The original article was written here: https://www.softformance.com/blog/why-build-software/
Bill Gates said a long time ago: if your business is not online, then you don’t have a business.
But these days, this saying goes the extra mile: “If your business is not leveraging technology, then your business will not survive in the long-term”.
So, how non-technical entrepreneurs can take their business to the next level by launching their own custom done-for-you Software, SaaS, Tech Products, and Mobile Apps?
Hi, My name is Vitaliy Podoba, I’m the CEO of a software development agency named SoftFormance and I help business owners build and launch their own software.
In this video, I’ll show you 3 easy methods how to get your business to the next level by building and launching your own custom software products and tools.
I’ll do it by demonstrating our real client’s cases, their business, the products we built for them, and how these tech products improved their businesses. So watch it till the end.
Method 1. Create a new recurring revenue stream
Russel Brunson, in his book Expert Secrets, talks about Value Ladder (the line of products and services that your business sells) and how it’s super important to have recurring revenue products or services within your business.
This way you don’t have to worry about hiring new clients every month and monthly cash flow.
And some of the methods to build such a recurring revenue stream might be private community or online groups, monthly support retainers, monthly value-packed newsletters, etc…
But the biggest and most promising tool to build recurring revenue (based on our 200+ clients so far), is to build a software product that you can upsell to your existing clients.
That can be some software, some automation, some useful tool that you can sell on monthly or annual subscription to your clients.
Now, let me show a few great examples of our clients that did exactly this and what kind of ROI they got in return.
Example 1. Kelly, ForwardForms
Kelley and Zaak Muro. These are our clients from Arizona. They run a network of beauty salons and also run educational courses for beauty stylists.
We built for them a software platform named ForwardForms that helps stylists run their business and consultations online.
This software platform helps a few hundred stylists do their job and provides some nice extra monthly recurring revenue for its founders.
We spent around $40k to build and launch the initial version of this software and now it yields about 13k per month in MRR which is almost 400% ROI. Pretty crazy, right? No other medium-risk investment tools or businesses will provide you with this kind of ROI.
Okay, I’ve got for you one more example here:
Example 2. Majd, CoursPi
Majd with his partner Erick runs a remote school for kids in France named CoursPi.
A few years ago they were running their school with a bunch of Microsoft Excel files and paper. They came to us to build a school back-office automation software.
So we created for them a new system called PouplPi, and now they also re-sell it to other schools from France and Marocco. And earn quite some good money out of it.
And you can do the same whatever business you run.
Method 2. Streamline your business processes
Think about this for a second: “how many repetitive tasks you and your team are doing on daily basis?”
In my agency, 80% of all the employee’s time goes into the same routine daily tasks over and over again.
So, why not try and automate it all with some software and save a lot of time for yourself and your team members, avoid pricey human mistakes, and finally make your team much happier by focusing on more creative and interesting tasks instead?
So, let me share with you a few examples from our clients who successfully streamlined their business with their own software:
Example 1. Jack, AdsPro/CalPro/DashPro
Jack is running the digital agency GuruDigital in California.
He also used a bunch of google spreadsheets to manage paid ads for his clients.
He was doing pretty good with his brother serving bigger clients but wanted to optimize it all and spend much less on daily basis updating hundred of FB ads, creatives, and so on …
So we built for him 3 different software tools:
- CalPro – appointments scheduling software that connects with SalesForce leads and appointments
- AdsPro – fb ads automation software
- And finally, DashPro – an analytics dashboard that helps Jack serve his clients and show custom reports.
Now, brothers have it all automated and a lot of free time for the more important stuff.
Example 2. Ryan, LocalPower
Another great example is Ryan. He runs a Solar Panel agency in Texas named TexasSolar.Pro.
We built for him a custom CRM system from scratch named LocalPower.
It allows him and his team to send high-quality proposals with a roof design tool that you can see on the screen right now:
With that tool, Ryans’ sales department saves tons of time and what is more important: has higher conversion rates.
So, you can build something similar and automate sales, fulfillment, purchases, project management, and any other kind of activities within your business.
Method 3. Serve your existing clients better
Have you ever installed a small mobile app from a local business?
It could be a beauty saloon app, or restaurant app, or a hotel mobile application, it can be an app to deliver pizza to your home. It could be a local taxi mobile app, a banking app. It can be some of your business vendors’ apps that you’re using on a daily basis when purchasing from them.
It could be any kind of software that makes your life easier as a client of that business.
I bet you installed such an app a lot of times. Right?
Now let’s think for a moment. What these kinds of apps are doing for those businesses?
You perceive such a business as more serious because they have their own software they invested in, Right?
So you’re willing to pay higher prices for their services and products compared to their competitors w/o such an app.
Also, they are serving you much better, faster, and with higher quality because of that software. So you’re happier to buy from them
You feel that they care about you more than their competitors
So, the third method of how you can employ custom-built software in your business is to create a customer-facing web or mobile app to serve your customer better, make them happier, raise your prices, and generally grow your business.
Now, again let me give you a few quick examples of how my agency clients are leveraging this 3rd method:
Example #1. Aris from Neology
Aris is running a business consultancy for enterprises in Switzerland named Neology. He sends out monthly reports to his clients using google spreadsheets, documents, and good old email.
But now we built for him an interactive online web dashboard that his clients can visit instantly and check how they’re doing.
With that tool, they now save a lot of time as things are automated and clients are super-happy playing with the interactive dashboard.
Now Aris thinks about selling this software as a SaaS to other C-level executives in Switzerland.
Example #2. Maria Solodar from Evo Agency
Maria Solodar from Evo Agency. They teach people online professions.
They have been using 3rd party software named Antitrainings. It’s similar to Kajabi, Teachable. I’m pretty sure you know it.
But they decided to build their own online student cabinet software and switch all their students to it.
That’s how we built for them an online cabinet named ToDoo and now we’re running thousands of students on it. And also we’re going to add Machine Learning components to improve success rates for their students.
All are happy.
Summary
So, in this short video, I showed you 3 methods of how you can leverage your own software tools, products, and apps to get your business to the next level.
If you have a software idea and would love to get my help with it, leave an application in the link below this video and my team will get back to you within 1 working day.
Otherwise, join my Facebook group Software Founders, and start learning from other business owners working on their software products. The link is also below this video.
If you liked this video, please hit the thumbs-up button and subscribe to my channel to get notifications about new videos.
See you in the next video…
And remember, people need your software…
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