Generating $1970 monthly revenue with a design subscription agency within 2 weeks
Hey Indie Hackers,
I am Erfan, doing UX/UI and graphic design for a decade now. I started my side project which is a subscription-based design agency 3 weeks ago.
Previously I shared How I made $1090 and landed my first client
Today I'll talk about how I landed my 2nd client and my whole experience of launching https://www.pentaclay.com.
Starting a side hustle while working full-time and having an infant 👶 is tough. But I knew I had to start my design agency someday.
I got to know about the subscription-based services a few months ago and instantly felt like I should try this.
It took a couple of months to research and launch my agency. I launched my website in mid November.
How and where did I launch 🤔
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I started my X journey only a month ago. I announced the website launch there.
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I joined Reddit a month ago. I shared my site in different subreddits. Later on, I discovered this is not the proper way to launch on Reddit.
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I shared an article in Indie Hackers too.
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I shared on Show HN in Hacker News also.
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I submitted my website to Onepagelove, and they approved my landing page design and it was featured.
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Submitted in 10words and got approved.
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I planned to feature my landing page on some other websites too, but they seem expensive to me, so I haven't tried yet.
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Shared on other social media like Facebook, and LinkedIn.
That's a sum up of launching Pentaclay.
Which platform worked for me and why? ✨
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LinkedIn: I have a good reputation on LinkedIn, as I've been using it for years. I got my first prospect before launching. He was interested in working with a fixed-price project. I convinced him to try my subscription-based agency. After 2 months of back-and-forth communication, he subscribed. 🏆
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Reddit: I didn't get any clients from there yet, but I was able to get 1k+ traffic to my website from Reddit. Also, I got 25k+ views in a single month with my posts on different subreddits. However, one prospect messaged me there but hadn't converted yet.
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X: Within a month I got over 100+ followers and 130+ traffic to my website. One prospect DM me, not converted yet.
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Indiehackers: Posted 3 times in Indiehackers got over 3k+ views and 180+ traffic to my website.
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Onepagelove: After my landing page was approved I had to pay $29 to get featured, and got over 500+ traffic to my website. Most probably my 2nd client converted from there. I need to ask my client from where he learned about us. 🤔
These are some extraordinary channels that worked for me in November 2023.
What didn't work for me? 😔
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Facebook: I tried posting on Facebook regularly. Additionally, I tried FB Ads, which didn't work for me.
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X Ads: My ad campaign remained pending verification for 2 weeks, with no response from the X team.
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Cold Email: I find cold emailing boring and difficult. However, I tried cold emailing 500-1000 leads, got a couple of responses, and also did an intro meeting. But not anyone has converted yet.
Next steps 😊
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For December, I'll try to double the impressions, traffic, and sales from X, Reddit, or LinkedIn.
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I might try different marketing channels to get leads.
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I'm looking for Affiliate Marketers to partner up with commission based.
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I have to retain these 2 clients, to subscribe for the next month. So quality design service is the key. ❤️
I would appreciate it if you could share a couple of methods to outreach my design subscription agency. Or, what worked for you please share.
If you want to know more about my services or methods that I'm trying to acquire clients do comment. 👇
Thank you. Happy designing. ✌️
I'm building the MCU of SaaS 💎
🔥 Roast My Landing Page
Hey Kazi,
Excellent article! It's insightful for me, as I am also in the initial phases of exploring various strategies, trying to understand which ones are effective and which aren't.
Congratulations on your discipline and dedication - it's truly inspiring how you commit to an active presence across multiple platforms
Thanks a lot.
Super inspiring story and it also clearly shows that productized services don't sell themselves, you've got to put out the work for them to work!
If you ever need it, I created breeew.com, a tool that would help you to manage you subscribers, their tasks all the complicated part around pausing / unpausing the subscription :)
Would love to chat with you to understand your workflow!
Best of luck!
That's a good service. I'll try after I grow my client base a bit more. Thanks
I have read that becoming an expert in a single social network is worth more than attempting multiple social presence.
On LinkedIn you seem to have good numbers. If you became an expert in its use as a tool, you would probably know how to choose the best person in charge of your networks and their expansion.
I loved the post and the writing style you used. Well done and congratulations.
Thanks a lot, buddy.
Yes, I'll continue to dig into LinkedIn.
OH MY GOD! That's so amazing, I can't believe it
Thanks buddy.
Your journey with Pentaclay is inspiring as a fellow designer. Your dedication despite challenges is admirable. I'd love to hear more about your client acquisition methods. Best of luck with Pentaclay!
Thanks, I already shared an article with client acquisition methods. I'll share another post soon.
It's inspiring to see your journey and the effort you've put into building your design subscription agency. Keep up the fantastic work, and best of luck in achieving your December goals!
Thanks a lot buddy.
WOW! that's amazing
Thank you.
Awesome story! Good luck on hitting your December goals!
Thanks, man. Yes already acquired one client today.
Congratulations. Thanks. Best Wishes.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for sharing your story Kazi, i am in the UK and currently brainstorming this same idea with a friend who is the designer while my expertise is product marketing. I’d like to know if you built a software for this service or simply used a website, and did you build it yourself or hired a dev?
I made the website with Webflow all by myself.
I provide design services, all the projects are custom-designed by me. Let me know if you need any help with UX/UI or Graphic Design?
Clever! I'm relatively new to design services like this and I totally see the value in it. Thanks for sharing your journey, and keep it up!
Thanks buddy.
Still learning, If found some valuable comments here, you can also check them out.
Congrats on this milestone. It's no small feat, and you've done a lot to market yourself. Keep at it. I'm in a similar boat, a UI/UX designer as well, and just launched my productized service as well. I'd love to connect if you're interested in sharing thoughts and exchanging ideas.
Yeah sure, you can reach me at X any time.
Thanks buddy.
I followed you. Can't message you though.
Messaged you on X. Thanks
I'm doing something similar, but for music services, so thank you for sharing this!
Wow that's interesting, can you drop your website?
customjingles dot co :)
Can't post links yet!
Great story -:)
Thank you man.
Hi, very nice idea!
What I would do is find some number of businesses that have their web/mobile/app poorly designed and ping them directly.
You should be careful about the number of them you want to ping as you don't want to end up under capacitated.
So, for example, if you can handle 5 of them at the time, don't ping 200. Start small to be able to gauge conversion rate and then fine tune the numbers.
Wish you all the best!
Good advice I must say.
But won't the poorly designed web/mobile/app prospects have a budget limit?
Most of them might be developers doing side projects.
What's your take on this?
Well, first and foremost, everyone has a budget limit. At least psychological if not real.
You know the saying: sales is a process of helping the customer to get rid of anxiety of giving you money.
So, I would say its a part of subsequent negotiation process.
There are many reasons businesses have bad ui/ux and from my experience, budget is rarely the main reason. Especially with bigger&older businesses.
You should play with your filters which ones to ping. For example, I would ping those to which I could explain/prove that my redesign would bring them more value.
So, those would be the ones whose conversions and revenue stream depends on ux friction points, I would contact those first.
Bigger ones with clear conversions problem caused by bad ux.
The plus is: whenever you craft a tailor made offer based on their particular problem and provide recommendation - you have room for higher prices.
That's a great advice.
Here's what I will do within the next 7 days. I'll list down only 20 apps/SaaS.
I'll contact them with tailored suggestions. Will share my insights later this month.
Thanks again.
I'm eager to hear the results.
Good luck!
Thanks buddy.
Hi Erfan, we do the same thing you do. I am surprised that cold email is not working for you as this is our main source of customers. Maybe check into the quality of the leads? One way to find the perfect lead is to search for graphic design job listings on Indeed. This way you can identify companies that have that need already. Now just convince them why they should pick you instead of employing someone. You can also try D7 Lead Finder and go after other design agencies or print & signage agencies.
Wow, that's an amazing feedback.
Can I take emails from Indeed? Previously I tried LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Hunter.io, and Apollo.
Not much luck I would say.
You can Google the companies that listed the jobs and then use Snovio or any email hunter to get their contact details. You could also create a type of CV for your company and apply to the job as you normally would but instead of pitching yourself you pitch your company.
Pitching your CV is a different game, but unique I must say.
I'm noting this out. Thanks for sharing man.
You're doing amazing job bro! I'm also starting a design subscription agency.
Happy to see you getting clients 🎉
Thanks, man.
Yes, sure wish you luck.
Congrats! Do you consider DMing prospects? It may get you a couple leads.
I tried DMing on LinkedIn, but seems like LinkedIn prospects prefer emailing them.
I'll try DMing in X @leandrolugaresi
Amazing work, Kazi! It is so inspiring to read how you were able to generate that revenue with your design subscription agency in such a short period of time.
Can you explain why didn't x ads work?
Thank you.
The X team didn't approve or reject my ads for 14-15 days. It was in pending verification status.
If approved I could have tested different campaigns.
Any suggestion on this? Why they take that much time?
Not at all. I'm learning from you in this case =) but I gonna try it out and I'll back with some feedback
Sure thanks
Perfect story!
Thank you.
Congrats for the awesome work Erfan, and thanks for sharing your learnings!
Thanks, man.
I'm sharing my journey, being transparent as much as possible.
Keep up the fantastic work, Erfan!
Thanks mate.
This comment was deleted a month ago.
Yes buddy, thanks for the offer.
I'm sharing this on my LinkedIn company page 👇
https://www.linkedin.com/company/pentaclay/
However, I'll start sharing to my personal account later for some reasons.
This comment was deleted a month ago.
Yes, that's also true. I'm working on it, will start soon.