INTRODUCTION
Hey guys, just joined the forum and was reading through the posts. Saw @markspray's post about his 19 year old starting up his own web design agency.
First thing I thought to myself, "damn didn't know it can be so simple. I've been overthinking it". I've definitely created more complex problems in my head than the few bare essentials that's needed.
The second thing that came to my mind was "Damn a 19 year old found success, so I can too".
So within a day of reading that thread I decided to take a stab at it.
BACKGROUND
But before I dive into what I did here some background about myself that might be interesting.
I've worked in corporate for about 4 years as a Business Analyst in IT, working with business users on enhancements and bug fixes in business applications.
On the side I've worked in affiliate marketing promoting supplements and lead generation for about 6 years. Advertising through Facebook and Google mainly. I've generated about US$960,000 in revenue for my affiliate partners/ customers over the years, so I have a solid marketing background.
Fast forwarding to this week when I read markspray's thread, the part which he mentioned how ugly ads works, that instantly turned on a light bulb in my head. I knew exactly what he was talking about.
Now my thought process was if this business idea works in my region (I'm not based in the US), it should not take too much effort.
From my experience in business thus far, if there is a service/product market fit, it shouldn't be an uphill battle.
EXECUTING
Thus, I quickly whipped up 3 ugly image ads on Figma and quickly tested the market demand by launching a Facebook ad campaign with a modest budget of $13 per day.
Now when I say ugly image ads, there is some logic behind the ugliness. Like what markspray said, ugliness stands out. But aside from that i took the chance to illustrate why I'm better than agencies, and also to be a lot more personable in my ads.
At this point my goal was a quick and dirty proof of concept, so I did not even have a company website. So to collect sign-ups I relied on Facebook's instant forms.
Again for the instant forms I made it as personal and as non-corporate as possible while maintaining professionalism.
All in all I went from lightbulb moment to launching ads within 4 hours.
RESULTS
The first day of launching ads was a bit lackluster. I spent a bit over $10 without any leads, the cpc's were a bit high though acceptable, and ctr's were low.
But from my experience in digital marketing I knew that Facebook takes some time to optimize and find the right audiences.
And on the second day I got my first lead after spending $3. Bingo.
I called up the lead right away (buying temperature is the highest) and just went in with the mindset of learning about their business goals and problem solving for them.
Was a great phone call chatted about our respective business experience, and we made plans to take things forward, and I'll provide some sample of work (at this point i was still putting together my company's website!)
Anyways the leads kept rolling in to the point I had to lower the budget to about $3 day.
After day 3 I generated 6 leads for a total of $21 spent. That's $3.50 a lead! Amazing results and I can see this business working.
But with all businesses, I expect there to be challenges, and ill be sharing them here regularly.
SELF ANALYSIS
Finally before I end this post I'd like to note down my strengths and weaknesses going into this business.
Strengths:
+ interviewing candidates, and digging into what they're trying to achieve (business analyst experience)
+ managing customer expectations (business analyst experience)
+ internet marketing experience
+ basic website design skills from creating landing pages
+ basic understanding of HTML, CSS and Javascript
Weaknesses:
- cold calling (ive got some phone anxiety)
- little experience designing fancy web pages
- little experience dealing with difficult clients
- little experience in package/offer creation
FINAL THOUGHTS
With that being said I have way more strengths than weaknesses that I know of so I'll be leveraging that while I improve on my weaknesses.
Hey guys, just joined the forum and was reading through the posts. Saw @markspray's post about his 19 year old starting up his own web design agency.
First thing I thought to myself, "damn didn't know it can be so simple. I've been overthinking it". I've definitely created more complex problems in my head than the few bare essentials that's needed.
The second thing that came to my mind was "Damn a 19 year old found success, so I can too".
So within a day of reading that thread I decided to take a stab at it.
BACKGROUND
But before I dive into what I did here some background about myself that might be interesting.
I've worked in corporate for about 4 years as a Business Analyst in IT, working with business users on enhancements and bug fixes in business applications.
On the side I've worked in affiliate marketing promoting supplements and lead generation for about 6 years. Advertising through Facebook and Google mainly. I've generated about US$960,000 in revenue for my affiliate partners/ customers over the years, so I have a solid marketing background.
Fast forwarding to this week when I read markspray's thread, the part which he mentioned how ugly ads works, that instantly turned on a light bulb in my head. I knew exactly what he was talking about.
Now my thought process was if this business idea works in my region (I'm not based in the US), it should not take too much effort.
From my experience in business thus far, if there is a service/product market fit, it shouldn't be an uphill battle.
EXECUTING
Thus, I quickly whipped up 3 ugly image ads on Figma and quickly tested the market demand by launching a Facebook ad campaign with a modest budget of $13 per day.
Now when I say ugly image ads, there is some logic behind the ugliness. Like what markspray said, ugliness stands out. But aside from that i took the chance to illustrate why I'm better than agencies, and also to be a lot more personable in my ads.
At this point my goal was a quick and dirty proof of concept, so I did not even have a company website. So to collect sign-ups I relied on Facebook's instant forms.
Again for the instant forms I made it as personal and as non-corporate as possible while maintaining professionalism.
All in all I went from lightbulb moment to launching ads within 4 hours.
RESULTS
The first day of launching ads was a bit lackluster. I spent a bit over $10 without any leads, the cpc's were a bit high though acceptable, and ctr's were low.
But from my experience in digital marketing I knew that Facebook takes some time to optimize and find the right audiences.
And on the second day I got my first lead after spending $3. Bingo.
I called up the lead right away (buying temperature is the highest) and just went in with the mindset of learning about their business goals and problem solving for them.
Was a great phone call chatted about our respective business experience, and we made plans to take things forward, and I'll provide some sample of work (at this point i was still putting together my company's website!)
Anyways the leads kept rolling in to the point I had to lower the budget to about $3 day.
After day 3 I generated 6 leads for a total of $21 spent. That's $3.50 a lead! Amazing results and I can see this business working.
But with all businesses, I expect there to be challenges, and ill be sharing them here regularly.
SELF ANALYSIS
Finally before I end this post I'd like to note down my strengths and weaknesses going into this business.
Strengths:
+ interviewing candidates, and digging into what they're trying to achieve (business analyst experience)
+ managing customer expectations (business analyst experience)
+ internet marketing experience
+ basic website design skills from creating landing pages
+ basic understanding of HTML, CSS and Javascript
Weaknesses:
- cold calling (ive got some phone anxiety)
- little experience designing fancy web pages
- little experience dealing with difficult clients
- little experience in package/offer creation
FINAL THOUGHTS
With that being said I have way more strengths than weaknesses that I know of so I'll be leveraging that while I improve on my weaknesses.
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