the difference between software founders making 5K vs 100K/mo

[00:00:00]I run a small community of founders and we've got people making everywhere from 5K a month to 100K a month. And I've been running this group for the better part of the last 6 months. And it's really interesting to me to kind of observe how everybody in that group feels very similar in most ways, yet the results are drastically different. And this is specifically in the kind of software space, software services especially. And the way this group works is like we meet on a weekly basis and we are mainly accountability partners for each other. We have different offers and so forth. And so on a weekly basis maybe some guy is setting up an ads campaign, somebody else is uh focusing on Instagram shorts. You have different things to do and you set your own deliverables. And then the next week you show up and then you show everybody that you did the work that you promised that you were going to do. And surprisingly enough actually, just showing up and doing the work is already something that most people fail at. But the show rate isn't even tells apart the founders doing 100 grand versus five. Kind of we've got everywhere in between that, but the bigger guys basically have much more clarity around their offer. That is the number one thing that most developers really struggle with, especially when you sell services because as a developer there are so many things you can build.

[00:01:02]There are so many services you could do that your offer becomes really muddy and nobody really understands what you do other than the possibility that you could do something related to software, something related to AI automation. But nobody really understands that. One of the guys who does 100 grand a month is partnered on a business that sells 3D websites, 3D landing pages. They just do 3D websites. That's all they do. You can either buy a small course on how to make them yourself or you can buy their agency services, which is where they make most of their money. Where they will build a 3D website for you. Notice how it's extremely simple to understand what they do and they found one format on Instagram which sold really really well and they just repeated loads of shorts like that. And they just spammed that um like three a day or something like that. They took a couple weeks to find the format that worked, but then it took off and they kind of stuck with that business model. On a week by week basis, I think for the most part they do like tend to show up more and and get more done on the things that they need to. But they are not superhuman in some way that like the rest of the people aren't. We have other people in the group that are making 10 or 20 grand a month, which have the same number of employees, maybe. We keep these scoreboards of like who shows up and completes their deliverable. And the guy making 100 grand a month, he's not like actually getting way more deliverables done or anything like that. You have to figure out what you sell to people. And this is a hard problem for a lot of us as developers because we feel like I don't know what I want to sell. There's a lot of things I could do. But, if if somebody can't understand in their mind, if they can't imagine the thing that you're selling them, it's extremely difficult to have something that scales relatively quickly. Cuz it has to be easily understandable. It needs to be something that if you told, you know, my grandfather, he would understand intuitively what that means. Or maybe, you know, if if you're selling something more specialized, that's fine. Maybe you sell to somebody who works at a bank and only they understand what you're selling. But, they have to really clearly understand what you're selling.

[00:02:49]And the problem with most kind of developer founders or founders in general when they start out is they're selling something that nobody understands. For instance, if I tell you I'm building a product that changes the way you interact with images.

[00:03:01]Can you imagine that in your mind? Like, what does that mean?

[00:03:04]These words are meaningless. They sound cool, maybe, but they they carry no specificity as to as to what this product actually helps you do as opposed to something as simple as we make games on mobile apps. I'm not saying that's a perfect market, but you need something that people can easily understand.

[00:03:19]That's the the first step in having a business that scales at least relatively quickly. The guys who sell the 3D websites scaled to 100 grand a month within, I think, six or seven weeks. So, it was really fast. And it was really just a result of finding one offer that clearly worked and distribution. So, they managed to find one format on Instagram, which really worked. Now, you don't have to do Instagram necessarily, but they're not posting on like YouTube Shorts and X and LinkedIn and everything else. They're not doing that. They just have one channel that worked. Now, finding that channel can also be a pain, granted, but like the first step before that is is just crack an offer that works. The most interesting part through all of this is that just like just showing up and doing the work doesn't guarantee results because you have to be doing the right work. You can continue to post content, but if you're not saying anything interesting, it's not going to grow your business. My YouTube channel itself is also testimony to this.

[00:04:07]I make these videos on a daily basis and I have been doing so for, you know, the past like 2 and 1/2 years with the exception of a couple of days that I missed. And I do this because I want to document the journey and it's an interesting project that I want to keep up for a long time, but I can objectively recognize that just by doing the videos, just just because I make them doesn't automatically mean my business grows because of it. I make a lot of videos because I want to kind of document along the way, but a lot of them are not interesting. My channel doesn't automatically grow massively just because I post. Obviously, there is a compounding effect, right? Which is like this to be able to say that I've got 800 videos posted is something that some people will find interesting at least, but it's it's not just about like working. I mean, in fact, if it was just about hard work, then, you know, factory workers would make a lot more money than they do. It's not just about showing up.

[00:04:53]It's also about just working on the right thing and identifying the right next move and the right thing to sell.

[00:04:59]That is the difference between a founder who manages to scale to, you know, 100 grand a month in recurring revenue versus those that don't. And for those of you wondering, I'm not at 100 grand a month myself. I maybe could have sold some more and tried to get there a little faster, but I think I'd rather sell something that that I believe in. But believe me when I tell you, the thing that I'm most focused on is selling something specific enough that people can easily understand what it does because I have really learned and kind of seen how that is the first step you need in order to to have a business that's going to grow a little bit faster. Without that, you have nothing to build on. Simple as that. I think it's been interesting to be able to say this not just for my own experience, but also from now running this community of founders and I wanted to kind of put that lesson out there for anybody who's also like feeling like they're stuck. Don't just think that you need more marketing or like more cold emails. Like that won't automatically solve all your problems. It can definitely help you. I mean, if you spam enough people, sure, eventually get a deal, but like if you want to build something that's actually going to make a little bit more money, it has to be clear what you do. With that said, I hope you you enjoyed this uh little thought. I hope you got something out of it.

[00:06:00]I'm going to leave it here. I'm going to wrap it up, call it a day for today, and uh hopefully I'll see you in the next video. Thanks for watching.