So we're back to the start, just with a little better starting position.
The NDA project is back on track. This made already brought x2 revenue compared to failed November.
After getting 4 emails from $60 on ads, getting a dozen interested QAs here and even a promise for presentation to local ~1k employee software agency by its VP we dumped the QA recorder.
Main reasons:
- No one googles it
- Competition exists, but pretty much dead
- DOM session recording has some issues with accuracy. Videos + console and network logs are a way better approach.
- Most companies don't want even test sessions to leave their company (probably because of NDAs).
- We simply don't have enough money to get enough traction.
So we're back to the initial idea with the web dev agency.
What we have now:
- Not bad almost passive income from the NDA project. I'll be working on it on urgencies + helping to onboard the hired developer, probably only on the deepest and hardest parts of the project cause he's doing a great job already. The rest of the team is free.
- Sold one of the cofounders to a recently funded startup from our network. That gives growth opportunity as they plan to expand the dev team in February and are very interested in Ukrainian developers. This also provides good baseline income to focus more on growth than on making money now.
- Promised to find a full-time Java freelancer for a short time job to the same client. We were willing to do it for free, just to build the relationships, but the client insisted on paying us if we find someone good enough.
- Passed an opportunity to out-staff everyone to a larger company, also from the network. This would've given us much better income than on 9-5s, but would also put an end to all the growth opportunities. They made it very clear that they are interested in us as great developers, but can't trust us to build a team for them in Ukraine. And they have around 20 open developer positions, so not even close to our scale.
- We have some network in bigger companies, but at the current stage we are too small doing business with them, we can only provide some non-coding value in exchange for mentorship.
- Our good friend, also a developer/PM is moving from Poland to Germany. Quite possibly he can get us some introductions there.
Overall, income-wise our start is much better now.
Next steps:
- Finally register the company. The sole proprietorship isn't enough and now we really need it for many things.
- Open a bank account for it (not straightforward for Ukrainians with an Estonian company).
- Find a new office. Co-renting with another company is a disaster. Zero focus and we're running out of space. Almost done and we have a blueprint for the future - business center directory, diesel, and phone.
- Since we don't really have a non-NDA relevant portfolio - start on Upwork and similar marketplaces to land "tier 0" clients. It's mostly to get leads, referrals and build a few projects for the portfolio, not income. 10 years ago, in my previous business, we even had enough margin on Elance for hiring. Now things seem a little more complicated, but probably we can figure something out.
- Work on building relationships with bigger agencies, preferably not Ukrainian.
The end goal of this 6 months stage:
- Build a relevant portfolio of 3-4 projects for improving odds with cold emailing.
- Grow our network of clients/referrals with 10+ smaller clients.
- Hire 1-3 developers to extend our delivery capacity while being profitable.
- Get some sort of sales presence in higher-economy regions like the US, Germany, Israel, UK, etc. A man-in-the-middle in form of salesman or another agency would be great for now.
The NDA project is back on track. This made already brought x2 revenue compared to failed November.
After getting 4 emails from $60 on ads, getting a dozen interested QAs here and even a promise for presentation to local ~1k employee software agency by its VP we dumped the QA recorder.
Main reasons:
- No one googles it
- Competition exists, but pretty much dead
- DOM session recording has some issues with accuracy. Videos + console and network logs are a way better approach.
- Most companies don't want even test sessions to leave their company (probably because of NDAs).
- We simply don't have enough money to get enough traction.
So we're back to the initial idea with the web dev agency.
What we have now:
- Not bad almost passive income from the NDA project. I'll be working on it on urgencies + helping to onboard the hired developer, probably only on the deepest and hardest parts of the project cause he's doing a great job already. The rest of the team is free.
- Sold one of the cofounders to a recently funded startup from our network. That gives growth opportunity as they plan to expand the dev team in February and are very interested in Ukrainian developers. This also provides good baseline income to focus more on growth than on making money now.
- Promised to find a full-time Java freelancer for a short time job to the same client. We were willing to do it for free, just to build the relationships, but the client insisted on paying us if we find someone good enough.
- Passed an opportunity to out-staff everyone to a larger company, also from the network. This would've given us much better income than on 9-5s, but would also put an end to all the growth opportunities. They made it very clear that they are interested in us as great developers, but can't trust us to build a team for them in Ukraine. And they have around 20 open developer positions, so not even close to our scale.
- We have some network in bigger companies, but at the current stage we are too small doing business with them, we can only provide some non-coding value in exchange for mentorship.
- Our good friend, also a developer/PM is moving from Poland to Germany. Quite possibly he can get us some introductions there.
Overall, income-wise our start is much better now.
Next steps:
- Finally register the company. The sole proprietorship isn't enough and now we really need it for many things.
- Open a bank account for it (not straightforward for Ukrainians with an Estonian company).
- Find a new office. Co-renting with another company is a disaster. Zero focus and we're running out of space. Almost done and we have a blueprint for the future - business center directory, diesel, and phone.
- Since we don't really have a non-NDA relevant portfolio - start on Upwork and similar marketplaces to land "tier 0" clients. It's mostly to get leads, referrals and build a few projects for the portfolio, not income. 10 years ago, in my previous business, we even had enough margin on Elance for hiring. Now things seem a little more complicated, but probably we can figure something out.
- Work on building relationships with bigger agencies, preferably not Ukrainian.
The end goal of this 6 months stage:
- Build a relevant portfolio of 3-4 projects for improving odds with cold emailing.
- Grow our network of clients/referrals with 10+ smaller clients.
- Hire 1-3 developers to extend our delivery capacity while being profitable.
- Get some sort of sales presence in higher-economy regions like the US, Germany, Israel, UK, etc. A man-in-the-middle in form of salesman or another agency would be great for now.
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