So, this is the first official blog post for Dev Major. I decided to write the story in real time in an effort to document the ups and downs of running a business. I heard of the concept through the Indie Hacker movement (if you haven’t heard of it yet, I’d highly recommend you give Courtland Allen a youtube search) and follow the journey of Jon Yongfook who started and currently runs successful Indie Hacker business Bannerbear. Now Jon runs a very successful business that is currently doing $500k+ Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), so we’ve got a way to go to be at his level, but, emulating the documentation of the journey – whatever it holds – will do for now.
One search in the business category of YouTube throws up videos with titles such as… “Make £30,000 a month”, “Sell your startup for millons”, the start of the rabbit hole that leads to a very late night and not being a penny richer. I’m not promising you’ll learn to do either of those things here, you might even witness a flop, but what I hope to bring to my readers is a raw experience and some entertainment along the way.
Let’s get down to business
Right, ready to go, let’s do some deals! Oh, wait, firstly the not so glamourous admin and paperwork….
First things first, registering the business on companies house. I thought this was actually going to be more effort and cost a little more, turns out it took me about an hour and cost the grand total of £12. Trying to come up with a name for the business was probably harder, surprising with the state of some of the other government services. It felt quite cool to be named as a director, it felt important, like I was starting the next Apple or Google or Amazon. I’m not sure entirely by design but the formal letters in the post with the relevant company numbers and activation codes certainly added to the feeling.
Next, a business bank account. This is where it got a little less fun. I spoke to a friend who runs a company and he’d recommended Starling for it’s ease of use, feature set and integration with a lot of accounting platforms favoured by smaller companies. The application for the account was less than straightforward and perhaps for good reason, it would be naïve to think there were no setup costs on the Starling end so I guess they have to do their due diligence. Due to not having traded yet, I had to provide a detailed business plan and also supplied a copy of a proposal I had put together for a prosective client (spoiler alert). The application is currently being reviewed by the Starling team at the moment so fingers crossed for a positive outcome, no more paperwork there please!
Finally, my friend also put me in contact with an accountant. Now, I completely understand that small businesses have to save where possible and of course it is possible to do your own account but 1) It is SO boring 2) HMRC won’t play nice if you get it wrong. The accountant I spoke to was very clear and as I only needed the minimal service offered a rate of approximately £50 a month, we agreed that I would send through all the credentials and information when the business bank account gets setup and I can setup the standing order.
There are a few other admin bits that need doing, for example trademarking the logo, but I’ll leave those for the next blog post and give you some juicier stuff now..
First bit of work
Before I started the business I had done quite a bit of freelance work just as a sole trader (see my portfolio for examples). So I was kind of lucky with my first request for a proposal as it was someone I had worked with before. I often get asked how I get work and honestly, a lot is through referrals and word of mouth. I think the best way to get started in the web world is to do projects for free or a small fee and show people how good you are. Not only do you get the benefit of showcasing your skills but you’ll probably learn something along the way too.
As I said, someone I worked with before asked me to put together a proposal for developing a custom API. Two years ago I had NO IDEA how to develop an API but luckily I worked on a number of projects where I learned how to use and develop them to a pretty high standard (see my point about working to learn, you never know when it’ll pay off). I developed a pretty cool looking proposal that outlined the scope of work, how the API would work and most importantly, what would happen after the project finishes. I think this is what most developers tend to miss, the aftercare. People don’t want to be left with a bit of tech they don’t know how to develop or maintain so it’s really important to make sure your documentation is understood and you hand over to someone in the business that knows what they are doing – it is your job to make sure both of these things are done.
Proposal sent, everything crossed, we’ll see what happens.
In the meantime
I’m going to look at effective and efficient way of marketing the business. Word of mouth is extremely powerful but it isn’t always reliable. I want to find interesting people with some interesting projects – so I guess the best place to start is to ask myself, where do these people hang out?
I once read a marketing book that put it quite bluntly: “There’s no point in spending £1000s on newspaper ads for the blind”. In other words, find out where your potential customers hang out and start making yourself known in those circles.
So I’ll be doing some brainstorming, trying to identify exactly who my target audience is in a little more detail than “interesting people with interesting projects” and go from there.
For those of you that made it to the bottom, well done / thank you.
Let’s build something great.
Dougie
