Expanding The Portfolio Of Our $50K/Month Software Agency [Update]
This is a follow up story for Modern Launch. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 2 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
We're Cody Benedetto and Ryan Serkes, the founders of Modern Launch. Our journey began in February of 2022 when we took the leap and established our very own custom software development agency.
Since then, we have dedicated ourselves to scaling the business and creating innovative solutions for a range of incredible companies. Our team has been hard at work, combining our expertise and passion to build some truly remarkable projects.
If you're curious about our humble beginnings, make sure to check out the original story here.
With every project we undertake, we strive to push the boundaries of what's possible through custom software development. We take pride in our ability to truly understand our client’s unique needs and translate them into custom software solutions that drive their businesses forward. We’re on a mission to empower companies with the tools they need to thrive.
Our core services are:
- Mobile Application Development
- Website Development & Design
- Custom Software Development
- Interactive Prototyping
- Ongoing Website Maintenance
Since launch, we’ve brought on 15+ new clients and have launched some awesome projects for startups and high-growth companies.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
Project Highlight:
Since launch, we’ve evolved and taken on various projects, successfully launched applications, and built long-term relationships with some of our best clients.
I wanted to highlight our most recent launch for one of our clients that we’re super proud of. ESAI.jobs is the job portal of ExecutiveSearch.AI, a tech-first recruiting firm in Shibuya, Tokyo. ESAI partners with the top tech companies in Japan to find talented people.
We worked with ESAI to launch their own AI-backed recruiting platform to revolutionize the job seeker experience and hiring process for Tech Jobs in Japan. We worked together to build a custom job board from scratch, powered by ESAI’s proprietary technology.
We’re continuing to build out the next generation of the custom job board, ESAI.jobs, with new features and functionality based on user feedback and further advancements in technology. This is just the beginning as we work together to help shape the future of the job seeker experience and hiring process in Japan. Stay tuned as we have a few other products in the works with ESAI that are sure to shake up the space.
Feel free to check out the case study and view our Portfolio to see more of our work.
Process Documentation & Automation:
Throughout our first year of running our software development agency, we dedicated significant time and effort to developing comprehensive internal process documentation. This has proven to be a game changer as we continue to scale our business.
From defining our sales processes to managing new clients and projects, as well as streamlining employee onboarding, we created systems and documented core functions that enable us to work swiftly and stay organized without missing a beat.
While there is still more work ahead, we have established processes and documentation for nearly everything we do, capturing the current state of our operations.
We’ve also put more effort and focus into identifying bottlenecks in workflows and leveraging automation to drive efficiencies internally. We use several tools like Trello, Slack, Zapier, and OpenAI to make our internal operations and communication more effective across the board.
The Importance of SEO:
We’re big believers in SEO as a critical long-term marketing strategy to drive relevant traffic. Local SEO has been one of our major lead sources and our goal is to expand to capture a wider audience across the web as we become more established with a stronger web presence.
We’ve recently redone our own website and continue to evolve our blog to become a resource hub for new startups and high-growth companies without technical co-founders. We know what it takes to launch a business from scratch so our SEO efforts focus on touching the folks who lack the technical expertise needed for custom software development in-house.
We have seen a huge uptick in unique visits as we continue to focus on valuable and relevant content for our target market.
Focus on 2 sales/marketing strategies. Double down on them, master them, and do them the right way.
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
Defining the “Ideal” Client Profile:
Defining the ideal client profile was one of the biggest challenges for us. At the start, we felt as though we didn’t deserve to be picky and choosy but quickly learned that we needed to define our niche and more specifically, the type of clients and projects that we want to work with.
We don’t want to build just any website or application for any “entrepreneur” or existing business. We want to work with startups and high-growth companies that have unique visions and business acumen to sustain growth and innovate thoughtfully. We learned the hard way that we need to weed out certain projects and focus all our efforts on the ones that align with our own vision, passions, and skillset.
Maintaining a steady sales pipeline:
Steady sales are what keep a company going. Building a scalable pipeline has been our main goal from the beginning but we all know how challenging this is. As business owners, wearing the sales hat along with all the other hats can be extremely difficult to juggle.
We’ve failed and succeeded with various tactics and are still learning. We’ve wasted money on sales strategies that didn’t pan out, missed opportunities for long-term contracts and retainers, and lost leads from under & over-quoting. We’ve come a long way and are actively refining our sales strategies both in the short and long term. More on all this below…
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
Lead Vetting, Project Scoping, & Project Onboarding:
To put it bluntly, we wasted a ton of time scoping, quoting, and building custom proposals/contracts. These processes are critical however, without a system in place, can be a massive time suck, especially when the deal doesn’t close. We learned the hard way and eventually bit the bullet and cleaned up how we engage with new prospective clients, defined structured contract agreements, and established a project scoping process to set realistic timelines and expectations.
Quoting a new lead used to be a stressful ordeal that could take hours or days. Now, it’s a streamlined process that can take less than an hour.
We learned pretty quickly that vetting a prospective client on the first call and talking about costs upfront saves everyone time and starts the relationship off on the right foot. We always bring up costs and try to give at least a general idea of what range a project can fall into to set expectations from the very 1st call.
We’re always transparent with folks and openly discuss options on how to approach projects within budgets, even if it means going in another direction or ultimately not working with us.
We won’t take on any project for a client that hasn’t done “their homework” and thought through the website or application that they want to build and how to run a business around it.
We always give honest feedback and even when the truth hurts, folks appreciate it if it’s done helpfully. This has been a game-changer in our sales process.
When it comes to marketing, don’t half-ass too many things:
Like Ron Swanson said, “Never half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing.” Early on, we tried too many sales and marketing strategies, dipping our toes in, without really honing in on anyone in particular.
We eventually realized we were spreading ourselves way too thin without really putting full effort into any one strategy. This cost us good money and wasted lots of time.
Referrals aside, we’ve decided to fully focus on SEO and email marketing as our core sales strategies for both short and long-term impact. This way, we can put in the time and effort needed to make each work the right way with the right amount of energy. We’ve already seen these efforts paying off and are excited about the future of our sales pipeline as we engage with new targeted potential clients.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
Automation & AI:
AI is all the rage these days, and just like everyone else, we're obsessed with it. From our internal systems to exciting new projects, we're fully embracing the power of automation and artificial intelligence. Currently, we're working on a super thrilling product for a client in the fintech space.
We're leveraging ChatGPT and the OpenAI API to do some seriously cool things for the small business sector. I envision the majority of our projects will start to incorporate AI in some form or another very quickly. More to come in the coming months!
Relationships & Recurring Revenue:
Establishing recurring revenue streams has become a core focus for the future. By building mutually beneficial relationships beyond the confines of individual projects, we can focus on innovation and continuous growth for our clients.
We hope to continue on this path to help us scale while maintaining a steady cash flow. Retainers have become a vital component of our business model, ensuring that we can allocate our resources effectively and provide our clients with dedicated support.
By offering ongoing maintenance and support, we ensure that our client’s projects continue to evolve and adapt to changing market demands. The beauty of this approach lies in the fact that it fosters deeper collaboration and trust. We become more than just service providers; we become partners in our clients' journeys through custom software development.
What’s the best thing you read in the last year?
How to Grow Your Small Business by Donald Miller: This book does an excellent job at highlighting the key principles of running and growing a successful business by focusing on the most critical components. I highly recommend it to any business owner.
Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins. I’m slightly obsessed with David Goggins and although this isn’t a “business” book, it’s all about strengthening the mind to overcome obstacles. If you don’t know who David Goggins is, you’re in for a real treat. This is a book for anyone who gives a damn. David’s story is incredible and he is an inspiration to so many people due to his approach to goal setting and building mental fortitude like the savage he is. I truly can’t recommend this book (or audiobook) enough.
Why I Quit Podcast: Dave Phelan interviews some incredible guests for real stories of real people quitting their 9-5s in search of something different. I highly recommend checking out some of these interviews for inspiration.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
Sales & Marketing:
Focus on 2 sales/marketing strategies. Double down on them, master them, and do them the right way. You need to spend money to make money so don’t feel guilty spending thoughtfully to help scale your business.
Never underestimate the power of relationships:
Communication is everything in business, especially in sales. You never know how a conversation can lead to future opportunities. It’s so important to never burn a bridge and always make it your goal for folks to remember you as being helpful and pleasant, regardless of the outcome.
Someone reached out to us when we first launched looking to learn more about the software development process and what it would take to bring his prototype to the next stage of MVP. The timing wasn’t right for him but we kept in contact. Months down the road, he referred a new client to us and then a full year later was ready to build his MVP with us!
Another interesting tidbit - We bid for a project a while back that we ultimately lost, but through the process made a really strong impression on one of the stakeholders. She ended up staying in touch with us and recently shared some incredibly valuable information on a competitor that has helped us to reshape some of our sales strategies that we’ve since put into place. This only happened because we focused on building the relationship rather than closing a deal.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
Technical Project Manager (Client Facing)
- Manage all client communications, expectation setting, milestone management, deliverables, and timeline execution
- Manage and coordinate all updates and product development with the engineering team through Trello, Slack, email, and Google Meet
- Establish and build upon technical project management processes and guidelines for Modern Launch
- Ability to work remotely, independently, and as part of a team
Experience Requirements:
- Managing client relationships as the main point of contact
- Managing and collaborating with engineering teams overseas
- Previous technical Project/Product Management experience, managing kanban boards, agile project management
- Core understanding of PDLC (Product Development Lifecycle)
- Previous work with robust mobile and web applications
- Database architecture & schema design
- UI/UX design & wireframing
- QA testing
If interested in joining our team, please email us at [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you!
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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