If you run agencies, rather than just freelance work, you get to see a lot of people who come to you at the ideas stage.
They might want a basic landing page to try out an idea, or they might want a full blown website, CRM, traffic and everything that goes with it.
While the clients wanting it all might seem like the best clients, they’re actually not, over the long term.
The clients that win are the ones who start small and focus on getting sales quickly.
They test the market to see if there’s an appetite before going all in on an idea.
They don’t spend 2 years building an audience. They spend 2 weeks building a landing page and running a few ads.
We had a phrase for this in my first agency:
"Time to first dollar"
TTFD was the time from when we met them to when they saw the first money coming in, and I saw a pattern.
The longer the money took to come, the less likely the business would be around in a year’s time.
Of the ones we saw that took 9 months or more, none of them are around today.
Think about that.
If it takes you less time to make a baby than to make a dollar, you’re probably not cut out for this business lark.
The challenge most people have is that they don’t know just how small your "business" can be and still prove that there’s demand.
Now, maybe if you’re building telecoms networks or a new aircraft carrier then you might need some proper capital and a longer run-up, but if you’re selling to consumers, or you’re selling something that businesses of any size could use, I can guarantee you’re over-thinking it.
If I gave you until this time next week to make your first dollar, how would you do it?
