How I’d Start a $100k/Month Software Business From Scratch in 2026

Most software engineers trying to escape

the 9to-5 make the same exact mistake.

They hear start a business and

immediately jump to building the next

billiondoll SAS company. But that is a

trap. It's the number one reason that

most developers actually burn through

their savings and end up right back in

the cubicle. The truth is that there's a

much faster, lower risk path to a sevenf

figureure business that leverages the

skills that you already have. And I know

this works because it's exactly how I

myself quit my Fortune 500 job as a

software engine manager and built a

sevenfigure B2B consulting firm from the

very ground up. So, in this video, I am

going to give you the full four-step

playbook to go from developer to owner

by building a business that actually

gives you true freedom. Without further

ado, let's get straight into it. Welcome

everybody. Welcome to the ultimate guide

to starting a software business as a

software engineer. First off, what we'll

be covering in today's video is the four

following things. So the prerequisites

that you as a software engineer need

before you start a business because

truth be told there are certain

prerequisites that you have to meet

before you decide to go down the actual

path of becoming a business owner

yourself. Then we'll be talking about

how to choose a business model and what

business model you should choose based

on your own strengths and weaknesses.

And then we'll dive into how to get your

first 10 to 20 high-paying clients. And

afterwards we'll dive into continuous

improvement. The last section is largely

for your long-term vision, which we'll

discuss, but it's mainly for how to

actually expand your business to the

point where either A you later wish to

exit it for a big multiplier, or B, you

wish it to run autonomous, so it's just

like a cash cow. It just prints you

money. But without further ado, let's

jump right from chological order. So,

our first point of action, which are the

prerequisites. Now, I urge you all

everybody here to pay careful attention

to the prerequisite section especially

because there's going to be a lot of

stuff we're going to be discussing that

not many people have really thought of

before. And this is largely from I'm

tailoring a lot of the information here

from my own personal experience through

all the mistakes that I went through and

what I learned. And I'm just going to

give it to you right now so you know

what to what to do and what to do. And

with that actually for each section,

we'll have an action item block at the

very end of the section. I can show you

right now, but these are all action

items that you'll be able to actually

take a look at and do once we cover the

entire section. But right off the bat,

let's just start with self assessment.

So, let's imagine that you're building a

house. And with pretty much any

construction that you're going to do,

right, before you set the actual

foundation, you need to ensure that the

ground is stable so your building

doesn't collapse. You need to make sure

that all your materials are ready and

the blueprints are in place. Just as you

wouldn't start this construction process

without these essentials, you can't

build a successful business without

meeting the necessary prerequisites

first. And pretty much with anything we

really set out to do, there are certain

prerequisites that we have to meet. And

it's important to note that starting a

business is no different. And a

successful business is a lot more

difficult actually. So we first have to

assess our own skill set to see if we're

capable of building a successful

business. When it when I'm talking about

a skill set, I don't just mean our hard

skills. So, I mean both hard and soft

skills. We'll get into that later. But

for now, you should know that already as

software engineers, we already have a

strong foundation in problem solving,

technical expertise, and logical

thinking. But building a successful

business requires a lot more than that.

And it requires a lot more than just

your hard skills. It requires a

completely new set of tools you might

not be familiar with yet. So before we

lay the first brick of our

entrepreneurial venture, we first want

to ensure that we have equipped

ourselves with the right knowledge and

mindset to support the weight of what

we're about to build. If we rush things,

if we don't build the proper foundation,

then couple months down the line, couple

weeks down the line, our business can

just completely crumble and we'll just

look like a fool and we'll blame

everybody but ourselves and you know,

we'll just question what do we do wrong?

What happened here? And I'm speaking

from experience here. couple of the

ventures that I first went went through,

it is extremely important that we set

the foundations correctly. So by

recognizing this fact and addressing

these prerequisites, we essentially set

up ourselves for a smoother construction

process and we avoid big mistakes and

actually build something that can stand

up to the test of time. And we talked

about briefly about the mindset to

support the weight of what we're about

to build. And I want to expand on that a

bit. You see as a software engineer

before we get into entrepreneurship

before we become a business owner

there's a very big mind mindset shift we

have to gap there's a very big bridge

that we have to cross in a sense and to

actually succeed as a business owner to

actually succeed as an entrepreneur we

must adopt a completely different

mindset than that of a developer so you

currently as a software engineer you

must adopt a completely different

mindset than that of of a developer and

if you're asking well what's the mindset

of a developer Well, as a developer,

right, your primary focus is solving

very specific technical problems. You

constantly ask how to make something

work, whether it's writing code or

debugging, but you never really question

the why. And your work is largely

project- based with very clear

instructions and deadlines, right? And

your success is measured by how

efficiently you complete these tasks and

contribute to the larger project as a

whole. However, as a business owner,

it's completely different. Instead of

the how, you have to focus on the why,

right? So, you need to understand the

purpose behind the problems that you

solve. As a dev, you don't necessarily

question the purpose. You just do what

you're told, right? You you given a

problem and you're told to find a

solution, but you don't necessarily care

why the problem happened in the first

place. You know the problems there and I

need to solve it. As a business owner,

that's reversed. You need to understand

the purpose behind the problems that you

solve. and your role changes from an

executor of tasks to more so a creator

of tasks. Now, and another thing that I

want to talk about is in terms of the

mindset, many people don't talk about

this, but it's important to note that

entrepreneurship is inherently risky. It

comes with more risk. That's the meaning

of entrepreneurship. More risk, greater

reward. So, you'll definitely need to

step into certain uncertainty. You'll

need to make calculative decisions. And

you'll need to grow comfortable with the

unknown. You need to be comfortable in

the uncomfortable. And this shift in

mindset is extremely important. That's

why it's a prerequisite. You need to

focus less on solving technical issues

and more on understanding why these

issues actually exist in the first

place. So why did this problem occur?

Before you get to the solution, you need

to first understand the problem. And

only when you truly grasp the why can

you build something meaningful and

sustainable. Right? So with this we

discussed sort of self assessment

understanding our soft skills and hard

skills and then we discussed the mind

shift mind mindset shift that you need

and now the third prerequisite that I

want to discuss is the financial

cushion. So the there's an interesting

story I want to talk about here and that

actually resonated with me quite a bit

and this is the story of Herdan Cortez.

Now, I don't know if many of you know

him or not, but he was the person

actually in charge of conquering the

Aztec Empire. And in 1519, when he

arrived in a new world, he gave out the

order to burn all their ships. So, keep

in mind, this is 1519, right? They just

discovered a new continent. They arrived

with their ships at this new continent.

Took them months to make this journey.

And the captain says, "Who orders his

own men to burn all their ships." And

this is largely where the term, as they

say, burn your bridges. Right? You can

think of it that that way. This is

literally the perfect depiction of that.

They come to a completely new land.

They've never been there. It's

completely unfamiliar. And they decide

to, okay, we're here to conquer. And to

make sure we need to do it, we need to

make sure we don't have a plan B. So

what they do is they completely abandon

their plan B. So of them retreating on

their ships, they burned their ships and

despite being vastly outnumbered, Cortez

and his forces actually captured the AI

capital in 1521, two years later. And

this is extremely not only

inspirational, but it also gives you

kind of a secret of human potential that

we'll talk about shortly. But whenever

we're starting any business venture or

just any big venture really in our

lives, we often think that we need a

financial cushion, at least a few months

of living costs before starting a

business because it feels safer, right?

It gives us a fall back if things go

wrong or in case things go wrong. And

while this might sound smart before you

get started, it could actually be

holding back your true potential. Let me

explain. You see, throughout my journey,

I've seen mainly two types of successful

people, or I should say hyper successful

people. Some who carefully manage every

single risk. I call them proactive

people. And some who just dive in head

first without any safety nets. I call

those people reactive people. And I want

to make a note here. Neither approach is

better. So they both have their pros and

cons. I've seen both of them. Both are

extremely successful. Both can be not

successful, right? But nevertheless, one

isn't necessarily better than the other.

And in hindsight, the best way forward

in my opinion is actually finding a

balance that works for you. And me

personally, I'm more so lenient towards

the reactive route as that's what works

best for me. But I know other people who

slightly lean towards the proactive

route, but they still have a good

balance of both. But you first actually

need to understand where you fall. So if

I were to draw, let me draw a line here.

And if we call this this side of things

the left side the proactive and then the

right side reactive. All of us watching

this video are going to be somewhere in

here right somewhere on this line. So

I'm more so over here I'm more so on

this this side. So if I draw the middle

over here you need to find out where you

are on this line right here. Are you

maybe more so of a proactive person or

hyperproactive person? Are you maybe a

hyperreactive person? Are you maybe

smack dead in the middle? You need to

understand where you are because if you

don't know where you are, then you've

probably never been in a situation where

failure isn't really an option. And if

you've never been in a fa in a situation

where failure isn't an option, then you

don't know your full potential because

that's the only case where you're truly

pushed to the brink that your inner

potential can actually come out. And on

the opposite end, if you always act

without thinking things through and you

just rush things, you don't give pay any

attention, it's time to actually add

some strategy and see the difference

that it might make. So whether you're

here or here, there can be a lot of

things that you need to be doing

differently, but you wouldn't know that

until you take a look at yourself and

understand where you fall on this line.

And once you finally understand where it

is that you fall on that line, what you

need to do is what I call the 369year

outlook. So, while pushing yourself is

important, having a long-term vision is

equally crucial because the ultimate

goal of your business isn't necessarily

to make more money. Sure, that's one of

the things that you get, but it's

actually to gain freedom. And in my

case, before I started my business, I

had my own 3, six, and 9year outlook,

right? So, personally speaking, in my

first three years, I wanted to reach a

specific income goal, right? And I

wanted to pay off any debts that I had.

And this stage for me was more so, you

know, about building a stable foundation

for my future, stabilizing my finances

and preparing for bigger opportunities.

And then in the six-year outlook I had,

I started thinking of how I wanted my

life to evolve, right? I wanted to

invest in property, maybe other

ventures, other businesses. I wanted to

start a family, potentially relocate.

And the goal here was for me to expand

my wealth outside of just money, right?

Focus on bigger life goals. And finally,

year nine, it was more so about

long-term sustainability. So, I wanted

to potentially maybe exit my business,

maybe have an exit plan for the

business, make multiples like millions,

right? Like nine figures, eight figures,

whatever the case, and maybe move on to

something else, or just call it quits

there. But what's so interesting about a

3, six, nine year outlook, as we'll get

into later, it's that you'll almost

always you'll almost always beat these

year outlooks by an insane margin. So, I

reached my six-year outlook before my

three-year mark, right? So, where I

thought I was going to be at the

six-year mark, I got it before my

three-year mark. And so, now completely

my new 369 year outlook is changed

because every year it literally changes.

Every year I surprise myself and I have

to set new kind of vision, right? I need

to set up a new long-term vision. And

this is going to be the same exact case

for you because we always tend to think

of if our potential is let's say here,

right? We always tend to think of

ourselves around here and whenever we

set a goal we tend to set the goal

somewhere in this range either slightly

above or slightly below but our actual

potential is always way higher than that

right and the main reason why our

potential is actually that much higher

is because of our unique advantages. So,

every single one of you watching this

video has a unique advantage, right? And

once you've defined your vision, you've

assessed your strengths and weaknesses,

and you've understood yourself, the next

step is to identify your unique

advantages. And there are three main

factors that will give you an edge in

achieving your goals. And those three

key factors are your location, your

network, and your experience. Location,

I mean, physical location. So, where are

you located? Does your city offer any

strategic advantages to top talent,

funding or networking events? So, are

you in like a tech hub like San

Francisco or New York? And you need to

consider both the opportunities and the

challenges. Maybe your city is a tech

hub, but you have high living costs. And

you need to evaluate how your location

actually impacts your progress. Is it

better for it or is it going to hurt you

in the long run? Right? You then have to

take a look at your network. Who do you

know that can help you? Look at your

family, friends, co-workers, and

acquaintances. Are they in industries or

positions that could maybe open doors

for you? Think about mentors, investors,

or any key connections that could

fasttrack your success. So, whatever you

want to do, is there anybody that can

help you get there just a little bit

faster? And last but not least, you need

to take a look at your own experience.

So, you need to reflect on your personal

and professional experiences. What have

you learned from your work history, life

lessons, or even failures that set you

apart from other people? And these

unique insights can be extremely

powerful tools down the line because

guess what? They are what will set you

apart from other people, right? And if

you recognize and leverage these unique

advantages, you can position yourself

ahead of the competition and move more

quickly towards your long-term vision.

So, if we were to discuss action items,

this is what you'll be doing right now.

So, I urge you first and foremost do a

self assessment, right? You need to

assess your strengths and weaknesses.

So, I'm speaking both technical and

nontechnical, right? So don't look don't

don't just look at your programming

languages or the tech stack that you

know or how good you are at web

development or whatever the case right

don't just look at your software

engineering skills or more so technical

skills look at your soft skills as well

list what you can do to improve them as

well so let's say you're extremely good

at your technical but then your

nontechnical is lacking list what you

can do to sort of improve your

non-technical and then you need to focus

on the tasks that provide the highest

leverage so I call these the 10x tasks

to maximize the impact of your time

spent So if I were to give you an

example, right? Let's say for my

communication skills, I'm good at

clearly explaining technical concepts to

nontechnical team members and I can

effectively communicate ideas in

meetings. As for where I can improve, I

struggle with public speaking and often

find it challenging to articulate my

thoughts in high pressure situations. So

I now know, okay, I'm good at this thing

right here. I'm bad at this thing, so I

need to do a 10x task to improve this

thing right here, right? I struggle with

public speaking. And I go through the

list pretty much of every single one of

my technical and nontechnical skills

that I'll be needing. So my negotiation,

leadership, sales and marketing

experience and so on and so forth. You

get the point. And after I do a self

assessment of that, I'll then move on to

my mindset shift. So what you need to do

is you need to shift your mindset. You

need to stop thinking like a developer.

I cannot stress this enough. You need to

start understanding the why behind

everything you do. Adopt the mindset of

a creator as creation is the core of any

business. Stop be just a robot who

executes tasks. You need to start

leading and thinking like a creator.

More so understanding the why in

everything you do, not the how. The how

will always come if you understand the

why. Then you need to evaluate your

financial situation. So this is I'm sure

this is a big concern for everybody

watching this video. You need to

understand whether you're proactive, so

you're calculative or a reactive. So

like a risk taker in your approach to

business. You need to identify where you

stand and where you need to grow to

balance the risk and strategy

effectively. Right? And this is largely

the main point of this is for you to

understand are you going to be stronger

in situations where you maybe don't have

as much going for you and you have

really no choice but to succeed or are

you going to be stronger in situations

where you have everything planned out,

you have all your finances planned out

week to week. You know what you're going

to spend, how you're going to do it, and

you just have everything strategically

laid out. what kind of person are you?

And until you actually look at yourself

and identify who you are, because some

people might have misconstrued ideas

about who they are. I always thought I

was a calculative person, but it turns

out I was a risk taker. I did extremely

well in high pressure situations. And so

I didn't know this about myself until I

put myself in those situations. So

that's your third action item. And then

your fourth action item should be to

create a 3 to six nyear outlook. So map

out where you ideally want to be in 3,

6, and 9 years down the line. and

chances are you'll completely crush your

goals way faster than expected. So be

prepared to reassess and adjust as you

achieve more than you anticipated. And

then last but not least, your last

action item in this case will be to

actually identify your unique

advantages. So your action item here is

to list the unique advantages you have

over others. So this includes your

physical location, right? Your network,

your experience. And these will not only

serve as kind of like a confidence

booster to make you realize, oh wait,

like I have pretty decent amount of

advantages over other people, but

they'll also be your justification for

why you need to become an entrepreneur

as a software engineer, right? Because

already one of the biggest unique

advantages that you have is you're a

software engineer. That's already pretty

much doing better than 90% of the

population in the world, right? And it's

that other 10% where your location, your

network, and experience has to play a

factor. And once you do all these action

items, it's then time to move on to the

second section of choosing a business

model. Now before we actually dive into

what business models are out there and

which one you should choose, let's first

understand what I call the SAS curse.

Okay, so as software engineers, we are

pretty much programmed to think of SAS

when it comes to creating a business.

And why shouldn't we, right? We see

startups being valued at billions of

dollars. We hear about massive exits. We

look up to figures like Elon Musk and

Jeff Bezos and Marcus Zuckerberg. And

that's why it's no wonder that there

there legit millions of software

engineers trying to build the next

Facebook or Google, right? And I refer

to this as the SAS curse. And

unfortunately, it is a legitimate curse

plaguing software engineers. Sure, you

can follow this path if you want. You

can try to create the next Facebook or

Google. But do you actually realize that

there are countless other opportunities

available to you? And in my in my case,

like in my situation, I would even argue

that those opportunities are much

better. And as a software engineer, your

real advantage lies in your deep

understanding of technology and ability

to create using that understanding. So

you can always quickly adapt to new

advancements and leverage code to solve

technical and nontechnical problems. And

if we decide to just step outside of

this SAS bubble that we place ourselves

in, we'll see that there are many other

solutions we can build. Solutions that

don't have to follow the traditional SAS

model. And the possibilities are pretty

much endless if you're willing to think

creatively and break out of the mindset

that SAS is the only way to succeed. If

you're wondering like, okay, but you say

that, but what is there for me to do

outside of SAS? Well, let's actually

take a look. So, what business model

should you actually choose? The answer

is pretty much simple. You need to

choose a model where you can leverage

code. And there's two main paths that

you can follow when it comes to

businesses as a software engineer. You

either got to go the product based

model, right? So, you're going to create

and sell software products directly to

customers. So this would includes SAS.

This would include a subscriptionbased

tool or software that's licensed to

other businesses or developers. Or B,

you would do a service-based model. So

you can use your own coding skills to

provide a service such as maybe

automating processes, consulting or

building custom solutions for clients.

And your software supports the service,

but the revenue comes from delivering

that service. I created a software

completely from scratch, pretty much

just use utilizing Python that helps

analyze data. So we input data into it

and it helps analyze it. And I spent

about a month and a half on creating

this software. And while I can

technically have this as a SAS, I

decided to use this on a service-based

model. So I have this on a back end to

help me with my actual service that I'm

providing. And it just supports the

service. It's not the literal service.

It just supports it and the revenue

comes from me delivering that service.

I'll talk about that later. But in this

in this case, if you're deciding to

truly look, should do I go with a

product based model or a service based

model, you need to identify your actual

strengths, weaknesses, and unique

advantages because that's what's going

to guide your decision. So if you

remember, I said only move here if you

did the action steps for the first

section. This is what I meant. Your self

assessment, your strengths, weaknesses,

and unique advantages should guide your

decision here. So you need to choose the

model that gives you the most leverage

based on your long-term vision. So

should do you just remember that product

based models they have a higher ceiling

for growth but they are more challenging

to get off the ground. So you would

maybe I would only recommend you guys to

go to product based model if you have

somebody in your network or experience

that will give you that leverage over

other people. If you don't have anybody

in your network or experience to

actually help support that I would not

start off from a productbased model. In

my opinion, in my personal opinion, I

believe it is not only a little bit

difficult to get started, but the

opportunity cost of not doing a

service-based model when you don't have

the proper backing that you need for a

product based model is just going to

hurt you in the long term. And with a

service-based model, sure, your ceiling

might be a bit lower, but at least

they're easier and faster to start. So,

they allow you to generate revenue a lot

more quickly within days, if not weeks,

right? And essentially, you need to

choose a path that best fits your

skills, vision, and risk tolerance. So,

as I mentioned before, if you take a

look at your location, network, and

experience, and you have an extremely

overwhelming advantage, this isn't going

to be many of you, to do a product based

model, product based business, you can

do so. But for many of you, myself

included, when I when I started up, I

did a service-based model. So, you can

utilize utilize code to actually create

a software that supports a service, but

the revenue comes from delivering that

service. There is a little caveat here

in that many of you could possibly

instead of literally just doing

consulting, you could do you could build

custom software solutions for other

people. So you can kind of be a quote

unquote staffing company in a sense

where you have your own developers and

you create custom software for other

companies. In that sense, you're not

technically a SAS, but you create

multiple SASes for other people, right?

So technically, you're still a

service-based model. And it doesn't

really matter which one you choose.

You're whatever one you choose, you're

going to have to do market demand for,

right? And the important thing here is

that once you've actually chosen your

business model and the one that ideally

provides you the most leverage, so the

one that ideally fits the best with your

network, location, and experience. Then

the next crucial step is to understand

the market demand for your solution. So

no matter how skilled or innovative you

are, your business can only succeed if

there is sufficient demand for what

you're offering. If you're offering

something, but nobody wants it, then

you're not going to get any money and

it's just going to fail. So you have to

make sure that whatever it is you're

offering, people actually want it. And

pretty much the best way of finding this

out is doing market research. So market

research is essential to determining

whether your solution effectively

addresses the pain points of your target

audience. And if you'll notice, I

highlighted pain points here because

once again, this isn't talked about

often, but this is the most important

part when it comes to doing market

research. Any solution that you'll be

creating, right? Any problem you're

trying to solve, it needs to be one

that's causing pain to your customer or

the person you're trying to solve it

for. So, if we take a look at what are

the biggest pains in the world right

now, right? Outside of let's say

physical pain, right? You'll see beauty

companies doing extremely well because a

lot of it has to do with insecurities,

male and female insecurities. So both

boys and girls, they have certain

insecurities and it's a really big pain

point for them. Hence why these

companies offer solutions for these pain

points. Since we're software engineers,

we're not going to be directly be able

to spot the pain points like that as

easily as that. But if we just spend a

little bit more time and utilize our

creative thinking skills, we'll start to

understand the pain points in certain

businesses. I'll bring a couple examples

later down the line, but just understand

that you need to understand what the

pain points are for the customer that

you're going to serve, whether be it

you're doing a service-based business or

a product based business. And you can do

this a lot of ways. My when I personally

started out, I analyzed the current

trends in the market. I decided to look

at my competition to see what they were

doing. And I just looked at the market

saturation as well to identify any

potential opportunities that people

weren't taking advantage of. So in my

case when I started off when I created

this essentially AI data analytics

company nobody at the time in my area

had that. There was just pretty much

normal data analytics people that they

would hire or usually from the big four

right deote and TPWC and things like

that but there was no small business

that was doing this. So I'm like okay I

found the gap and that was the

opportunity they got into. And for

product based businesses, you should

focus more so on the scalability and the

long-term relevance of your product. So

if you're doing market research and

you're trying to look at competition or

you're trying to understand the pain

points of of the customers, the

companies that you need to take a look

at are those who have been in it for a

long term, right? They're they're

they're in it for at least 5 to 10 years

and they've scaled to quite a large

degree. For service based models, it's

more so understanding where you can find

the un underserved areas, right? So the

goal is to specialize your skills in the

place where you can have the most

significant impact because the place

where you can have the most significant

impact means the place where you will

generate the most value which means by

law you will get the most in return for

as well. Right? So for product based and

service based it's going to be kind of

different focuses that you're going to

take a look at when it comes to

analyzing current trends understanding

competition as well as addressing the

market saturation right and last but not

least is also important to consider how

your offer actually fits into the larger

ecosystem of things and whether there's

a sustainable need for it. So

sustainable is a key word here because

if let's say when COVID took place,

right, and people were selling masks and

hand sanitizer, that was a s that that

wasn't necessarily a sustainable need.

That only lasted for one or two years,

right? But then now things are back to

normal. So those companies that made a

killing off of those selling those now

they're probably not doing too hot

because there wasn't a sustainable need

for it, right? So all the research you

do here will validate your business

idea. It will ensure that you're

creating a solution that meets real

market demand and it's also setting the

stage for long-term success. And once

you actually have your business model,

you you know looked at your market

demand as well. So you took a look at

your competition, you identified the

pain points, now what you need to do is

you need to create an MVP. So a minimum

viable product. The main reason here is

because before you go and just fully

invest your time, energy, and money into

building your solution, you need to

first test it. You need to first make

sure that whatever it is you're

building, people actually want it. As

much market research as you do, as many

surveys as people fill out, as many

questions as you ask, you're never going

to get the true answer to your question

until you test it right then and there,

until you test the solution that you

create, right? And that's where an MVP

comes in. So an MVP is essentially a

streamlined version of your product or

service that includes only the essential

features needed to test your concept

with real users. So I want to highlight

this only the essential features, right?

You don't need to add in anything extra

and just your core essential feature.

That's all that needs to be in an MVP.

The main goal of the MVP is to quickly

assess market interest and gather

feedback before committing to a

full-scale launch. So by developing an

MVP, you essentially avoid spending

excessive resources on features or

services that people might not resonate

with. Instead, you focus on solving the

singular core problem effectively. It

can be something very small, but if it's

at least the MVP is tailored to solving

one problem and solving that problem

really well, that's all you need. And so

whether you're creating software for a

product based model, or you're offering

a service through a consultation or

agency, your MVP will provide valuable

insights into what works, what doesn't,

and what your customers truly need and

want. Right? So this iterative process

allows you to refine your offering,

gather user feedback and pivot if

necessary, all without the risk and

expense of launching at full scale. So

this is largely if this is pretty much a

must for all product based business

models. With service based business

models, you'll still have to do an MVP,

but you wouldn't necessarily go spend

too much time on it. You can probably

get away with one or two kind of sample

tries of it, right? One or two MVPs that

you create and then test it out. But

with a product based model, you

definitely need to have at least I would

say three to five MVPs that you do

because each time you create the MVP,

you're going to get feedback on it and

then change and possibly modify things

as you know new and more and more people

decide to test what it is you're doing

as you get more feedback and as you

potentially pivot into something

completely different, right? And once

you've pretty much already cho chosen

your business model, you've done your

market research, you've created your

MVP. So now you know your solution is,

you know, working and you decide to go

all the way into this into you creating

an actual standardized solution, a big

solution, you need to understand the

revenue streams for how you're going to

make money with that business model,

right? So once you have the business

model and an MVP or at least a clear

idea of what you'll be offering if

you're a service-based business, your

next crucial step is to understand your

revenue streams. So establishing how

your product or service will generate

income is key to ensuring the

sustainability and profitability of your

business. For a project based model,

revenue could come from subscriptions,

one-time sales, licensing fees, or

premium models where you provide basic

features for free and then charge from

premium functionality. So you'll largely

see, right, if we're taking a look at,

for example, we saw that Photoshop and

stuff changed from a one-time fee to now

a subscription model, right? And then

for example Microsoft Windows and Word

and stuff those are licensing softwares

right you pay licensing fee for those.

For Google for example it's a premium

model but you can upgrade. So Google

Drive if you want more storage you have

the 15 GB for free. If you want more you

upgrade and that's kind of the premium

functionality for service based models.

Your most common revenue streams will be

either hourly billing, retainer

agreements, so monthly or hour, you

know, just any type of retainer, project

based pricing, or even performance-based

fees. How well you do, you take a

certain percentage of so diver

diversifying your revenue streams when

possible is also essential. For

instance, if you offer a core service,

you could also provide an add-on at an

additional cost. In case of a SAS

product, for example, you might

introduce different pricing tiers

related to your software. But it's the

important thing here is you need to

consider the scalability of each revenue

stream and how they align with your

long-term business goals because you

need to make sure that your revenue

streams meet the needs of your customers

while also helping you predict cash flow

and making from decisions that will

drive growth over time. Now the main

reason I bring this up is because when I

first started my business I was actually

do billing hourly for all the projects

that I was doing and this ended up down

the line becoming a big problem. The

main reason being as we got more and

more clients, we started needing more

and more personnel to actually take care

of these projects and we sometimes had

to use the same person for numerous

projects and even though they were

spending let's say the same amount of

time on both for one they could be doing

better work and the other they could be

doing worse work. So what ended up

happening is you would let's say have 80

hours on one project 80 hours on one

project but the quality wouldn't

necessarily be the same and down the

line this was causing us problems. So we

changed to a project fee essentially now

basis and by a project based pricing

what we have now for example if you take

a look at I'm recording this on August

18th so and already 18 18 days has gone

by in August and if you take a look

we're already at let's see 50,000 there$

105,000 so $113,000

of revenue and this came from four

clients we have one client here that

paid us $55,000 for the project another

that paid $25,000 this $8,000 was a

change order and this $25,000 is another

new project. But nevertheless, this way

instead of billing hourly, we now bill

on a project basis. So we estimate how

long that project will take us and what

we need to do and we build them an

amount in accordance of that. We no

longer do it hourly. The main reason

here is because we now have a very good

estimate as to how long it's going to

take us. We have a standardized system

that we always use and we make sure that

before we onboard the client. We know

that it's going to take us this amount

of time. We take a look at their

internal systems. We take a look at the

data beforehand. So before we even

onboard them, we know how long it's

going to take us to help them. And hence

why before we even start working with

them, we know which pricing tier they'll

fall into. Hence why you see the price

discrepancies here. We have a couple

models that we have a couple tiering

models that we have that people can

actually go into and based on their

needs how long the project will be the

price increases but in this case we also

have what are called change orders. So

in case we do a project and let's say

they didn't like something or they need

something else changed, maybe they

forgot to include something in initial S

so the statement of work, we have an

offer of essentially a change order

where they pay, you know, a smaller

amount of money to just have one thing

either changed or added. One small thing

either changed or added. But in this

case, when you take a look at this,

right, so you'll see $113,000 in about

18 days. But this isn't all profit,

right? This is revenue. and I have to

take out my costs, my expenses, right? I

have to pay the team. So, at the end of

the day, while this might look like six

figures, my profit is not six figures in

half the month, right? So, that's why

it's important for you to understand the

revenue streams and how you'll be

potentially making money in a business.

And I always talk about revenue, but

what's really important are your

profits. How much are you actually

taking home? How much are you putting in

your pocket that you can use later,

right? And last, but not least, let's

take a look at our action items. So when

it comes to actually choosing a business

model, well the first thing you need to

do is you need to choose between a

product based or a service based

business model. And the thing that's

really going to help you do that is your

self assessment. So your strengths,

weaknesses, and your unique advantages,

which is your location, your network,

and your experiences. Combining all of

those will allow you to actually form

the decision of okay, do I want to do a

product based or a service-based? I

mentioned before, I would recommend for

90% of you to do a service-based model.

It's easier to start, faster to get

running and you can instantly get money

through straight up front. Sure, the

ceiling is low, but it's a lot easier.

And that's the main thing here. For a

product based business, it's actually a

lot harder. You're going to need a lot

of capital upfront. But as I mentioned,

if you're part of the 10% who has that

overwhelming unique advantage, either

through a network when you know somebody

who can help you or through your

experience, maybe you've worked for a

startup before, or even let's say

through your location. you're located

at, let's say, techub or something like

that, you can definitely do the product

based route as well. So, I don't want to

discourage you from anything. It's just

for many of you, I I believe a

service-based model would just be a lot

more beneficial. And for those of you

who are able to do a product based, hats

off to you. Then once you do choose your

business model, either product based or

service-based business model, you need

to analyze the market. So you need to

research your market to understand your

competitors overall trends that you're

seeing and most importantly you need to

identify the primary pain point your

business will solve. So this is

extremely important that the pain point

over here I talked about how when it

came to beauty right people were

insecure about maybe their looks or

whatever the case it is. So it's really

easy to look at the pain point in the

beauty niche, but as software engineers,

whenever we're creating problems to

whenever we're creating solutions to

problems, it might not be too evident as

to what the pain point really is. So

it's really important for us to double

down and really find that pain point so

we can use it to create our own

solution. And once we hone down on that

painoint and we have a business model,

whether we're going to do a product or a

service, we then need to create an MVP,

a minimum viable product. So once you

create the minimum available product, we

need to ensure that it only focuses on

the core problem. Nothing more, nothing

less. So it doesn't matter if you're

offering a product or a service, you

still need some sort of an MVP. And you

need to keep it so focused on solving

that one specific problem effectively

and efficiently without adding any

unnecessary features that's just going

to confuse the client, right? And once

you actually have these set up, once you

have your business model and you created

the MVP and you sort of know the pain

point of your targets, your pain point

of your target customer, you then need

to start looking into acquiring your

first 10 to 20 clients. So this is

probably the most important section of

the video here. So I urge you to pay

careful attention here. But without

further ado, let's let's just get right

into it. So getting your first 10 to 20

clients right off the bat, what I

recommend is you need to leverage your

network. Okay, the best way to get your

first few clients is to utilize your

network. And there's really the big

three as I call it in your network. So

you have your inner circle, right? So

these are your close friends, family,

and trusted colleagues. So what you need

to do is reach out to these people.

These are the people you know well and

can easily approach for support or

feedback or any referrals. And while

they might not always be directly in

your target industry, they might not be

your target customer, they can probably

most likely connect you with somebody

who is, right? And when you're talking

to your inner circle, do not be afraid

to ask for big favors. Okay? These are

the people who are closest to you. Take

advantage of that. Take note of who

helps you. And sure, you can pay it back

to them tenfold later on, but for these

people, really go out of your way to ask

for help or ask them to do something for

you. This is your inner circle, right?

They wouldn't mind asking that of you.

So, you shouldn't mind asking that of

them. This is what the inner circle is

all about. Everybody's got each other

back. And then once we kind of go out

outside of our inner circle, we then

have our professional network. So, these

are mainly our co-workers, clients if

applicable, right? and acquaintances.

These are people you've probably worked

with or just met professionally and you

have direct insights or connections in

your field. So these people can provide

referrals, introductions or they can

potentially become clients themselves.

So once again, you should most

definitely reach out to these folks as

well and you should definitely reach out

to your professional network. Now with

these people, you got to be a little bit

careful with regards to asking for big

favors, but you can still kind of do so

given the right time. Then last but not

least, we have the extended network. So,

these are essentially all the

individuals you met through events,

social media, or just mutual connections

who aren't really close to you, but

they're still valuable contacts and you

have them in your contact phone book,

right? So, this group can include

influencers, just industry leaders,

people you've engaged with in

communities, right? Or even the shop

owner down the street that you usually

buy from. And they can help amplify your

message and connect you with potential

clients through their own networks. Or

once again, they can potentially become

your own clients. But with these with

these sort of individuals, when you're

reaching out to them, you got to

understand that they are in your

extended network. So, I'll get into how

to discuss how to actually reach out to

those specifically later on. But these

are really the three tiers of how you're

going to be acquiring your first few

clients, right? You're first going to

run through your inner circle. If you

don't get any luck there, you're going

to go to your professional network. If

you don't have any luck there, then

you're going to go to your extended

network. If you do what I'm telling you,

you will 100% find at least one person

from one of these. Right now, the second

point I want to talk about when it comes

to getting your first 10 to 10 10 to 20

clients is the most important. So, I

call this grabbing life by the horns.

And the most underrated and overlooked

method for acquiring clients is meeting

them in person. Now, you'll realize I'm

not going to talk about ads. I'm not

going to talk about cold email because

to be honest, all these gurus are lying

to you. Okay? They sit there tell you

about cold emails. They tell you about

ads. But they don't tell you that the

only time you should run ads. The only

time you should run cold email is when

you're already at least making 15 to

$20,000 a month from your offer, right?

So, it's when you know your offer is

doing well. It's when you know it's

working. If if it's the first time

you're doing something, you just

throwing money at advertising without

even knowing how to create a good ad,

you're just going to sink. Okay? And

when it comes to grabbing life by the

horns, you cannot afford to be timid,

shy, or afraid of rejection. You need to

remember the doctor patient analogy. So,

this is something I always like to use

and this is something that really helped

me when I was starting off. You need to

imagine that you're a doctor and you

imagine you spot a tumor on a patient's

X-ray. Okay? So, a patient comes in in

your office, they take an X-ray, and

then you spot a tumor. You would do

everything in your power to help that

patient recover because their health is

on the line, right? And what you need to

do is think, okay, if I would do that

for my patient, if I was a doctor, as a

business owner, you need to treat your

prospects the same exact way. You need

to approach them with the mindset that

you have a solution to their problems,

right? Your offer is the relief to their

pain. It's their medicine. It's their

life-changing medicine that's going to

save their lives. So, you need to do

everything in your power to ensure that

they hear about it because just like the

doctor, you have the tools to help them

overcome their pain and potentially save

their life. Excuse me, got to give a

quick water break. But let's go ahead

and actually see real world examples of

client acquisition using grabbing life

by the horns. And right off the bat,

let's talk about my case, right? So

boom, how I got the one of pretty much

my first 25 clients I would say which

came from grabbing life by the horns as

I call it. So as I mentioned before a

majority of my clients came actually

from inerson client acquisition. Most

came from me pretty much wearing a suit

and a tie and pitching businesses in

person. Initially I just approached

local businesses that I was already

familiar with as a regular customer. So

places I frequently visited and believed

that it could truly benefit from my

services. So anywhere that I was kind of

like a regular ant and I thought, okay,

I think these guys could potentially

benefit from my services, I just went in

and gave it a try. So I had my suit and

a tie. I had my business card with me

and I had my company website on a QR

code on the back of the business card

and I had a portfolio of case studies

like a physical kind of binder of a few

case studies that I had worked on

beforehand, a few companies. And I

remember one of my most memorable

approaches was pitching my services to a

bakery. And if you're wondering, a

bakery, that was exactly my thought,

too, because I never thought that a

bakery would utilize my services. I was

always going for, since we were doing

B2B, I was always going for a lot bigger

companies more. So, retail stores,

clinics, healthcare facilities, right?

Home health, hospices, and things like

that. Businesses with a lot of money,

primarily businesses doing over $10

million a year, right? And the main

reason I actually sparked this idea of

me approaching a bakery is because every

time I went to buy a bread or pastry,

the owner would always give me an extra

piece. And I always understood it as,

you know, goodwill. He was being

generous. But one day I would always

ask, I'm like, "Okay, why is it like

every time I come in, you give it to me

as well?" And I noticed if I came in a

little bit early in the day, I wouldn't

necessarily get it. But if I came in at

night when they were about to close, I

would always get it. And he told me,

he's like, "Well, if I don't give it to

you, I'm going to throw it away anyway

because we're making way too much." So,

the problem was the bakery couldn't get

an accurate forecast on their demand and

thus would overproduce goods and would

have to discard them at the end of the

day. So, they were losing pretty much

hundreds of dollars every single day due

to overproducing goods, be it breads,

pastries, anything pretty much that

people would come in to purchase. And I

realized I'm like, wait, we could

potentially help them because uh we of

course we do data analytics and I

realized we can potentially forecast the

demand for them. So I pitched my

services. I said, okay, we can do free

work for you for one product, right? We

decided it was going to be breads as

that was the most popular product and if

you pretty much see success with it,

let's go ahead and do a paid contract

for the rest of the items, the rest of

the pastries that you have. And the

owner agreed. So we ended up actually

working for free. We did a free demand

forecast for the breads. It ended up

actually being perfect and they ended up

saving a lot of money through that. And

then we did paid work for the rest of

the items. But there was a very

important lesson learned here. It was

that opportunities are all around you

every single day. You just need to be

sharp enough to recognize them and bold

enough to seize them. In my case, the

opportunity was that I was a regular at

this place, right? And I just happened

to remember that the one time

conversation that I had with the owner,

he told me that, you know, they always

throw away breads and other goods

because they make way too much. So I

knew that was a problem. It was a pain

point that I can solve. And I was bold

enough to actually go in in person and

offer a solution to that, right? So two

things had to be two things had to

happen. Me spot the opportunity and two

me bold enough to seize the opportunity.

So this is exactly what I why I refer to

it as grab life by the horns. There's

always opportunity around you. You just

need to see it and actually seize it. So

that's just my example. Let's take a

look at two bigger examples. So ones

that led to billion-dollar companies. So

the second one that I want to talk about

is Ben Chestnut. If you don't know who

Ben is, he's the co-founder of

Mailchimp. Now many of you probably know

Mailchimp now as the email marketing

platform, but it actually originally

started as a web design company. And

after realizing that email marketing was

a common pain point for small

businesses, Chestnut began offering a

simple email tool. And it's actually

quite interesting to see that in the

case of Ben Chestnut who made an email

marketing solution. His first customers

didn't come from ads or cold emails. So

imagine a person makes his literal

business is all about sending cold

emails because that's the problem he

sees. And he doesn't get his first

customer from sending cold emails

himself. How ironic is that, right? But

what he did to get his first few

customers was he visited local

businesses in Atlanta where he actually

lived and he met those owners in person

and demoed Mailchimp and pretty much

showed them how he could help with their

marketing efforts. And these in-person

meetings got Mailchimp off the ground,

right? So, they had a plethora of

businesses that they met with, demoed,

and these businesses became customers of

theirs. And best of all, these early

customers didn't just help Trustnot

build the business, right? They also

provided the crucial feedback they

needed that shaped Mailchimp's

development later on. And the fact that

Trustnot actually built personal

relationship with all the clients

because he literally had to go in person

to deal with these people, it allowed

them to it allowed him to have direct

conversation with the folks. And this

means that any time he could just ring

them up on a cell phone or just go in

person and ask about what worked, what

didn't, and what features they actually

needed and wanted. Right? So the lesson

here is that don't underestimate the

value of personal outreach in the

beginning. Right? It can be the key to

gaining your first customers and also

setting your business up for sustainable

growth later on because these same

customers will not only validate your

business, but they'll also give feedback

on how you can improve it. And the third

example is you guys might be familiar

with it is Alexis Ohan. So the

co-founder of Reddit, right? And not

many people know this, but in the

initial stages of the company, Alexis

actually went to college campuses, tech

meetups, and conferences to talk

directly to his target audience about

their platform. They didn't run any ads

and they didn't do any other marketing

other than just going in person to

certain events and talking pitching

Reddit as a space for open discussion

and community building. And this was

essentially the entire point was to

encourage potential users to adopt

early, right? And the initial user base

which actually came from these inerson

engagements created what Reddit is

today. The initial user base not only

contributed to the growth of the

platform as a whole but also drove

product improvements based on feedback.

So before it became really popular and a

lot more millions of people started

using it, the first initial couple

hundred folks, they really honed in on

improving the product and all that

feedback Ohan used to create what Reddit

is now today. So while you have millions

and millions of people using it, the

entire backbone of it was really

probably constructed on the feedback of

maybe a couple hundred or thousand

people. And the lesson here once again

is opportunities are everywhere. You

need to spot them, seize them, and you

need to use personal outreach to land

your first few clients and build lasting

businesses, right? A lasting success. I

can't stress this enough, but inerson

in-person outreach is so extremely

powerful. Well, yes, we're we're in the

digital age now. Everybody's on social

media, but nothing beats that in-person

contact with somebody. And especially

nowadays where a lot of people are

always on the phone, they're always on

social media, they don't really

understand the importance of in person,

right? The actual importance of what

inerson meetings can do and inerson

client acquisition can do. And the third

thing that I want to talk about when it

comes to acquiring your first 10 to 20

clients is credibility hacking. So once

you actually start using Grab Life by

the Horns outreach strategy, you'll

naturally begin to acquire clients. So

some of these clients you might work

with for free to gain experience. Others

you'll probably charge a very nominal

fee. And a few you'll manage to charge

an amount that you're truly happy with.

But no matter how much they pay or don't

pay, these early clients are gold,

right? Because they help you build

something crucial, credibility. And this

is where what I call cred credibility

hacking comes into play. So what what do

you have now? You have a handful of

clients, right, from whom you

underpromised and overd delivered. So

this is once again an extremely key

point here that I want to emphasize.

I'll get into this later, but for any

client that you get, be it through like

if you're going in person or just asking

your network or anybody you're pitching,

you always want to underpromise but

overd deliver to really shock the

clients and make them think, "Wow, this

person did an amazing job. I I it was a

steal for me, right? And this

opportunity to pretty much showcase the

work you've done and how it's impacted

them. And the way you do this is not

through the typical testimonials that

you're familiar with, but what I call

the podcast style interviews. So, the

goal here is to move beyond the

standardized, oh, it was great working

with them testimonial that you see,

right? you you want to dive deeper you

into actually having maybe a deeper

conversation with them something that

feels authentic and valuable and not

something that's like scripted and just

oh okay here I worked with this person

it was really good this and that right

and these should be pretty easy for you

to set up because you personally

acquired these clients and likely

developed a relationship beyond just a

professional one so you should

definitely leverage that and what I

would highly recommend you do is you

essentially you conduct an interview

where you talk actually with these

clients about the specific work you did

for them. You ask them how they felt

before working with you, what challenges

they were facing, and how your work

helped solve these problems, right? And

you just want to let the client pretty

much tell their story. And you respond

in kind. You discuss the results you

were able to deliver and how it

positively impacted their business. The

key here is to make the conversation

feel natural and engaging, not scripted.

And this creates a compelling narrative

that potential clients can relate to and

trust. And the real key here is that

this doesn't only give you social proof.

It also positions you as an expert who

cares about solving your client's

problems. If you're spending that much

time, let's say an hour, hour and a

half, on interviewing a client for a

testimonial, that just goes to show

that, hey, this person cares this much

about their client, especially if you

know them on a first- time basis. If you

know some of their hobbies because

you've been talking about them about,

you know, outside of a personal

relationship, if you know that much

about your clients, then everybody can

see that connection. They'll be like,

"Wow, at least it's like these guys are

friends. Have been friends for like 5 or

10 years." And I want to emphasize this

again. These interviews are more than

just testimonials. They become trust

building content that showcases your

ability to deliver real results. So, if

I if I were to explain what a regular

business does, right? They acquire a

client, they get a basic review, they

make the review public, and they hope

more customers come in from that review,

right? And often times, if they get a

bad review, they're going to lose a

customer from that. So whereas what you

should be doing is you acquire your

client, you underpromise but you overd

deliver and then you do a podcast style

testimonial. And what this allows you to

do is what I call free value hacking and

also leads you to get new clients. But

free value hacking is essentially when

you now have your podcast style

interviews, right? Your podcast style

testimonials each I would say about an

hour long. If you can get it longer

that's perfect, but I would say an hour

is the sweet spot. and you've cover

you've captured a lot more than just

feedback, right? Like the entire hour

isn't about just the testimonial itself.

And these interviews are packed with

valuable insights into the unique and

common challenges that these businesses

specifically faced and how you help them

solve, right? And how you help sol them

solve this problem. And this content is

actually valuable not for the reason you

might think. It's not only it doesn't

only hold immense value because it's a

testimonial that showcases how good your

services are, but it also highlights not

only your success, but it offers

actionable information that other

business owners in the same industry can

benefit from. For example, if let's say

I interviewed the owner of that bakery,

right? And then another bakery happened

to see that interview and maybe they're

like, "Oh wait, I am also producing way

too much bread. how can I actually help

solve this problem? Because no bakery

owner is going to ever think of hiring

an anal like a data analyst to do that,

right? No baker is going to think of

that. Baker is probably going to try to

eyeball it or hypothetically, you know,

test it themselves or maybe they'll just

consider, okay, it's fine if I'm losing

$50 or $100 on that a day, right? But if

somebody sees that on an interview, the

baker must might be like, "Oh, I didn't

know I can think of a do I didn't know I

can do it that way." Right? because it's

so out of kind of scope for them in a

sense that they'll be able to get free

value from it. And this is where the

free value hacking comes in, right? The

entire point here is to repurpose your

testimonials, these podcast style

testimonials into educational content

that provides free value to potential

clients, right? And these are what are

known as lead magnets. So, we'll get

into this essentially in a future video,

but these lead magnets is essentially

free pieces of content that you have

that you use to get more and more

clients. And this this is extremely this

is probably the best lead magnet that

you can have is because not only a do

you have a testimonial that vouches for

your business, but b it can potentially

help pretty much any other industry or

any other business owner that has a

business similar to who you were

interviewing, right? And here's how it's

going to work. The businesses you've

helped most likely face challenges

similar to those experienced by others

in the same industry as them. Okay? So

whether it's improving efficiency,

boosting sales, or enhancing customer

retention, this is specifically what we

were doing. So this is my example,

right? So in our case, whether we were

improving efficiency, boosting sales, or

enhancing customer retention, our

conversations were always full of

valuable lessons that could help other

businesses improve their own operations,

right? And by repackaging these lessons

into digestible content, whether you

want to do it through blog posts, short

videos, or infographics, you position

yourself as a knowledgeable expert who

understands the specific pain points of

that industry. In my case specifically,

I had these interviews actually. I

didn't publish them anywhere, but I had

these interviews and I also created

actual PDF files. So, case study

breakdowns of these. And what I would do

is whenever I would pitch other people

in person, I would hand over the PDF

document and I would have the file I

would share with them either through an

email or something like a Google Drive

link where they could watch the

interview and see what it is that we're

talking about. And a lot of the times

even if we didn't end up working with

the person they took so much value from

that interview they applied it to their

own business and couple months down the

line they you know asked us oh hey we

actually looked at the interview we we

implemented it and we're now up this

much money or we had this success and

we're really happy to see that because

down the line these people can always

become our clients. So offering this

free actionable content not only

attracts potential clients but also

builds trust and showcases our ability

to deliver results. And last but not

least, when it comes to acquiring

clients, if you've actually followed the

steps so far, you've already likely

secured at least one paying client,

right? And you need to actually now

leverage that relationship by asking for

a referral. And to incentivize them to

actually give you that referral, you can

offer them something of equal value. So

you can offer like a discount, you can

do a gift card or you can have as an

example a free month of your service,

right? And this simple request can open

doors to new clients within network and

it can help your business grow through

word of mouth alone. To this day with my

business, it's grown completely through

word of mouth and inerson client

acquisition. I have I have sure I have

done ads. I've done cold email, but that

was only after I had a certain offer I

was testing. And actually, I didn't get

too many clients from cold emails or ads

because I was always testing something

new, right? I didn't want to go through

the hassle and had the money to spend.

So, I wanted to test that with the money

that I had. But nevertheless, 99% of my

clients have come through in person and

word of mouth. And that's actually the

highest highest paying clients as well,

interestingly enough. And beyond the

referrals, what you need to do is you

need to consider forming strategic

partnerships with other B2B businesses

that you've helped. For instance, if

you've, let's say, developed custom

software that automates invoicing,

right? You can partner up with a

bookkeeping or an accounting firm and by

bundling your automation software with

their own services, they add more value

for their clients and you gain new

customers and a percentage of the

revenue, right? And in return, you

pretty much expand your reach. you gain

access to a new client base and you

don't have to worry about spending any

money or going through the hassle and

time of finding these clients on your

own. Right? So, this creates a win-win

scenario where both businesses benefit

from the partnership while growing their

customer base. Now, when it comes to the

action items for your actual finding

your first 10 to 20 clients, here is

what you need to do. So, first and

foremost, you need to leverage your

network. Okay? And we talked about the

three the big three, right? your inner

circle, your professional network, and

your extended network. So, you need to

reach out to your close friends, family,

and trusted colleagues. You need to ask

for any referrals if you can, any

support and feedback about what you're

doing. And don't be afraid to request

big favors. These are the people most

willing to help you. Always keep that in

mind. Afterwards, you need to reach out

to your professional network. So, you

need to reconnect with any former

co-workers, clients, acquaintances,

school buddies from university, whatever

the case. Ask for introductions,

referrals, or even consider them as

potential clients. If possible, then you

need you need to look at your extended

network. So any influencers, industry

leaders or mutual connections, your

mentor events, social media or online

communities, you need to actually use

them to amplify your message and connect

you to other potential clients. Okay?

And once you actually leverage your

network, once you find these people that

you can reach out to, you need to adopt

a doctor patient mindset. Okay? So, you

need to approach potential clients with

the confidence of you having the

solution to their problems. You can't

fear rejection and you need to treat

your offer as a relief they need just as

a doctor would with a patient. So,

always keep that in mind. And with

anybody that you're meeting, I would

highly recommend prioritizing

face-to-face meetings over virtual ones

because face-to-face meetings build

stronger relationships and also shows

them your energy and expertise while

demonstrating how your solution can help

solve their problems. And people

whenever they usually meet in person,

they get to trust you a bit more because

they think, "Okay, this person went out

out of their way to come physically to

this location despite their busy

schedule, right?" And once you've

actually met your clients in person and

you've already landed a few clients and

you've done work with them, you need to

do what I call the credibility hacking.

Okay? You need to leverage your early

clients by conducting podcast cell

interviews. You need to dive into the

specific challenges they faced, how you

helped them, and the results you

delivered. And you need to keep it

conversational, unscripted and engaging

to build trust with future prospects,

right? So by unscripted, you can have a

few key points you want to just bring

across. So maybe like five to 10 bullet

points of okay, what challenges you

faced, how you helped them, this and

that. But in general, you want to have

things unscripted. So if it little gets

maybe a little bit off topic, maybe they

want to talk about how you know they had

a vacation or something. No matter, as

long as it's an engaging conversation,

it'll be really actually beneficial for

you, especially if other business owners

are seeing it. Because whenever a

business owner sees a completely

scripted testimonial where you're asking

questions and you're getting the perfect

results back, it's a bit iffy and they

they realize, okay, there's something

suspicious about this. And once you have

your credibility hack, right, you need

to reprocess content with free value

hacking. You need to turn the insights

from your podcast style interviews into

educational content, be it through blog

posts, videos or infographics. Okay? And

you need to share these actual lessons

that other businesses in the same

industry can benefit from. And you

position yourself as a valuable resource

who can help them. These are known as

lead magnets. Okay? And this is there's

a lot of other lead magnets you can do,

but in my opinion, this is probably the

best lead magnet that you can do. And of

course, last but not least, you need to

ask for referrals and form strategic

partnerships. So don't hesitate to ask

your satisfied clients for referrals,

okay? And you need to sweeten the deal

as much as you can with incentives. So

the the the more the sweeter the pie,

right, in this case, the more they'll do

from their end to get you clients. So if

you offer like a big discount or gift

card or free service to encourage them,

spread the word, the word, they will do

so. Okay? And when it comes to strategic

partnerships, you need to identify

complimentary businesses and you need to

form partnerships to offer bundled

services. For example, if you developed

custom software, partner with an

accounting firm, right, or marketing

firm to expand your reach and you can

share revenue and client access. This is

a bit of situational, but in this case,

if it's such a, you know, situation

where you can benefit from that,

definitely look into that as it can once

again just completely help how you get

clients and just reduce the workload on

your end. Okay? And once you've actually

done these action items, right, and

you've gotten your first 10 to 20

clients, we then get into the continuous

improvement section. Now, I mentioned in

the beginning, right, how when we get

our first 10 to 20 clients, we want to

position our business for either a being

autonomous, where it's just like a

printing money for us, or b where we can

potentially exit it. Okay? So, it

doesn't matter which one you really

want, it's going to be the same exact

process. you need to go through

continuous improvement. And if you

remember back when we were first talking

about the first section, we talked about

building our house. Okay? So, let's talk

about well, now we've actually finished

building our house. So, let's imagine

that you finished building your house

and you moved in, but over time you

begin to notice that some areas could be

better. Maybe a draft comes in through a

window or the layout isn't just doesn't

flow as well as you'd hoped initially,

right? Something's off. So to keep your

home comfortable, you rely on the

feedback from everybody else living in

the house. If someone mentions that the

kitchen feels too cramped or the

lighting is insufficient, you make

changes based on their input. Okay? And

this process of gathering feedback and

making adjustments is essential for

maintaining and improving the space over

time. And the same exact concept applies

to your business. And that's where

customer feedback loops comes into play.

Because right off the bat, just like how

you built your first house, if you're

going to build a business, it's probably

not going to be perfect the first time

around. There's going to be changes

you're going to want to make. There's

going to be improvements you're going to

need to make. So, your customers are

kind of like the people living in your

house. They experience your business

from the inside and notice things you

might not. So, by regularly collecting

their feedback through either surveys or

just interviews, one-on-one calls with

them, you gain insights into what's

working well and what needs improvement.

But it's not just about listening. It's

also about creating a loop where

feedback is actively turned into action.

Okay? When customers tell you something

isn't meeting their needs, you take that

information, make changes, and then

check back in to see if those changes

solve the issue. This is extremely

important. And this continuous loop

actually helps ensure your business

remains aligned with what your customers

truly want. And if you integrate this

into your business strategy, you're not

only going to make improvements, but

you're going to build trust and show

your customers that you actually care

about them, which in hindsight, they're

going to spend a lot more money down the

line. So, just like keeping your house

in top shape, regular attention to

customer feedback ensures your business

remains strong, relevant, and able to

adapt to changes needing over time. Now,

with that, once we've actually gathered

feedback and implemented necessary

changes, our next step is refining how

we operate dayto-day. So process

optimization focuses largely on

streamlining our internal workflows to

enhance efficiency and reduce waste. So

whether it's automating any repetitive

tasks we might do or improving

communication between any teams that we

might have or refining our product

development cycle. Process optimization

ensures that our process excuse me our

business runs like a welloiled machine.

Right? And this stage is really all

about making sure every component of

your business is working in sync. By

constantly reviewing and fine-tuning

your operations, you minimize

inefficiencies and free up resources

that can be better spent on innovation

and growth. And continuous process

improvements also help you adapt quickly

to new challenges, making your business

more resilient over time. Now, this you

might not worry have to worry about

initially, but as you get your first few

clients, especially as you maybe start

running out of time yourself and you

need to hire more and more people, you

need to make sure that you optimize your

processes. you you got you want to make

sure that you reduce churn and just

reduce any waste and and you want to

increase the operational efficiency from

the get-go. This is something you should

have in mind from the very beginning.

Don't leave this for later. Now, as you

improve your process and respond to

customer feedback, it's essential that

you also focus on skill enhancement both

not only for yourself but also for your

team because the business landscape is

constantly evolving. Okay? And you need

to stay ahead because as you know if you

don't stay ahead and you just stagnate

your competition will eat you up.

They'll beat you. So you need to

constantly update your skill set and

expand and learn more things. And you

need to do this for yourself and your

team. So this could you know as a

software engineer this could mean that

you need to learn new technologies. You

need to master new tools that come out

or it could also mean you need to work

on your soft skills. So maybe you got to

work on your leadership or decision-

making abilities as a whole. And for

your team, it could it could just mean,

you know, providing them opportunities

for professional development, maybe some

training, certifications, or just

mentorship. Okay? But by investing in

skill enhancement, you ensure that

everybody in your business is equipped

to handle any new challenges that come

your way. You're not going to get caught

up by any surprises. And it this not

only improves the quality of your work,

uh, which, you know, down the line will

get you more money, but it also boosts

team morale and engagement, which just

leads to better performance across the

board. So there's really no lose here.

It's just all wins. So you got to keep

your skills sharp and evolving with the

times because it's crucial in

maintaining competitive edge and

ensuring the longevity and growth of

your business. And actually, since we're

on the topic of that, one of the most

crucial factors for long-term success in

business is the ability to adapt. So as

you gather feedback, optimize your

processes, and enhance your skills, you

must also be ready to pivot and evolve

based on external factors. So this could

be your any market shifts, new

technologies that come out or changes in

customer needs. Okay. And adaptation is

about staying flexible and responsive to

the everchanging environment in which

your business operates. This means being

proactive, right? So we talked about the

proactive and reactive. In this case,

this means being proactive when you see

trends emerging and being agile enough

to actually adjust your strategies when

unexpected challenges arise. So whether

it's modifying your product to better

meet market demand, changing your market

approach to align with the shifting cost

consumer behavior, or exploring new

revenue streams, you need to make sure

that your business stays relevant and

it's actually still resilient to

changing times. And businesses that

embrace adaptation, they're not only

able to survive long enough, but they're

also able to thrive in it. So they get

they make a lot more money year over

year. And this just ensures that you're

not caught off off guard and five years

down the line or six years down the

line, you don't go bankrupt. And to kind

of hone everything together and connect

everything, you need to make all your

decisions based on data. So all your

decisions need to be datadriven

decisions because making decisions based

on instinct alone can be extremely

risky. And you need to make sure that

your choices are guided by solid data

and metrics. And me running a data

analytics firm, I can tell you that so

many businesses overlook this aspect. Be

it your customer behavior, market

trends, sales performance or operational

efficiency, you need to use actual raw

data to inform you of your next steps.

Okay? Instead of guessing what your

customer wants or how your product is

performing, you need to rely on hard

evidence to guide your business

strategies. So, not only does this

approach minimize uncertainty, but it

also allows you to make confident

decisions that can help you later on

make a lot more money. And by

consistently leveraging data, you

identify patterns, predict future

trends, and you measure the success of

your efforts with precise precision. And

this once again not only helps improve

performance, but increases the

likelihood of achieving sustainable

growth. And datadriven decisions ensures

that every move you make is calculated

and aligned with your business goals,

keeping you on the right track for

continuous improvement. So if I were to

discuss the action items for this one,

there's really a couple things that you

need to do. When it comes to customer

feedback loops, you need to regularly

gather feedback from your customers. Be

it through surveys, reviews, through

communications, it could be email, text,

one-on-one calls, whatever. And you need

to analyze this feedback to identify key

areas of improvement. If somebody, if

you realize a few customers are

complaining about a specific thing, then

you should probably most likely try to

improve that specific thing. Okay? And

you need to actually implement changes

based on feedback. You're not just going

to let it enter through one ear and out

the other. need to actually implement

changes based on the feedback and follow

up with the customers to ensure that

their needs have been met. With regards

to process optimization, you need to

review and evaluate internal processes

for efficiency. And I recommend doing

this on a monthly basis. You need to

identify and eliminate any bottlenecks

that you see or any rep repetitive tasks

that can be automated or streamlined

should be done so as soon as possible.

And continuously adjusting your

workflows to ensure smooth operations

and improve productivity is the key to

staying ahead of your competition and

always being successful. In my case, we

have an audit every single month of

taking a look at our processes and

making sure that everything is as good

as possible. If we see something that's

lacking, we immediately try to eliminate

that bottleneck and address it as soon

as possible. Next up comes to skills

enhancement. So you need to identify

areas where you and your team lack and

you need to either go do training. You

need to have team workshops. You need to

bring in a mentor, maybe a consultant or

some or somebody to help you further

develop your own skills and your team

skills. And you need to regularly update

and expand your skill set to stay

competitive in your industry. And once

again, we do this once every three

months. We're we'll either do a

training, a workshop, or we're bringing

a cons a consultant to discuss a new

skill or maybe a new mainly related to

soft skills. We're worried about hard

skills. Most of them you can learn on

your own. But when it comes to soft

skills, it's always better to just have

another human there talking about it,

explaining it, and just showing it in in

person. Fourth, we have adaptation. So

you need to stay informed about your the

any market trends that's happening,

emerging technologies, changes in

customer behavior, right? Especially

nowadays in this world we're living in

with the potential for World War II and

all the craziness happening, you want to

be just updated and understand how

that's potentially going to impact your

own business. So you need to regularly

research your strategies and you need to

be prepared to pivot when necessary and

you need to embrace flexibility and you

need to look for opportunities to

innovate when faced with challenges or

disruptions. So, God forbid something

major happens, a black swan event, and

you know, you're you need to be able to

prepare for that and you need to

possibly already have a plan B for that,

right? And then last but not least,

datadriven decisions. You need to

collect and analyze key data points. So,

this includes your customer behavior,

sales metrics, market trends, etc. And

you need to use data to actually guide

all of your business decisions. You need

to ensure that every single step is

backed by evidence. And you need to

monitor the outcomes of your decisions

and adjust your strategies based on the

results that you get. So with that, that

pretty much covers our action items for

our last section. And just to give a

quick rundown of everything, right? We

talked about the prerequisites, what you

need to do. So self assess your

strength, weaknesses, your unique

advantages, your network location, and

your experiences. And you need to

understand those to kind of choose the

business business model, right? And the

business model that you're going to

choose either product based or service

based. If you have the unique advantage

of potentially doing a product based, do

that. But I would highly recommend most

of you starting a service based either

creating custom software for other

companies or just doing a consultation

type of thing as I'm doing using the

code to kind of build a software that

supports the service, but the revenue

comes from delivering that service. And

you need to actually identify the market

demand. You need to target the specific

pain points of the customer to

understand what it is that you'll be

doing for them. And always you want to

test things with an MVP, a minimum

viable product. Don't go gung-ho

spending all your time and energy into

creating something that you're not even

sure will work. You first want to test

things with just an MVP that targets the

core problem, right? And of course, you

want to understand the revenue streams

to better understand how you're going to

be making money and any pricing things

that you can do to potentially just

increase your upside always. Then we

talked about how to get your first 10 to

20 clients. As always, leverage your

network. It's the best way of finding

the clients. And in my opinion, the best

clients you'll get are also from your

network because it's most likely people

that you know yourself. So you know

their personality. You know what they

like, what they don't like. We talked

about the three the big three, right?

The inner circle, the professional

network, and extended network. We then

talked about grab life by the horns. The

most important section in this entire

video, grabbing life by the horn

strategy of meeting your clients in

person. I gave the examples of myself as

well as two other individuals who use

this inerson client acquisition

strategy. And we briefly ted upon the

doctor patient analogy how you need to

be a doctor and your client is the

patient. You always need to be caring

about them. And in this sense, your

offer is their relief. So you need to

make sure they know about it, right? And

we then talked about credibility

hacking. Once you finish the work for

your clients, do a podcast style

interview. And this could be an hour

long, maybe even longer, but it's not

just a test quote unquote a regular

testimonial of, oh, hey, this is the

work they did for us. it was great

working with them, blah blah blah. This

is more so an actual conversation and

people should be able to realize that,

hey, even though, you know, this is

between a business and their client,

these people talk as if they're friends,

these people have a relationship outside

of a professional one, people should be

able to spot that instantly because that

builds trust in other business owners as

well. Okay? And what you'll need to do

is actually utilize these podcast style

interviews for free value hacking. So,

you'll offer them as lead magnets to

people. You can post them on social

media, YouTube, or wherever the case, or

just even have them on a one-on-one

setting to showcase to people if you

don't want it to make it public. But the

point here is that people that maybe run

the same type of business or people that

are in the same industry as the client

that you helped, they'll be able to get

a lot of feedback and a lot of help from

watching that case study or watching

that pod podcast style interview. Last

but not least, you should ask all of

your clients for referrals and you

should incentivize them. the more value

you offer, the more incentivized they

will be to get more clients for you. And

of course, look into strategic

partnerships as well. Something not a

lot of people talk about, especially if

you are a SAS business or even a

service- based business. If you can

partner with another business to, you

know, give you a new client base that

you might not have gotten beforehand, do

so. It's really not going to hurt you in

the long run. And then last but not

least, we talked about the continuous

improvement of how you should always

constantly always ask your customers for

feedback to only not only improve your

product but also your own service,

right? Your internal side and external

side. And you need to always optimize

your processes, your internal processes

to make sure everything is smooth.

Communication is not a problem. And as

your team grows, the efficiency stays

the same or even increases and it's not

a hindrance. You then need to address

the skill enhancement, right? You need

to make sure your team is always

improving their skills. They're always

improving. They're not stagnating such

that your competition doesn't come and

beat you and take you out of business.

And you need to be adaptable. You need

to adapt. We're living in times where

anything can happen really with

potential world war, numerous other

black swan events. You need to have that

adaptability in case you know something

happens, something major happens, god

forbid, you're able to react to it and

at least have a plan in place or a plan

of action that you can go forward with.

And last but not least, you should

always, always, always look things

through data. Always follow data, never

based on instinct. Sure, instinct can be

helpful and beneficial, but you should

always confirm it with data. Data is

king here. So, any decision you're going

to make, especially any big decision,

take a look at the hard raw data to see

what it says about your customer

behaviors, market trends, sales,

operational efficiency, and so on and so

forth. And with that, that's pretty much

everything I wanted to discuss. I hope

you enjoyed this video. Please make sure

to like and subscribe. I spent a lot of

time on this, a lot more than I

initially thought I would. But if you

have any questions, feel free to drop a

comment in the uh comments below and

I'll be sure to address all of them. As

always, thank you for watching and have

a