Hi all, I have been overthinking a lot about our services for the past few months, though as a founder I think that's normal. 😄 We're an IT service company based in India, and we typically get work from my personal network/referrals, and freelance platforms. Beyond this, we have never directly/digitally sold our services. these are our development services: (custom) Web, App, Mobile, Software, AI, and Automation. And some industries where we have done the most work are healthcare, real estate, and finance. Overall, we have completed around 250+ projects and tasks (both short and long) covering a lot of industries and technologies. But whenever I've tried getting direct clients by pitching on LinkedIn, I didn't get any results. Some normal conversations happened, but nothing significant. Then, this year, to solve this, I worked with a marketing agency that asked me to package our services and suggested creating a white-label solution for easier selling. I did that too, but it didn't work either. So, now I am very frustrated. My company has 15 people, and it has been 2 years since we started. though things are going well, but we don't have any marketing/sales process or system. Every day I'm just consuming knowledge, that's it, and trying very hard to solve this. We are 2 partners, and our background is not in marketing at all. The biggest challenge we are facing is lead generation. As per the agency's last message, they said our offer is not strong. Finally, I want to know what we should do at this stage—should I hire a co-founder (marketing/sales) or start full-time hiring (even in that case, I’m confused about which roles should i start to hire is that marketing or GTM or digital or sales or VP or CRO...you know what i mean) or should i upgrade the services to more advanced like cloud or something or otherwise focus on SAAS products or white label. Any suggestions or feedbacks would be highly appreciated!!
Hi Sahil, great news: you've identified the problem! I don't mean to be glib, but you're at a great place to run some controlled experiments to find out what works for you and your market. White labelling development services is a perfectly viable pathway, but it's not the only one. I would be curious why it "didn't work" - perhaps it wasn't enough time, or enough promotion, or the wrong place, or (insert millions of ways it could fail). Regardless, marketing in any channel is more like the scientific process than installing code. You have to fail, recalibrate, fail a little less, recalibrate, fail a little less, and then you're rolling in rupees. With AI and the glut of fractional service providers, I wouldn't recommend hiring a full-time marketer, or CRO, or business development rep. Especially since you are only two years in business, I would strongly recommend hiring a fractional executive for 6-12+ months to diversify your referral-based business into more scalable GTM motions. Assume there is tons to learn about your business and your revenue growth will match your curiosity.
Oh, and try one thing (not five) for at least 3-6 months. Spend some $$, do lots of debriefs throughout, and use hard data to confirm if it worked or not.
I think your focus on a co-founder or US based GTM team is your best angle vs giving monies away to a marketing company or fractional leader that may not have the most depth and scrappiness you need to convert. The US tech sector is in a major shift and there are plenty of talented individuals out there, but you have to negotiate the best path and this has been the challenge with India based business.
Hi Sahil, "i didn't get any response on my offer (that's what i can say)" sounds like you didn't exhaustively test your market, your positioning, your price, etc. A big thing I teach to founders is that if you're shopping a solution around for a problem, you've already lost. Instead, you should do 20+ discovery calls with your target market (probably US-based agencies that want to diversify their own service offerings) to truly understand what they see as their "problem." Once you've done that, you'll have a much better understanding of how a white-labelled outsourced dev shop can solve their problem. THEN you can make an offer and see if they bite. I advise that you get a fractional CMO to help guide you through that market discovery process and find product-market fit.
I agree with Dan N. get just one clear path way after you have gathered data. And stick with it for a while. It's hard though I understand the part of learning everything, yet unable to implement a lot.
Welcome to the club! I'm figuring it out, and probably the other 59K+ people in this workspace too are also figuring something like it out. Hiring help to help you figure it out is going to get you a lot further and faster than consuming books and short-term tactics. This is just a detour on a longer journey- keep hustlin' and trying.
Hey Sahil S. - I think I know why the white label offer didn't work. US agencies don't wake up thinking "I need white label dev services." They wake up with specific problems: Problem 1: Client hired them for design ($25K), then hired someone else for development ($150K). Now the client works with that other agency full-time. Problem 2: Their biggest client needs tech work they can't do. Client leaves. Agency loses 40-60% of revenue overnight. Problem 3: They tried doing development themselves. Project failed. Client is furious. Relationship is damaged. Your 250 projects probably solve one of these three problems really well. Before talking to agencies, you need to know: Which problem do you solve? For who specifically? I do this kind of research. Happy to do a quick chat and help you figure it out - no charge. Let me know if that's helpful.
Durgesh S. not sure, if i fully get it, but happy to chat to see your research
thank you 🙂
"Perfect! Let me ask you a few quick questions so I can give you something useful: 1. Of your 250 projects, which clients were in the most pain when they came to you? What problem were they trying to solve? 2. Have you ever had a client relationship where they hired you for initial work, then moved to a different agency for follow-on projects? 3. When US agencies have reached out in the past (even if they didn't hire you), what were they looking for help with?"
