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Ask HN: Small dev agency. How to grow our business?

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Re: Ask HN: Small dev agency. How to grow our business?

#21

Post by redsymbol »

noobrunner wrote: post #5
redsymbol wrote: post #3

If you are getting more job requests than you can handle, have you considered just raising your rates? Increase it by 10% every few weeks, for example, until you are not having to turn away good jobs. You can always decrease again if you overshoot.

Good point! Yes, we have increased our rates but not kept them very high. I guess that's one of the reason potential clients continue to approach us. I think we are at a point where it makes sense to grow our team, but there are these constraints about wages etc as I mentioned in my description. We want to be as thoughtful and smart about hiring as possible. We are currently growing but we want to make sure whatever…

You might be surprised at how many clients continue to approach you even as your rates increase. In fact, there have been many examples in which people in your situation got MORE offers for work as they increased their rates - apparently it can make you appear higher quality ("they must be great if they charge this much!")

That may or may not happen in your case, but it is worth testing - especially because that higher income will make it MUCH MUCH easier to grow your team.

Best of luck!

Re: Ask HN: Small dev agency. How to grow our business?

#22

Post by noobrunner »

redsymbol wrote: post #21
noobrunner wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point! Yes, we have increased our rates but not kept them very high. I guess that's one of the reason potential clients continue to approach us. I think we are at a point where it makes sense to grow our team, but there are these constraints about wages etc as I mentioned in my description. We want to be as thoughtful and smart about hiring as possible. We are currently growing but we want to make sure whatever…

You might be surprised at how many clients continue to approach you even as your rates increase. In fact, there have been many examples in which people in your situation got MORE offers for work as they increased their rates - apparently it can make you appear higher quality ("they must be great if they charge this much!") That may or may not happen in your case, but it is worth testing - especially because that high…

Thank you. that is a great insight.

Re: Ask HN: Small dev agency. How to grow our business?

#23

Post by noobrunner »

stayux wrote: post #20

Last year I closed my Web-dev company after 16 years + of work. My somewhat "subjective" view on your questions: 1.You must own your sells and communication channels. Depending on third party platform is non reliable. 2.Do your business math, there is always a risk factor in hiring/growing your team beforehand. 3.If I am in your place, I will focus on being the best at what you do now and care for expanding the busin…

Thanks. Any tips on how to build sales and communication channels? What worked best for you and what should we not waste our time on?

Re: Ask HN: Small dev agency. How to grow our business?

#24

Post by stayux »

noobrunner wrote: post #23
stayux wrote: post #20

Last year I closed my Web-dev company after 16 years + of work. My somewhat "subjective" view on your questions: 1.You must own your sells and communication channels. Depending on third party platform is non reliable. 2.Do your business math, there is always a risk factor in hiring/growing your team beforehand. 3.If I am in your place, I will focus on being the best at what you do now and care for expanding the busin…

Thanks. Any tips on how to build sales and communication channels? What worked best for you and what should we not waste our time on?

Choosing clients with potential business growth and delivering "what they need the most" has worked well for me and my company.

Keep two or three of those types of clients with longterm goal in mind.

For short term projects focus on speed of completion and ROI. Time is money.

Re: Ask HN: Small dev agency. How to grow our business?

#25

Post by noobrunner »

noodle wrote: post #18

> Right now, almost all the clients that we acquire are through Upwork. We are a bit nervous about the risk of getting kicked from the platform in the future for any reason. Not that we are doing anything that violates their terms, but just in case. We don't want to be over-reliant on one channel. What are our alternatives? I know few other sites like Fiverr, Freelancer, etc., but supposedly they are not that great i…

Thank you for the advice. Your suggestions on areas to focus on and SEO makes lot sense. I guess we have quite a bit of thinking and planning to do :) Glad that I am asking for advice here

Re: Ask HN: Small dev agency. How to grow our business?

#26

Post by noobrunner »

mooreds wrote: post #17

> What are our alternatives? referrals, referrals, referrals. Always be asking if anyone knows anyone needing your help. Also, consider productized consulting. At the least, consider hosting, that can be a good way to make money while you sleep. Also makes you more of a one-stop shop, which can be appealing to clients.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by productized consulting and hosting? Thanks

Re: Ask HN: Small dev agency. How to grow our business?

#27

Post by Grustaf »

redsymbol wrote: post #3

If you are getting more job requests than you can handle, have you considered just raising your rates? Increase it by 10% every few weeks, for example, until you are not having to turn away good jobs. You can always decrease again if you overshoot.

You'll probably make more money by outsourcing the work you can't handle, or hire more people. If you want to grow the business I mean.

Re: Ask HN: Small dev agency. How to grow our business?

#28

Post by mercer »

Grustaf wrote: post #27
redsymbol wrote: post #3

If you are getting more job requests than you can handle, have you considered just raising your rates? Increase it by 10% every few weeks, for example, until you are not having to turn away good jobs. You can always decrease again if you overshoot.

You'll probably make more money by outsourcing the work you can't handle, or hire more people. If you want to grow the business I mean.

While that's definitely a valid approach, it does have the downside of making you more of a manager. I've done both, but eventually stuck with raising my rates (for now) because I much prefer working on some interesting projects myself over managing others. And because I tend to do full-stack stuff (including server management and often even UI/UX and some degree of product development), it's varied enough.

Re: Ask HN: Small dev agency. How to grow our business?

#29

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

Have you read Erik Dietrich's Developer Hegemony?[1]

Perhaps a good way to grow is to pivot into his idea of an efficiencier firm, and you may be in a unique position to do so. It means you take on partners instead of employees, and completely bypass the need for a management structure. A bit like a law firm, but the big challenge is of course to convince clients that it's worth paying you like they pay their lawyers, and not like code monkeys.

1. https://daedtech.com/

Re: Ask HN: Small dev agency. How to grow our business?

#30

Post by lbriner »

It sounds like there is a book here somebody can possible recommend. Some of my own experience:

a) What are your current clients getting you to do? If you are doing lots of cheap web dev projects, you might not be able to scale reliably since it is a crowded market, even though you can survive as a small company with a very small slice of the market. b) Are you able to specialise or otherwise increase the quality/size of your work to be more suited to people with more money who wil pay more for that better work? This will separate you from the crowd - there are plenty of people who can make a decent website template for $100 online but not many who can provide real expertise for that kind of money c) The type of work you do will dicatate who you need and what kind of company structure will work. If you can setup so that you have a larger number of less skilled/cheaper employees and a small number of people who can do the difficult bit then you can get good bandwidth. If you are a specialist, you might be better charging much more money and only employing a small number of really expert developers. d) Recruitment is a whole other book. It is hard to know someone's ability until you get them to work for you. Start with contract work with a view to permanent if they prove themselves with good communication, good work ethic, high quality work etc. e) In terms of locations, there is no trick to finding cheap good developers otherwise everyone would do it. Depending on your location (US?) Eastern Europe would probably be the best cultural fit for a reasonbale rate. South America, Vietnam, Thailand might be less cultural fit but a bit cheaper. Some other countries like India and Pakistan might be even cheaper but the cultural divide is wider and you might struggle more with communicating with each other.

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