17
Flux
5y

Ok so to recap, we had shit beginning. We couldn't find client like 3 months and thank god that we agreed that we don't register the firm right away. If we did we would be broke a long time ago.

We found first client and he wanted to build some scrapers with gui. So me being BackEnd developer I created API for scraping (boredom) and my friend created website for that api and I just created gui that displays that site. The project was about 1200$. And since there are 3 of us we splited it into 3x400$.

After that it was again really hard to find clients again. We thought of quitting and just going to uni or something but we really didn't want to and anyways we needed to get money for uni ourselfs if we wanted to go.

So we said that as we are not paying anything and not losing money we will continue as long as we can.

And after we managed to get a hold of it and now we have 2 clients and after we finish them we have 2 more.

So I think the most important thing is that you help your coworkers. My friend who finds clients had a rough time at the beggining as I mentioned. So all 3 of us got together and started spamming people for few weeks. That's how we found our first client.

So now we are running. Not a milion dollar company but we are happy that we are doing what we love and that we have money doing it. We aim higher but we don't want to hurry and screw things up as we are young still.

Also thank you for getting interested after 300 days :)

Comments
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  • 1
    I'm genuinely interested in how you got the clients.
    You mentioned that you will get two more after the first two clients, but how?
    You mentioned that you spammed clients and one of them picked up, but how?
    You mentioned that you have two clients now. How did you get the second client?
  • 1
    @-ANGRY-CLIENT-

    Ok, so what we do now is we are creating programs for cafes and fast food "restoraunts". So we found one caffe as client because we go there to chat and code so we asked boss once if he wanted that software (adding products to tables and charging and so on) as we mostly have cheap cafes that don't have that. And across the road was a fast food kind of a restaurant and we asked them. That are two clients now. And when i said 2 more after this i really meant two projects for one client. It is also a caffe and he asked for us to build same software but with music player (don't ask me why he isn't using classic players).
  • 2
    @-ANGRY-CLIENT-

    In my country you really don't have to follow the rules and standards . So you don't have to do paperwork and you don't need a lawyer for you to sell something to for example a caffe. If you know a boss or if you just ask him you don't need any contract. He can pay you and you just give him the software. It is shit system, but it makes it easier for us.
  • 1
    @Flux how does it make it easier for you?
    I mean, you are complaining about the client not paying you. With a contract, this wouldn't have happened. Give the lawyer the contract and let the shit show begin
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    @-ANGRY-CLIENT-

    Sorry, but where did I complain about client not paying? If I wrote that I really don't know why I did
  • 1
    @Flux oh, my bad. Read that as such.
  • 0
    @-ANGRY-CLIENT-

    Oh ok, i was reading my rant over and over looking where did I write that.
  • 0
    After you get some more clients and time passes, I guess you will get more by word of mouth and recomendations if you did a decent job.

    Critical mass!
  • 1
    Get them on a maintenance contract or something. Offer discounts for future upgrades if they refer another business that ends up becoming a client.

    Be sure to collect data on how your software cuts cost, increases efficiency, profit, etc. Ask your clients for the data if possible.

    When selling have a list of options that you can iterate through, because you don't know what a business owner is going to be most focused on: efficiency, labor costs, margin. It's the shotgun approach.

    Figure out how much you're bringing in per client (on average), and look at different advertising options, how many people does each reach per x dollars. Do the smallest campaign possible to determine your conversion ratio (the percentage of people or potential clients who see your ad and end up purchasing).

    Having the *hard* numbers, be it ads or the benefits of your product, and offering incentives can go a long way toward closing sales.

    Congratulations on your struggle and growth!
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