Im a software developer and would love to sell products, but right now most of my revenue comes from selling development services instead. I am making money from my products, but no where near what im making with my services.
Anyone else have difficulty selling products, but no problems selling services?
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Yeah this is super common in dev work. Services have that immediate value proposition - client sees a problem, you fix it, money changes hands. Products require way more marketing, user education, and honestly just luck with timing
The recurring revenue from services also feels safer even though products can scale better long term. I'm in the same boat tbh
Thanks for the input. For me the sales that in making from my products feel safer, but maybe thats due to the fact that I only charge flat fees per project. Do you have most of your clients on retainer?
I’m a big believer in a solution first approach and platform second. What does that mean?
Provide services to identify redundant problems. As you find redundant problems, build reusable platform modules that can be sold over and over again. Create a thesis and then validate it. At face value, the first set of iterations might feel like professional services until you have a module that is constantly delivery value without a ton of custom integrations or manual adjustments.
I see a ton of companies do this, especially early on. When you start to narrow down on a niche you start to recycle the same module and that module can eventually be sold as a suite of services or modular options.
We are seeing more and more companies start to become modular in nature with the amount of options out in the world.
Find a niche you can have repeatable and predictable solutions to tackle a single pain point. At that point you have a product.
This also allows for bootstrapping a product without pitching to VCs.
To be, this is the fasting path to revenue and profitability.
clients tend to view services as lower risk since theyre pyaing for a direct solution. products ask them to invest in something new, which takes more trust and patience to build
As someone that owns a very successful service business I cannot imagine, cannot even conceptualise the stress and burden of running a goods business.
Imagine: production, storage, design, shipping, warranties etc. Fucking kill me.
Selling time and effort for money is the dream of all dreams in my opinion. And now I sell other peoples time and get a cut.
With services, my headache now is talent retention. Especially with gen z's now tend to skip around when they face certain difficulties or wanting to move up in the world
Doesn't help that if clients see my team changing every now and then, it doesn't instil confidence in them
Not to mention, customer service where the main retaining power is from people rather than processes. So when the people left, clients also leave
What are your solutions for those?
Stop hiring kids. Or pay them more.
It’s illegal to say but young women get pregnant and young men are too stupid and hungry for pay rise to stick around. Young people are not worth it.
Get some guy in his mid-late 20s who has a kid and can’t afford to move around jobs too much. Or get older wiser people of any gender who demonstrate stability and loyalty. That’s it!
Our pay is above average (for what they're worth tbh) so I don't think it's that.
I've had a stint of going with only experienced late 20s-30s but what I find out is that they're just not hungry to do more... like they are too rooted in what they know and can't adapt to new changes
They also have the tendency to coast with cushy jobs which means most are B players... not a great fit when we're trying to bootstrap our agency and everyone needs to wear multiple hats
Have you faced the same situation? How do you filter out for the right people, especially for crucial leadership and client-facing roles?
I don’t know - I’m in realestate so fundamentally the harder people work the more they earn. The commission only people work the hardest, no work no pay!
The issue is definitely the salary people. Link bonus or pay to performance that’s all I can say. Even my salary workers can earn significant extra money by hitting some high kpis.
Also I’ve fostered a strong culture of competition - especially among the salespeople. Nobody wants to be the obvious lazy person at the meetings every week.
If you have experience in selling yourself as a service (AKA developer), then of course your revenue will come from selling services.
Product are a whole different ball game. We all know it's easier to scale software than hard goods. If you want to sell products, it seriously needs to be so much better/different that users are willing to abandon the products they trust. Hard stuff, but extremely rewarding. Good luck!
It's interesting how services feel less risky for clients. Have you considered creating a pilot program or offering free trials for your products?
Yeah services are way easier. You're getting paid to solve their specific problem vs convincing them your product solves a problem they might have.
I tried building products twice. First one completely failed, second one worked but took 18 months to get anywhere. The exit wasn't even life-changing, just paid off some debt.
If products aren't selling, you're probably solving problems people don't actually have. Most people who struggle with products haven't validated that anyone wants what they're building.
Services are less sexy but way more reliable honestly.
Comparing apples to oranges. This comparison only works if the service is as useful as the product. What’s easier about services is that you don’t have to keep inventory. Services tend to be easier to bring repeat customers (unless your product is consumable)
I’ve experienced the same. Tried to sell digital products but decided to focus on offering digital services bc I experienced more success with it
Products are notoriously harder to sell than services are. Services are not as scalable as products, but definitely much simpler and faster to hit decent revenue with.