a ton of valuable content available for free, and an upsell to the course (coaching calls and slack group) for those looking for that. but that's a solid way to start, particularly considering the credibility of background and experience in co-founding WPCurve, one of the initial successful companies of the productized business model.
Subscribed! Alex has walked the walk, the best teacher you can ask for.
Nice insight. It certainly requires more time and effort to build trust with new contacts than reaching out to an existing network, but it's true it is not a non-negotiable condition to sell @Zencentric
You might want to check out @Vinrob's http://www.productizematrix.co.
Already did, thanks @lfleischer!
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Thanks for the input, and great landing page btw!