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i think we need to define what a "productized service" is. they are not: apps, saas, products (books, courses,..), fixed bids on custom projekts or anything yo

by bmaeser 10y ago

i think we need to define what a "productized service" is. they are not: apps, saas, products (books, courses,..), fixed bids on custom projekts or anything you bill by the hour. a productized service is: something you do very well, has a very narrow and fixed scope, you normally would bill this by the hour. think of it like writing a custom proposal but sell it to anyone at the same price. some examples: - i change the car oil for x usd. - checking a website for responsiveness and show you the biggest mistakes and how to fix them for x usd. (website teardown) - a/b testing an online shop to increase conversion by 5% i myself am in the middle of turning my freelance sysadmin/devops business into a productized service, so i am eager to hear what ppl on hn had success with - and what did not work out for them. a great ressource on this topic is pretty much anything Jonathan Stark is publishing: https://expensiveproblem.com/ https://expensiveproblem.com/ and http://www.ditchinghourly.com/ http://www.ditchinghourly.com/

atsaloli 10y ago
Thanks for defining "productized service", @bmaeser. My training service qualifies. It's private on-site training; with a small but growing course catalog. After a couple of false starts, I've priced it to guarantee profitability: I take into account my time off regular work (initially salaried, and now hourly-billed consulting), travel expenses and student materials. List price is 3K per day plus 2K admin fee. My last sale was 5K for a day of training on GitLab CI. My biggest sale was 25K for two one-week classes on configuration management. Productizing my service allowed me to streamline sales -- I don't have to think about how much to charge -- and it guarantees profitability. I need to learn/do more marketing and sales to get to 6 figures. This is still "hobby" grade, income wise. (Can't support a family on it!)

by bmaeser 10y ago

atsaloli 10y ago

Thanks for defining "productized service", @bmaeser. My training service qualifies. It's private on-site training; with a small but growing course catalog. After a couple of false starts, I've priced it to guarantee profitability: I take into account my time off regular work (initially salaried, and now hourly-billed consulting), travel expenses and student materials. List price is 3K per day plus 2K admin fee. My last sale was 5K for a day of training on GitLab CI. My biggest sale was 25K for two one-week classes on configuration management. Productizing my service allowed me to streamline sales -- I don't have to think about how much to charge -- and it guarantees profitability. I need to learn/do more marketing and sales to get to 6 figures. This is still "hobby" grade, income wise. (Can't support a family on it!)