Turning my service business into a product.

It was 2015 and I was sitting in my crummy office with one of my business partners, Tom.

We were reflecting on the past 3 years of our life and business.

You see, in 2012 we started a company called Label Creative - a creative agency offering your typical run of the mill creative services.

Branding, video production, web design development, logo design… you name it, we would try to do it.

We started Label Creative partly from some innate drive to create, but also because we didn’t want to get a job out of college.

We were proud of what we had created so far… two 25 year olds with a half a million dollar a year business in 3 years wasn’t so bad.

But the more important conversation happened when we started looking forward. Neither of us could see a vision for Label Creative that excited us.

We were getting tired of every project being custom, the business relying on us, and not offering a service that was meaningfully different than every other creative agency.

We had both read a book recently called Built To Sell by John Warrillow and began discussing his ideas and how they could relate to our future. The main points are to create a business that is teachable (easy to systematize), valuable (doing one thing better than everyone else), and repeatable (something that customers have to repurchase often).

Pretty quickly we realized that what we were doing at Label Creative wasn’t going to allow us to build a company that was easy to scale and sellable in the future for any type of significant amount.

So we agreed right then and there that we were going to change our entire business model and treat our business like a product.

A month later we rebranded to LaunchBoom - the most effective system to launch your product on Kickstarter & Indiegogo.

Let me show you how we did it and why it was so much more lucrative for us.

How I did it.

1) Think about your service like a product

When coming up with LaunchBoom, I told myself that our new business was going to be like Starbucks:

• Fixed price - you don’t go into Starbucks and haggle over the price. What the coffee costs is what it costs.
• Consistent product - When you get a cup of coffee from Starbucks you expect it to taste the same every time.

2) Discover where you produce the most value

During our discovery period between deciding we were going to productize and rebranding to LaunchBoom, we did a deep dive into our past projects.

• Which projects were the most profitable?
• Which projects were our clients the most satisfied with?
• Which projects were the most fun for us?

The answer for us unanimously was the crowdfunding projects we got the chance to work on.

There were three of them: EcoQube ($79,026 raised), 1Hour Break ($105,343 raised), and EcoQube C ($375,058 raised).

With our focus set on crowdfunding, we now asked ourselves the question “how can we differentiate ourselves in this market?” Which brings me to my next point…

3) Develop a product that is unique

We began to dissect what made the three crowdfunding campaigns so successful. In doing so, we were able to write out a step by step process that was unique to us. It was our system… our product.

We took our product and came up with multiple variations of it and assigned fixed prices to each of the different product offerings.

We were now in business.

Why it’s lucrative.

1) Easier sales cycle

Since we were no longer offering custom solutions for every prospective client, it was much easier to sell. Our sales team now essentially gave the same pitch every single time. Potential customers knew exactly what we were selling and there was very little room for misinterpretation. This led to a much higher close rate.

2) Easier to scale

Since we didn’t have to accommodate for any custom services, it was very easy to systematize our business. Every aspect was broken down into step by step processes that pretty much anyone could follow.

3) Higher profit

With more efficient operations because of the heavy systematization we were able to decrease expenses significantly. The greatest reduction in expenses came from decreased labor costs. We didn’t have to have a large team because one person was able to accomplish so much.

4) Higher customer satisfaction

I’ve found that the greatest contributor to low customer satisfaction comes from a mismanagement of expectations. We aren’t completely immune to that with our new business model, but the possibility of miscommunication is greatly reduced and customer satisfaction is much higher. Higher customer satisfaction leads to recurring business, them telling their friends, and more revenue.

5) Less stress

A systematized business requires much less cognitive load than one that is not. This decrease in stress leads to better quality of work and quality of life.

6) Balance of life

After switching to this business model, I finally experienced balance in my life that I always wanted. It was far simpler to remove myself from the day to day and hire employees to execute on the systems I created.

7) More attractive to buyers (if we decide to sell)

A productized business will sell at a significantly higher multiple than one that is not. Buyers want a business that is systematized, doesn’t rely on the founders, is unique, and has a predictable and repeatable sales cycle. Our business has this and gives me the piece of mind that it will be easier to sell and sell at a higher multiple if I ever chose to do that.

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Good luck,

-Mark

Read my other Quora answers in my profile here.