TL;DR - 21-year-old entrepreneur, ran semi-successful business, faced burnout, got diagnosed with ADHD, seeking advice on a 'service as a product' design business, and need to validate it so I don't waste money that my father wants to lend me to run ads.
I’m 21yo entrepreneur with a bit of an unusual journey and I need advice.Long story short, traditional education system didn’t suit me, so I was always learning stuff on my own. Even thought I come from lower working class, I was always into entrepreneurship, literally selling YouTube banners for 0.5$ when I was 12.
After huge success with my Discord development agency last year, my journey took a turn for worse is when I experienced severe burnout, leading to a year of inactivity. There wasn’t a single day where I didn’t think about how I’m wasting time. Few days ago, I got diagnosed with ADHD. I decided to take meds and it was like putting glasses on for the first time, so without missing a beat I jumped right back.
Now I’m at a crossroad. I have an idea for a “service as a product” design business, I made the MVP on the freelancing site I ran my last business on, since I have a bit of past clients to try to contact there. Problem is, all the money I’ve earned is gone and I literally had to ask my dad to lend me some money to run ads from his saving budget. He agreed to lend me a bit to get started, but I need to validate my idea to him. I definitely feel bad asking him for money and would feel even worse if I at least can't get assurance this is something that could work.
This is where I need your opinion and advice if this is something viable (of course any advice in general would make my day):
- General idea is that a client can make unlimited design requests for a flat monthly fee, instead of having to work with multiple freelancers or pay in-house designer (which can be costly, especially at times when they don't have work for them)
- Do you think this is something viable?
- Do you think there is a market out there for this?
- What would be the best way to promote this?
- What would we the best way to communicate the value to potential clients?
I always try my best to give advice to people when they need it, so I really hope you guys can give me guidance this time 🫶
Yes I've seen many design subscription services. Basically it's like being an agency of record for a monthly fee. I've seen quite a few recently, like check product hunt. I've seen them for ux, product design as well as marketing design.
As fast as the business idea goes.. Sounds like a ok-ish business model, but to me seems like a lot of work for not great margins and then dealing with cheap clients and cheap design labor. I guess if you have access to a pool of talent willing to work within your budget it could be profitable.
You're right, there are a bunch of them.
When I started my Discord development business I was actually one of the first people to be doing it. Of course, as the market proved itself there was a bunch of people doing the same thing. How I separated myself later on is I charged premium, focused on quality client and delivering the best work. You could buy a Discord server from a guy selling it for 10$ or from me selling it for 395$. People who wanted quality and great buyer experience have literally joined a 2-4 weeks waitlist instead of going to other seller, even of similar price.
That's what I'm aiming for now. I preferred working with premium clients, since they were much better communicators, they were invested and it was a win-win situation overall.
As they say, you can make 1000$ by selling 100 pieces of 10$ product or just 1 at 1000$.
Glad to hear you are doing better and ready to start another venture!
Have you considered ramping this business back up? Then you can rely on a known skill & quantity of work while you figure out if your new idea is worth pursuing?
I would avoid over committing and under delivering and it seems like unlimited designs will lead you down the road of burnout very quickly.
Thank you!
In a morbid sense of great timing, my burnout happened just a month before demand for our Discord server completely went away (due to most clients at that time coming from the crypto space which then crashed resulting in less projects being started)
Design is something I've being doing since I was 11. I incorporated design into every business I had giving me a chance to not just learn how to make pretty stuff, but actually make great designs that solve a problem for me and many of my clients.
My idea is to try to work with as few clients as I can, charge a premium, but delivering the best quality as I always have.
Also, the system is set up so clients can add as many requests as they want, but they're put in a queue based on importance they decide for each new request. Communication is clear that average delivery time for a request is 24-48h, but some requests, like web designs, can take up to two weeks or even more (depending on complexity), and some requests, like text changes (if requested during work time) can be done much quicker.
Let me know if this all makes sense haha