Bootstrapped Web

Brian Casel: 00:09

Okay. Let's do this. Hello, bootstrappers. Welcome to Bootstrapped Web, the show for business owners like you and me who believe that to get to where we're going, we have to learn by doing. I'm Brian Casel.

Brian Casel: 00:20

I'm also CastJam on Twitter. Stay tuned through the end of this episode, and you'll hear about five things that helped me transition from consulting to products. Back in January, I wrapped up, my final client prod, client web design project, to focus full time on my bootstrapped startups. And, you know, it felt amazing to hit that milestone. It was a little scary, but definitely a huge win that I had been working towards for, several years.

Brian Casel: 00:51

So that's what, the main event of this episode is all about today. But first, I wanna mention that, hopefully by the time you're hearing this episode, I will have moved this podcast, into my personal blog at castjam.com. So I'll be merging or redirecting bootstrappedweb.com and making it a part of my site castjam.com. So, you know, it just makes more sense to have a single property where you can get, this podcast as well as all of the blog posts that I've been putting out. It's all about the same topics, bootstrapping, business, design, products, and everything in between.

Brian Casel: 01:36

So it just didn't really make sense to have, two separate domains. So from now on, you can access the Bootstrapped web pod podcast on my website, castjam.com. Okay. So let's see what's new this week. During my run yesterday, I was listening to episode one fifty two of the Foolish Adventure podcast with Tim Conley.

Brian Casel: 02:03

It was kind of a mashup of two of my favorite business podcasts because, the guests were, Dan and Ian from the Lifestyle Business podcast. So if you're looking to discover two really solid business podcasts, check out this episode of The Foolish Adventure because you kinda get a taste of of both in in one shot there. So I highly recommend that. And I'll link it up in the show notes, of course. Also this week, I was, excited to learn this week that Digg, you all remember Digg, right, released a beta version of their new RSS reader called Digg Reader.

Brian Casel: 02:43

They pushed it out just in time, since Google Reader has officially closed, as of today. Actually, the day that this episode comes out July 1 is the day that Google Reader shuts down. So I really, really like Dig Reader. It's definitely the Google Reader alternative that I've been waiting for, and it arrived just in time. Feedly has been kind of the hot one that everybody has been talking about since Google Reader announced that they are shutting down.

Brian Casel: 03:15

And so loads and loads of people have been moving over to Feedly. And you know what? I personally never really liked the Feedly interface. For me, it's just too slick for my tastes, I think. You know, they're trying to kind of like reinvent reinvent the wheel of of what an RSS reader is and and like how it works.

Brian Casel: 03:35

But I I just think that that that wheel ain't broke, you know. Stick to what works. And I just never found it easy to kinda browse and and and read using the Feedly interface. And and scrolling was kinda clunky. And so, you know, what I love about Dig Reader is that is I I love its simplicity and the familiar layout to Google Reader.

Brian Casel: 03:59

But without all the bloat and and like the ads and whatnot that that you used to get in Google Reader, dig reader is much cleaner, easy to navigate, and all of the things that you expect in all the right in all the places that you expect them to be, are are working in in dig reader. And dig also updated their iOS app, which is a pleasure to use as well and keeps everything synced up just as I'd expect it to. So, I had been a long time user of Reader, r e e d e r, but it turns out they won't be updating their app in time for the Google Reader shutdown. So, I'm very happy to see Dig Reader has has popped up, and that's definitely my new, RSS reading companion. Let's see.

Brian Casel: 04:48

In other news, I launched the redesign of restaurantengine.com this week. Just launched that yesterday. And, that's been about two months in the making, so it definitely feels good to get that project shipped. And I plan to to record a video case study all about that redesign and kind of my thought process behind it. So, stay tuned for for that in a few weeks.

Brian Casel: 05:13

Okay. So on to the main event. So today, I'm going to talk about how I completed the transition from client work to product work. And I'll talk specifically about five things that helped me make this mission a reality. So first, a little backstory.

Brian Casel: 05:35

Between early two thousand eight, when I left my job working at a web design agency, to go freelance, up until about up until, and through 2012, my income primarily came through doing client work, specifically client web design projects. Over those years, I went from charging an average of about $1,000 per project up to an average closer to 15,000 or 20,000 per project. That was kind of at the height of my consulting business. And I made a decent living doing about 10 to 20 big client projects per year. 2011 was was probably that probably marked my highest annual income to date.

Brian Casel: 06:24

But 2011 was also the year that I began really thinking about making a transition. I found my stress level was increasing with every new client project that I took on. I found that I really didn't enjoy working on client projects, even the big budget ones. In fact, many times those larger budget clients were, the hardest to deal with. So I began rethinking the way that I made my living.

Brian Casel: 06:54

I had already dabbled in building products on the side. I had started a WordPress themes business called Theme Jam, back in 2010. And, I also released a niche WordPress product called WP Bids, which is a WordPress theme for creating client proposals. But those were very much, side projects, which amounted to maybe 10% of my income. The other 90% was, still very much client work.

Brian Casel: 07:24

So, in mid to late twenty eleven, I started planning and building Restaurant Engine, which would eventually turn out to be my first, successful launch of a SaaS business, software as a service. So, and it wasn't my first attempt though. I had started a few other things which which never really got off the ground. But anyway, I I managed to launch Restaurant Engine, to paying customers in early twenty twelve. I think it was maybe the January, 2012.

Brian Casel: 07:58

And, like everything I do, it is a bootstrap startup. So, I had slow and gradual growth of that business, throughout 2012 and then, through today. So I slowly built up Restaurant Engine until it got to a point where, the income from that can basically replace my client income. And in January, in January 20, 2013, I completed my final client project. And I've been focusing primarily on Restaurant Engine and other products, full time since since I finished that final client project in January.

Brian Casel: 08:42

And I have to say, that day when I received the final check from that final client project, it felt absolutely amazing. It was this event that I had built up in my mind for a long time, leading up to that and I finally got there. I finally achieved it. And from this day forward, I could officially say, I don't do client work anymore. And, man, that feels great.

Brian Casel: 09:12

Not gonna lie. So how did I do it? So I gave it some thought today and I boiled it down to, five key things that helped make this transition a reality. So the first one is I set a very clear goal with a very clear deadline. So I had been poking around, trying to do something with products in 2010 and 2011, but it wasn't until 2012 when I really made the conscious effort to dedicate that year to making the transition.

Brian Casel: 09:50

I started telling people that my goal is to stop doing client work by the 2012. And I started out the year in 2012 with the expectation to earn less than I did, the year before. I knew this would be a transition year. That change in mindset really helped me focus on that goal, every single day. You know, it's about having a very clear vision for your long game and giving yourself that one year plan.

Brian Casel: 10:20

And then you use that long game to dictate all of your decisions in the short game. So like, when when I'm asking myself, what should I work on this month? What should I work on this week? What's on my plate today? During 2012, as I asked myself these questions, I never forgot about my number one goal for this year and that is making this transition.

Brian Casel: 10:43

Okay. So the second key thing is I didn't quit cold turkey. You know, quitting client work is not the same as quitting cigarettes. Right? You can't quit client work cold turkey.

Brian Casel: 10:55

If I had decided to stop all client work on the day that I launched Restaurant Engine, I would have run out of money very quickly. And then I'd probably go into debt, and then I'd come crawling back to doing client work, just to dig myself out. And that would have discouraged me and probably would have kept me locked into doing client work for many more years to come. So instead, I made it a very gradual and a closely monitored transition. So at the height of my consulting business, I took on about five to six different client projects simultaneously at any given time.

Brian Casel: 11:38

As I started working on building Restaurant Engine, I reduced that to about three client projects at a time. And and then as the year of 2012 rolled on, I made the conscious decision to only take on one client project at at any given time. And that allowed me to basically split my time fifty fifty between working on Restaurant Engine and working on a client project. So so this approach allowed me to keep my bank account afloat, keep paying the bills, while also building up my new SaaS business. Maintaining that cash flow from client work also allowed me to reinvest some of that money into Restaurant Engine, helped to build traction.

Brian Casel: 12:23

Again, had I quit client work cold turkey on day one, I would have run out of money very, very quickly and I would have had nothing to invest into restaurant engines. So so not only would I be giving up the client business, but my little startup, would have kind of fell flat. So, the gradual transition is what really worked there. The third thing that I have listed here is it wasn't my first attempt at launching a product. So Restaurant Engine was definitely not my first attempt starting a product business or even, my first attempt starting a SaaS business.

Brian Casel: 13:01

I was involved in a few other startups which for one reason or another fizzled out before they had a chance to launch. There were partnership issues, there were product validation issues, and so on. But I learned a lot from those attempts, and I took those lessons with me into Restaurant Engine. And I was very conscious of this as I started Restaurant Engine. I knew it wasn't my first attempt.

Brian Casel: 13:26

I think that made me that much more serious and more determined to make this attempt work. As you know, I'm a very firm believer in learning by doing and failing early and failing often. I always expect at least a few failures before finding something that works. So in my mind, I I felt that I had paid my dues with a few failed attempts already. And now I was ready for something to work.

Brian Casel: 13:55

So that mindset helped me really put a strong push, behind Restaurant Engine. Okay. So number four, the the next thing on my list here is, I had to embrace earning less money. So in 2012, I made, significantly less money than I did in 2011. I didn't struggle and and we were able to stay out of debt, but I made just enough to pay the bills.

Brian Casel: 14:24

So, you know, I but I I definitely took a pay cut, and that was because I committed myself to transitioning my business. I knew going into the year that I'd probably earn less. Most people, especially my age, I'm I'm 30 years old, so most of my peers kind of expect to be making a little bit more every year. A lot of my friends are starting to really hit their strides right now right around now. You know, they're no longer in that entry level position at their job.

Brian Casel: 14:55

Now they're starting to to make some real money. Know, I I had or had I stuck with client work and committed to growing the consultancy, I could probably be making a lot more right now. But it was more important to me that I get out of that business and focus more on products. And so today, I'm aiming to match what I made last year, which is basically just enough to support my lifestyle. Of course, I I wanna earn more in the coming years, but but right now my focus is on setting the groundwork to make that happen.

Brian Casel: 15:30

My focus is building product businesses that are poised to grow steadily over time. Okay. So, the final thing on my list, number five is leverage assets from my consulting business for my products business. So, this thing is What I wanna say here is that I was able to leverage certain things from my consulting business to help me build my product business. And one of the biggest things that I carried over was my network of contractors.

Brian Casel: 16:04

So over the years of doing big client projects, I had developed relationships with some really talented, designers and developers. It took years for me to work through some flaky freelancers, before I found a few guys and girls who I really liked working with. I think we all kind of know how that goes when you try someone new and they don't deliver or they deliver late or there are things that you need to redo. It's not fun and it takes a really long time to find somebody who's truly reliable. So when it came time to outsource a few of the pieces of Restaurant Engine, I didn't have to go through that process again.

Brian Casel: 16:51

I knew exactly who I would hire and for which role and I knew exactly how much that would cost. So, you know, making a bad hire, I mean, making a bad hire can be devastating, especially when you're hiring a contractor to deliver a specific part of your product and it doesn't pan out. Money goes to waste, but more importantly, you lose so much time. It's a huge setback. So I was able to avoid that by working with people who I've worked with before and I knew exactly what to expect.

Brian Casel: 17:22

Another asset, of course, that I carried over from consulting into my product work, was all of the skills that I myself learned during my years of doing client work. Particularly all the time that I invested into becoming an expert on the WordPress platform. I would not have been able to build such a complex system like Restaurant Engine, which is built entirely on WordPress multisite, had I not spent years prior to that doing countless custom WordPress CMS sites for clients. Okay. So, just to recap, some of the takeaways from this episode.

Brian Casel: 18:05

It's kind of a short one today, but I hope I hope you guys, got got something out of it. So here are the takeaways to recap, the five things that helped me transition from client work to products. And they were number one, set a very clear goal with a specific deadline. For me, I decided early in the year that by the 2012, I would no longer be doing client work, and I won't go into debt to make that happen. Number two, don't quit cold turkey.

Brian Casel: 18:34

Make it a gradual and a closely monitored transition. Number three, don't expect to be successful on your first attempt. It takes some trial and error before you can get everything, you know, really dialed in. Number four, embrace earning less money at least for a little while. I invested in the transformation of my business and that meant taking a pay cut.

Brian Casel: 18:58

Number five, leverage assets from consulting for your products business. I leveraged my network of contractors as well as the skill sets that I built up during my years of consulting, and those really helped me, push along my new products business. So that wraps up the main event for today. Next week on Bootstrap Web, be sure to tune in next Monday, every Monday for another episode. And, let's, let's catch up on Twitter between now and then.

Brian Casel: 19:31

Hey, guys. I've got a mailing list, so head over to castjam.com and enter your email, and you'll be in the loop on everything that's going on. Thanks for tuning in. Take care.