The best business to start as a developer in 2024 | Lisbon, July 21
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- One of the questions that I get asked the most is what to do with your coding skills, I've compiled my take about this on this video.
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I’m João, I’ve run a software development company for a few years now, online & remotely. These videos are pretty much a public diary; I record them mostly for my own reflection. Recently, I help developers launch their own software development companies too. You don’t need to buy it, I was just letting you know.
My community (it’s free, just a place to chat with others curious about the same stuff as me): www.skool.com/...
Me: joaonm.com
Instagram: / joao__nm
Twitter: / joaolucas_nm
#business #onlinebusiness #softwaredevelopment #softwarecompany
This worked for me, 40 years ago. Back then there was no VC, no social media, none of that. Started a consultancy with zero capital and stuck with it for 25+ years, did well, see a lake and mountains when I look out of my balcony, not a prison yard. Tried some products but didn't get very far. More or less retired now, but would do it again when the planets align.
Is there any chance I can connect with you, I have questions, please?
@@ernestharuna Start a you tube channel and leave an email address there
@@Chester-y1y I have added my email to my channel's description.
Thank you
Know the game and know what you want: running a business vs. running a show.
You are a hidden gem on this platform. Lucky the algorithm sent you my way.
I'm currently working for a agency. But me and a former colleague are working on a side gig, where we have a marketing guy as the third founder. I must say that this helps a lot since me and my colleague are just developers.
Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it
If you want to be a developer, create things that people actually want. Product that does not spy on you, that does not need subscription, that does not need online connectivity, that does not need expensive databases that keeps on working 10 years from now.
Straight to the point. What i like to see 👍
Top tier content right there, fella! Every single point was ON THE MONEY! You’re gonna go a long way man 👊
Thanks a lot
I started agency and it is going like s*it, people just don't want to buy and learning how to sell also takes a lot of time. But you are totally correct. I also considered coaching but those people really didn't seem to know all that more than me. And they do this stupid video presentations which totally doesn't work. Anyhow, good content.
Yep, well it sounds like you're going through the right motions. My agency was going like shit for a pretty long while as well. Guess what, that's what most first businesses have to do for a while, so kudos to you for actually making it happen
I get your point. But I think it depends on what you want to achieve in life. If you want to make a good living/normal life, then you should probably do the agency thing, but if you want to become a huge success you should risk everything, which is also what I did. And keep in mind, you can also start more than one startup. And you don't need to run it for more than 3 years. In the first years you would know by the growth if your idea/business is good.
have you thought about combining agency and SaaS, selling products to complement your agency services? for example, as a web design agency, selling a testimonial collection tool or product demo tool?
Yes- a lot of people talk about this. The problem is, you split your focus into 2, trying to run 2 businesses instead of one. Launching a product on the side is a business of its own if you want to make any real money. That's why I don't want to do that- focus only on one business, until it stands on its own 2 legs without me. Then I can think about others
🎉HubSpot and Automattic are doing already a kind of that. Great move. 🎉
Great stuff! Maybe a video on certain specializations you like for agency/ consulting model such as web, marketing, backend, cloud, mobile, AI...
Yeah that could be a nice idea, thank you
"if you're the only technical person on the team" I just learned this the hard way 😭
hahaha, anyone who's doing things in tech has been through it don't worry, me too
🎉outsource is the way to go in that case. With serious company not freelance.
very valuable insight. thank you. Yes, I find myself dreaming about building a SAAS business but starting as a agency buskness seems much more plausible and practical. Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed
Hey Joao, cheers for another insightful video! Would love it if you could share what you have been doing to get leads - that's been the big roadblock, the only really, we are facing as an agency. Would love to get your take!
Thanks for this. Exactly my move now too.
I have that same problem new shiny objects every day. Its so hard to focus.
Good advice. Moving from php to Node even though is a bit better but still not great. Serious software needs serious and reliable ecosystem which Node and Js doesn’t have.
I think that's a good choice, it will save you so much money! Node is an expensive backend and significantly less performant. The actual backend languages. And building with Next.js and deploying with Vercel can become very expensive very fast. It's fine for low traffic sites, but it's a massive waste of money once you get past the free tier.
Great video with a simple and clear explanation.
Great points - happy I chose the agency/freelance route myself
Glad you enjoyed
Thanks for the video man. I could relate with everything you said. Thank a lot.
Thanks for the comment
how do you find clients??
It's not always a competition agains VC money, some devs just want to build products that helps them and others and just profit a bit. With a VC founded startup, you can't go as low for a monthly sub as with a one man company, so they can burn more money on marketing for sure, but how they can compete with a $5-8 monthly price, if the investors wants quick profit and force them to go with $15-20/m (which is ridic. amount of money for a simple product in many cases). I mean the infra cost, if planned well can be low (by avoiding AWS simply :D ) and the development remains as the high cost. But still comparing to a startup with a bunch of dev, you can burn much less money.
I am not saying we should all go to product path, just wanted to give some shades to the story. My personal plan is to build product, but also I am building a SAAS boilerplate which can be sold and reused in multiple product. So even if the product(s) fail, I have something to sell and I gain a big leap in experience which is gold in the job market (backup plan)
Yeah definitely- you can build out of passion too, totally, but it's not going to be a very competitive business probably
I think the “distribution” game can be circumvented if you stop playing the “1 to n” game and try to find the “0 to 1” game, using Thiel’s terminology.
Not that this is easy, but that’s why it changes the distribution game and makes it harder to get copied as you’re in the “proving game”, and if you’re right the spoils are yours.
I was really frustrated by the sheer push for Saas and bashing the agency model everywhere nowadays, But no talks about the flip side of Saas
Anyways, thanks for some fresh insights, looking forward to more content based on your experience.
Thanks a lot. I agree, SaaS was just a bit overrated. It's not bad necessarily, but it's worth showing the bad sides too
I guess starting a SaaS could be could just gain some experience, which you can then take to your consulting/agency business.
yes, also true
Nice backgroud music!
What if I can build a very specific knowledge, on which the software is basically built upon, and built a brand using that knowledge, and use that brand for distribution?
Btw helpful content man! Totally changed my perspective.
🎉 AI will be a great tool to that great idea.
Glad you found it helpful. I think if you have specific knowledge, then you can build it- but you still need to solve distribution as a challenge. Try to get people to pre-pay for your software. It's really hard. But if they do, you're officially in business
Thanks sir. Much value
I’m developer and I’ve started a software development agency around a year ago - would love to have a chat!
Could you please do a video on the expenses of the agency, the possible revenue, which country is the best to open an online business? Etc...
Expenses is an interesting idea, sure. and country stuff too
Hey Joan Nina ...I am 20years... i know react node and next js.... importantly i want to work in un convensional way.. i am really intrested to work with your agency...(becoz i relly want to work under you and learn regarding tech industry) ..i can easily get a job in my home town ..but i want to take unconvensional route ..and i really wangt t work with you
Really helpful advice, As a developer myself who wants to get into software solutions down the line. Btw is your membership in Skool exclusive cause it’s been pending for a day or so since I tried to join.
Accepting those now
I think micro-saas might be the best way out of this. Make $10k month with your micro-saas - not taking out cash, just paying yourseld dividends for lower taxes. There are no investors, just stuff you can build. Meanwhile you can also work full-time for a company that is not too demanding , and where you sort of have your routines and your taxed 50+% 😂
I don't like 'micro-saas' because it implies you can make a micro company. I want to build serious stuff in my opinion
@@joao__nm I do not believe micro-saas needs to be necessarily low on ambitions. Rather the notion would be to be able to bootstrap and sustain yourself while doing so something you are talking a lot in your service vs. product comparisons. I take it from this end, if I had a nice react frontend powered by couple AWS lambdas able to handle let's say 50k users, I still think it is a micro-saas in terms of - I as a solodeveloper could further mantain it and progress it. Maybe, with a help of one or two stable contractors, but I think it is possible in cloud. 50k users let's say 5$ per month - that's ambitious enough, definitely enough money to live a luxury life in Portugal I assume you are from :) But, I am in my late 30s, it seems you are younger and still want to change the world, which I fully support and keep my fingers crossed for you. Just saying with accomplishing the above I'd be more than happy 😊
I'm thinking we're gonna make macro-saas that will mog all micro-saas
@@jimbobunext 20 years I predict 70 percent of retail stores will go out of business and Amazon will sell same hour delivery
Making 10k profit a month from a micro sass is not trivial.
would you recommend working for an agency before building one?
Not necessarily, at least I didn't. But who knows, maybe it could be game changing. Depends on the agency I think
What do you think is a good project to sell as a beginner developer freelancer?
I think it depends on who you have access to
What about the mobile game business model?
Personally not super familiar, but I think it's similar to SaaS, where you often need funding upfront to make it big.
Hi Joao. You mentioned you have an agency, but I'm not sure what the agency is doing. Maybe you shared it in another video?
Yeah, I’ve made a few videos on it- I run a software consultancy
What type of content do you make to attract clients for your agency
Right now, not enough lol
Woah John Mulaney talks about tech
haha, never had this one
But could we make more then 3M$/y (profit) as software developer 😅?
yeah aboslutely lol, have you seen companies like Accenture? they make billions in profit. They started as a tech kind of agency, but they're like pretty old. It's just a case of sticking to the game for a long time (I'm talking decades)
Your perspective on bootstrapping is extremely pessimistic. VCs don't always beat bootstrapping. You will grow slower and be more profitable bootstrapping.
This is true. You can still make it while bootstrapping. I know my take seems a bit strong, but it's to be a bit of a wake up call to devs who think it's a walk in the park because they know how to code. I've spoken to a lot of devs curious about building agencies, and they're all like "yeah i was trying a saas thing, and it wasn't working"
I think it's just overrated by devs, that's all. Not that you can't make it.
major
How can we start an agency
I made another video about this, you can find it on my channel
you should go back to php with laravel haha
I want to end a business not start
Sounds like you listen to my first Million
I do yeah, love Shaan Puri
@@joao__nm haha same here . The mid wit meme is hilarious
bro whats your age?
20
1st
Are you on insta?
yes, instagram.com/joao__nm/
You said my mind. Thanks alot for this, I do appreciate ❤. Gonna save this video so I can keep reminding myself on what I should really focus on.
you can create network effect on your product or some integration with existing product or customer service even if they have more money if their product is fully a copy of what we are doing they will still lose because of that. Some of the stuff you do just take time . There is money in that world but time is uncompressable.
I like this channel, very relatable and speaking the truth about the startup hype. I wish more videos to come out soon :) thank you.
I record every day :)
explore more how to get clients for service companies from zero please
Start free
Hey mate i want to ask a question, iam 18 years old and i know pretty much of react and my goal is to get rich through it. Should i stick to it?
Thanks for the advice
makes so much sense ...that's exactly my experience
11:45 So you say trying to write a backend in PHP was a terrible mistake LOL 😀
How long ago was this? Had Laravel gotten popular yet?
You still think a backend in PHP is a bad idea, even with Laravel?
ahaha it was without Laravel LOL- it was only starting to become popular. Nowadays, maybe it's better- I haven't really tried using Laravel, so I can't Sao Pauloeak on it
I'm living in a developing country with a pool of talent. I'm thinking about offering software services to developed countries, but I'm not sure how to go about it or if I should hire a sales professional.
Check out some of my other videos on how to start
Great video, thank you for sharing. But to the point about scaling an agency - what if you're able to abstract your operations to a software product that can be scaled potentially indefinitely? For e.g if you're a branding agency, packaging your learnings/experience into a tool that can be deployed to brand campaigns for clients. Essentially an agency with an in-house SaaS that supercharges workflow (could even be a way to build a SaaS company and still get paid during the development phase)?
Yeah, if you can spin up a SaaS, that's definitely great- but most of the time you cannot abstract operations completely, because the whole point is bespoke service for clients
What mentorships or courses do you recommend to learn generating leads or to run a consulting business? Do you offer mentorship? Ive learned how to run a business from my former mentor in the auto industry as a service based company and there is money to be made to for cunsulting on websites and the back end of the sites. Marketing and generating leads are also anither aspect that dralrtships have no clue how to execute well qnd software that is an all in one product thst can be sued by all their departments.
I offer some private mentorship to a small handful of people making dev agencies, but not really other businesses
You can also end up being a software shop that is the only user of their own SaaS product. From there, things can go either way.
Yes- that's true. Then you can decide, but at least you start with product market fit
Loved how you combined Andrew's example 🙌
Yeah it's such a good one. And he's a smart guy. Most devs ignore that cautionary tale
You from spain... But you sound American how?
I'm from Portugal, but I grew up mostly in Asia (Singapore/Malaysia). My parents left Portugal looking for better careers
Great video! I’m a developer too and I just started a software agency with my co-founder for my first client. I want to ask you what is your long term plan of the business? Are you planning to create some kind of passive income from your business e.g. software maintenance revenue or are you planning to exit, or are you planning to scale in any way? Thank you so much!
I'm not sure yet. I'm thinking I'll probably double down on my business
Thanks so much. By the way, I just joined your Skool community. Greetings from Thailand :)
Is it a good idea to first start as a freelancer in order to build up a network and afterwards found a software agency?
You can do that, or you can also just start an agency. I think the difficulty is about the same, if you do it right
@joao__nm thanks once more ❤
I have a plan of starting mobile app dev agency is it a good idea?
Yeah sure, if you know you can build very good mobile apps, and you're will to stick to it at least for a year
@@joao__nm
So happy to see your response, Do you think it's better to start a web design agency or mobile agency, in terms of money, getting clients,
Great video João 🤌🏿
I just have one question, me and my cousin are building this CRM + Financial tracker for angolan business, my parents got connections with some of our possible clients, but there is some competition already.
If it was you, would try either way or just give up and start an agency ?
I would go to clients first and see if you can get them to pay a bit (like a pre-purchase or down payment), if people put their money where their mouth is, then you have a software business, and go for it and make it
@@joao__nm Thanks man, thats a new way to see it. I guess i will start talking to the clients them build the mvp. I'll keep you updated.