Humanizing the one-man digital agency subscription model

Nearly three months ago, I took an independent path and started my own business after 10+ years working as an employee.

I’ve seen many newly founded agencies struggle to land enough work out of the gate, so I wanted to share different strategies I used to make sure there’s enough work for me to turn this into a long-term thing.

Recently, there’s been a rise of one-man subscription model agencies, where a single designer or a freelancer of any kind would offer their services for a fixed monthly fee, and doing so, charging all the way up to $7k per month, per client. Yup, you read that right. You may be thinking that this is a lot for one person to take in, and that’s because it usually is.

Whole movement actually started with a very talented designer, Brett, who a while back started his agency DesignJoy. The difference however, in his case, is that it took him years to build up his client base. Another thing that most who follow him are not necessarily aware of, is that he’s incredibly fast and talented.

He also mentioned that he burned out on multiple occasions — as selling unlimited packages to clients can easily slam you in terms of amounts of work needed to be done. It becomes quite obvious that he’s an exception rather than a majority.

Still, many took the same approach and have quickly found out that first, it’s not for everyone, and second, it’s not very sustainable long-term. Especially if you're not planning to expand and start hiring at some point.

When I was coming up with my own business model, I accounted for all of this, and eventually decided to take an old school approach of charging by the hour.

But I'm adding a twist - rewarding clients who are looking for long-term collaborations over one-off projects. To those clients, I offered a generous discount if they committed to a minimum of 30 hours per month. And it worked like charm.

My clients appreciated that I was offering a discount in exchange for a long-term partnership, and it also felt great to have a predictable income rather than living with fear of the unknown month to month.

Here’s why I’m exchanging on-going work & commitment discounts:

1. Work becomes more enjoyable as a bond and trust develop between a partner and me.
2. The more I get to know the niche and the problem we’re trying to solve together, the better and more accurate my solutions become.

Instead of worrying about landing new clients, I focus on delivering great value for what’s already in front of me. Having on-going work with 4–5 close partners and somewhat predictable income is much more appealing than worrying about new incoming work and spending the majority of time doing outreach.

Truth to be told, I’ve been able to grow my network and land new work relatively quickly, thanks to my past work and connections.

But I've waited for good ten years to feel ready enough to take on this journey because without connections — you’d likely have to rely more on outreach and marketing methods. Although you’re never really 100 percent ready, without this period of developing my network, I wouldn’t feel as ready to take the jump.

Being where I’m at now, I can say that I definitely appreciate the joy that having satisfied clients brings. Work feels as satisfying as it ever did, and every relationship that I developed with my partners is solely in my hands. Cherishing each and every one is a must for me, not just because of work they bring for me, but because I genuinely enjoy the work I’ve been doing. Not a single hour goes wasted and all work holds value.

“Quality is the best business plan.” — John Lasseter

As for me, I’ve always loved what I do, but sometimes things get in the way. Being frustrated with hours lost at work, including long meetings without clear outcomes or purpose, has eventually led me to leave employment, sparking new life into my work and ideas. As soon as I took this leap, I realized the work itself felt different.

Speaking from my own experience, startups and smaller companies are often focused on what’s most important right now, which is one of the reasons why I like working with them. You should never run out of things to work on, or work on stuff that doesn’t seem that important at the moment.

If you’re in a situation of just starting out, with no connections, or an existing network I would suggest you combine an outreach strategy that is not your usual automated “spam-alike” outreach, but one that has real meaning & value in it.

Instead of sending automated emails or LinkedIn invites, do your research first to see if there’s genuine interest in the problem they’re solving, and reach out with an actual value as part of that outreach. If you’re working on brand identity, come up with some ideas before reaching out, if it’s web dev, maybe a quick mock that they couldn’t resist, or if you’re a logo designer, some paper sketches would be super cool.

In about ~12 years of being in IT, I have only once received a meaningful & valuable outreach from a developer, looking to help me grow my icon set. He was very proactive & value actually came before payment. We’re now happily working together. The key to starting without an existing network is to have the right mindset to enable you to grow. The key is to give something first.

The importance of great communication should not be overlooked either. Being responsive, proactive, attending meetings on time, and just being nice to work with are as important as the work you do. Simply put, I would rather work with someone who is nice to work with over someone who is a genius but hard to deal with.

Anything is possible in the digital world, but the right mindset has to come first. If skills are there, the rest will surely follow.