My Agency Just Hit $59k/mo, Here’s How I Landed My First 10 Customers

In 2022 my marketing agency business was failing.

Just the year prior we had done $4.2M in profit and were at the top of our game in our little niche within the industry (we worked exclusively with VC backed tech companies doing demand gen campaigns for them).. but suddenly the VC market went from booming to bust, and we lost most of our clients. Our team went from 40 to 5.

That year was one of the worst of my life. I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to provide for my family (we had just had our first kid), and had no idea what to do.

Of the folks left on my team, I had two really talented designers, but zero design work for them. I didn't want to have to let them go, so I decide to get creative.

I decided I would try to spin them out and create a "design agency."

We've been at it right around a year and a half now, and just hit $59k/mo in profit (somewhere around $120k top line).

Here's how I landed our first 10 customers:

Step 1: built a brand and website so it looked like we were more established and legit than we were.

Step 2: leveraged our existing logos, aka the companies these designers had already done work for under my marketing agency, so that we had some social proof and examples of the work we'd done. Again, making us look more established than we actually were.

Step 3: started hustling within my network. putting the word out to my contacts on Linkedin, going to events (specifically, I went to a VC fund event and hung out with other investors and founders, making sure to pitch my new venture when asked).

Step 4: I started experimenting with cold email. I hired an agency I'd worked with in the past. Paid them $1,750/mo to run cold email for me. (Will share the results of this below).

Step 5: I set my prices SUPER low. Like much lower than I knew the services were worth, so that I could convince a few folks to say yes and take a chance on us. I knew I would raise them quickly after we started seeing momentum.

Step 6: I found some industry specific newsletters and paid between $2,500 – $5,500 each to be a sponsor listed in their newsletters. I tested 3 newsletters in total. The first one was a huge success (closed 3+ clients from this over the course of a few weeks) but the other two were huge flops and produced zero new customers.

Step 7: I tried to double down on the newsletter that was a hit, only to find the next time I tried it was a flop. Go figure. This was super frustrating because I thought I had finally "cracked a good channel" when in fact it was a flash in the pan.

Step 8: I convinced our first few customers to share about us publicly on Linkedin and record video testimonials that I could use as social proof to close more clients.

Step 9: I made an effort to be a guest on other peoples podcasts where I would casually mention what my new business does

Step 10: I joined as many slack group as I could where I thought our ideal buyers would be hanging out

Ok I think those were all the key steps I took. Let me give you a breakdown of exactly where each client came from, as a result of the above steps:

Client 1: came from a founder chat group I'm in
Client 2: came from a cold email we sent
Client 3: came from the VC conference I went to (chatted with the guy and followed up after the event)
Client 4: saw someone post on Linkedin asking about designers, I responded and got a meeting
Client 5: heard about us on a podcast I was a guest on
Client 6: heard about us from a CEO friend of mine
Client 7: posted about design needs in one of the slack groups I had joined
Client 8: cold email
Client 9: heard about us in the sponsored newsletter post (the one that was a success)
Client 10: heard about us in a VC slack group I'm in

My takeaways?

Well first off, as you might have guessed, this isn't my first rodeo, (if you're interested in hearing all the details of how I went from living in my moms basement to building and selling my software company, how much I sold it for etc I recorded a video here on that topic: https://youtu.be/jHZcilZX2Fk )

Anyway, back to my takeaways re: landing those first 10 customers.

1. I'm a huge fan of having a diverse mix of lead sources. It requires a bunch of up front hustle, but it also increases the surface area for luck.

2. No matter how many times I do this, it still feels uncomfortable to put myself out there with a new offering and start from scratch.

3. The first 10 are the hardest, then next 10 are somewhat easier, and it just seems to get easier as we get more reps and build momentum. That said, it's still very hard. If you know, you know.

4. The hustle of the early days (before the game shifts to being about SOPs and hiring) are super fun.

AMA.