Lessons from starting a design-as-a-service startup
indiehackers.com
indiehackers.com
At the time of comment I'd read the title and "Two months ago" in the article's first sentence. If anything my comment was technically off topic.
I have been doing piece work for the last few years rather than hourly work. I typically get paid by the page or by the word. I am more comfortable with that than with charging by the hour. For one thing, it gives me a clear means to improve my hourly rate without wondering if I am a con artist bilking people: just get better and faster. Their price remains the same. My de facto hourly wage goes up.
I have been asked to submit a bid to a local organization that needs help with their websites. I am thinking of charging a monthly retainer for being the admin and a per page fee for creating new content as needed.
I wasn't sure if that made sense. I haven't seen it done that way before. But that is very in line with what you are describing.
Now, I just need more customers willing to pay me X amount for a page of content for their site. And to define the scope of what constitutes a page of content.
I'm one of those who prefers fixed price bids to hourly/daily. I like to be able to say "I will do X and it will cost you $Y." I lose my shirt occasionally but that gives me more incentive to improve my quoting skills :-)
100% agree with you, it is a new concept. The $15k figure is what we made so far in February. It still has to be fully proven. Right now our best clients are startups that require a lot of graphic design work mostly for their Instagram and Facebook pages (banners, infographics) but I am expecting a higher churn for clients that only need some landing pages or some logos. We are happy to work for everyone right now though!
Websites monetizing with ads generally sell for only around 12 months revenue, and apps generally sell for around 6 months, because of the volatility in users/downloads and uncertainty in the markets.
Regardless, the poster you replied to was making the point (I think) that it's a little early to say you're making 'X-monthly' revenue when you're basing it on 1 or 2 months (which even the OP agreed with).
I only reach our customers via a few channels and mostly do content marketing but most of it is word of mouth.
We have not yet any referral or affiliate system in place but we are building one for our v3 which should come end of this month.
We had our first 10 subscribers with direct sales.
I guess the hard part would be to get on podcasts with a sizeable audience.
I've found that in my startup, even though it's small, it can be easy to get free marketing. I think many people assume that journalists have a backlog of articles and they ignore their emails with suggestions. And perhaps that's true for big ones. We got free press simply by searching the archives or a few local papers, finding a journalist that had written a similar article and reaching out through social media. They are paid to create content, therefore if you get in touch with easy to create content (you are happy to help write/edit, make yourself available at a moments notice) getting an article written about you isn't tough.
You get unlimited requests. But if they're busy, they're busy. It might be 5 days before they get your request completed, and that's iteration one. And nothing's saying they'll work on multiple requests simultaneously, although they might.
Services like this farm out 99% of the work to virtual assistants in the Philippines, Vietnam, etc.
Thank you. This was just what I was looking for.
I get that you can't do what you love and expect to make money. But this feels like it's gone too far. It seems like true greatness and satisfaction requires just a little bit of intent above just making easy money. I guess if easy money is your only goal this would be satisfying.
I think your setting yourself up for some disappointment with that one.
Moderate wealth certainly means more freedom than little to no wealth.
Edit: I just recalled a quora question a while back when somebody asked about the drawbacks of being a billionaire compared to a millionaire. One perspective was that while a millionaire could go for a Sunday drive in a nice car with the spouse and kids at the drop of a hat, a billionaire may have to schedule their transportation around security parameters and travel with bodyguards because their wealth can make them a target. So in some ways, too much money can make life less free.
I'm referring to a lifetime of what I've seen, perhaps your life experience is different.
That’s how I think OP is interpreting it, not as money is a panacea for a fulling life. But money enables you pursue many things that a person with little money can.
That quantity is large enough that getting there changes you. Choose wisely.
However, having extra money makes so many things less stressful. When I was younger and poorer, car trouble was a huge stress. Did I have enough money to fix it? What was I going to cut out? Would I wreck the car, costing me more money, if I keep driving it?
Now, I just take the car to the shop and don't even think about it. Hungry and see a good restaurant? Just go. Get in a minor accident, or get a parking ticket? No big deal, doesn't ruin the day.
I mean, money certainly is still a factor in decisions, but there are a LOT of decisions that cost a small enough amount of money that you don't worry about it. Everyone has a level where, if things are cheaper than that, they don't worry about it; as you get more money, more and more things fall into that category.
Money doesn’t help you make the best life choices but it expands the spectrum of possible life choices.
Freedom from financial worry and working for people you would avoid except for money is the sort of freedom most people don't have.
And while you might argue I don't know enough people with "money", I can assure you that isn't true. Its unfortunate some people with serious financial resources have an unhealthy relationship with money/life but that is far from everyone.
While not everyone gets to work on what they love, you can also take the mindset of finding something that you can love to work on.
Why does everything need to be "True greatness and satisfaction?" Why can't it simply about just paying the bills?
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."
We have this rule because when people don't do this, it leads to shallower, more predictable discussion. It does take a bit of conscious readjustment to run one's posts through at least one pass of this process, but if you do you'll soon notice how much better they become, and/or possibly also fewer. Either way, signal/noise goes up.