Help Productizing My Software Development Firm
I have spent a few months getting ready to test productizing my software development firm and got into testing it out recently. It took me a few years to realize to get to the scale I want to, and to really do what I'm good at (building full stack applications FAST FAST), I need to productize my offering.
I did the hard task of narrowing down to very specifics what I want to do. With project timelines of 30-45 days . This is what I have so far:
- Three packages for web development with React or Svelte with a Firebase Backend as a Service
- $5000 = Backend Only in Express (Or Flask)
- $7500 = Backend and Frontend (React or Svelte) hosted on Vercel (with cloud functions for backend)
-$10000 = Backend, Frontend and our designer will design the application
- Three packages for mobile app development:
- $5000 = Mobile Backend Only in Firebase
- $7500 = Backend and Frontend built with Draftbit (react native)
-$10000 = Backend, Frontend and our designer will design the mobile app
What do you all think? Should I narrow it down further. I am testing the first of these offerings with clients RN and am starting to market it across our marketing channels as it's been pretty smooth (no in and out of meetings).
The pricing I think is very very fair (much lower then what we usually quote) and I do plan on upping it once we get the process down but we are going for scale here. Excited to hear your thoughts!
This is a smart approach, especially if your goal is to move from custom development toward a more scalable and predictable business model. The clear packages, fixed timelines, and limited scope should also reduce the back-and-forth with clients. I’d keep the three tiers for now and test which one gets the most traction before narrowing further. As you refine the delivery process, you can gradually increase pricing and standardize what’s included.
The problem in attempting to productize your development services in this way is there's absolutely no consideration for the project's complexity.
One person may come to you with their idea for an online store that sells mustard and you'll charge them $10k for something that could be set up in Shopify or WordPress + WooCommerce in 45 minutes and another person might ask you to build a multi-sided marketplace that allows you to buy, sell, & trade mustard while rating, & reviewing products and sellers as well as settling disputes with buyers who claim their product is missing or arrived damaged, maintaining inventory levels, providing configurable notifications when items sell or approach low inventory levels, and supports internationalization and multiple currencies with conversion.
Different projects will have different requirements and it just takes going underwater on a single project for you to realize your model needs to adapt.
Thanks for the response! We are expecting some adjustments are definitely going to be needed! When it comes to someone that just needs a Shopify+WordPress build, I would expect them not to use us since that's not what we do and they could get that done elsewhere. Now if they came to us because they specifically wanted that built in a front end framework with full control of the backend (for whatever reason they would want that) then that's a different story. The project you mention in the latter of your post (marketplace) would be our bread and butter. Thats actually a somewhat similar build to our pilot customer we are testing this new model with right now!
As someone who also has a "Software Developing Firm" (More like me freelancing and sub hiring other freelancers if needed). I'd say these prices could be good if marketed as "Starting from ..." . 10K for a full build mobile/web app seems like a great starting point for a basic app.
But from the moment other features get integrated (eg automatic mailing, payment processing, etc.) the time commitment increases fast.
I personally always find it hard to sell work as packages since the workload changes almost every time but being able to give a ballpark estimate can be reassuring for the client.
Hey thanks for your response! When it comes to features like payment processing and emails, etc we have that all pretty much automated through Divjoy and our internal tool for Svelte. So it's not as time consuming for us as from scratch. The idea of starting from is interesting and it something we have done historically before we even give quotes. The issue is, we would still have to give custom quotes, work through specific specs, etc kinda eliminating the whole productizing purpose. The whole idea is to set very specific guidelines when it comes to the tech Stack with very little wiggle room, and then build whatever the client needs very fast. Our first couple clients, the idea is to offer the $10K package, (we aren't expecting to make a fortune) to get the process down and then up it once we nail the process down.
My strength is speed and it always has been. The other engineer at my firm is the same way after I have trained him on my process. The tools I have built for myself and my firm eliminate as much of the unnecessary and repetitive tasks as possible (for example translating HTML/CSS from Figma/Webflow to a frontend framework, etc. So the secret sauce is the internal tools which allows us to save 50-60% of time that would usually be cookie cutter stuff for a build from scratch and get to focusing on the actual specific differences of someone's application.
Divjoy looks like an awesome tool! Thanks for mentioning it. It does seem that you certainly have worked a lot on your internal processes.
Makes me think more that you could try to have a streamlined process for one or a few specific kinds of applications instead of productizing "fullstack applications". Eg we offer shopping experiences or something like that and try to attract clients that need the same kind of applications. This might eliminate some very custom feature requests.
Just my 2cents. I think you are already very far in your productizing process! Maybe it's just the offering now that still has to be productized or niched down.
A couple of thoughts:
Thanks for the thoughts! Addressing your points:
-I will be limiting but based on expertise in the industry/tech Stack. If someone comes to us in the music industry and wants to utilize a bunch of libraries that I've never heard of yet used, I would turn them away. Because we are offering something so standard and built fast, we are sticking to exactly what we are good at, taking Designs to Front End React/Svelte components, building a backend around it and making it responsive.
oh also, we use Bulma for our css framework which literally knocks out a majority of the nitty gritty design work and 100% of the responsiveness out. Hope that addresses it all!
Well then, I kinda wish I could go back two years and hire you ;)
Such a great exercise to think on.
I'd reverse engineer what your top client is asking you for and build to solve for that
Do clients approach you with tech stack questions or business problems?
Definitely! I have gotten questions pertaining to flexibility with the tech Stack. We aren't to flexible with the tech Stack for the productized offering because it's our go to and we know how fast we can build with it. So I usually tell them if they want a tech Stack drastically different, it would require custom quoting.
Can you share your development firm's portfolio or website link? It's not easy to find about your work and the http://trypital.com/ link from your linktree is broken.