How We Grew Our Team To 8 Employees & Now Make $40K/Month
This is a follow up story for LowCode Agency. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published about 4 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
Hello, my name is Jesus Vargas and I am the founder of LowCode Agency. At LowCode Agency we build no code and low code apps; that means a fraction of the time and cost of traditional development.
We have built over 230 apps since we started the company. Our two types of clients are: entrepreneurs who want to launch their business, and we build for them their first MVP; and growing SMB’s who need to automate and streamline internal processes.
Since we started almost two years ago, we have grown to a team of eight employees and a revenue of $35,000 to $40,000 per month.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to! Has the business been growing?
As we’ve seen in recent trends, people don’t want to go back to the office, and during the lockdown, a lot of people started businesses. These new businesses are reliant on technology, and we have been very fortunate to be able to help a lot of founders. By building an app in less than a month, we have helped dozens of entrepreneurs to start monetizing their side hustle, or new full-time business.
Something that has helped our massive growth in the domestic job market. Businesses have found out that having employees doing small repetitive tasks is not cost effective and they're not finding enough people wanting to do these. Business owners have to be more creative and be open to new ideas, and the no/low code trend has been getting more popular with SMB’s.
We have been very fortunate to help a lot of people, and we’re getting a lot of leads from referrals. Clients are impressed with not only our quality and speed, but also with our process and suggestions, and word of mouth has helped us grow a lot.
From a team of 3 full-time employees last year, we now have 6 people full-time and 2 part-time.
Listen to your customers. You might need to pivot your offer if you’re not growing as you want.
Finally, I want to mention no code and low code as trends. We’re riding a wave that is getting bigger by the day, and that helps our overall reach and footprint. As one of the leading no/low code agencies, people interested in building an app are reaching out to us more and more often. It also helps that these no/low code app builders are getting very robust, allowing us to build more complex solutions than before.
Something that has not worked is ads. I’ve tried Facebook, Instagram, Google, and LinkedIn ads and outreach, and I just gave up. Our client acquisition strategy for 2022 is great content. We’re launching a podcast soon and doubling down on our LowCode Blog.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
One of our biggest lessons this year has been the importance of hiring the right people. Our team members make a difference and provide a unique experience for our clients. Spending a few thousand dollars with someone you have never met is never an easy decision, and having the best people on our team makes a difference that pays off. As a growing team, I find myself spending a lot of time talking with our team members and employees rather than building apps. Culture and a great working environment do make a difference, not only for the company but for your clients.
Another important lesson has been to better understand the market needs and move accordingly. There are some no-code tools that are getting very popular and we were not using them. We have missed some opportunities in terms of closing new deals. We have learned our lesson and grown our team to serve a broader audience.
Finally, a pet peeve of mine is documenting processes and having step-by-step guides for absolutely everything that we do. That has been fundamental to growing and minimizing the growing pains.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
Our goal for this year is to hit the $500,000 revenue goal. That means that we have to build bigger apps and bigger solutions.
We’re creating a lot of relationships with startup schools, VC funds, and accelerator programs. We’re helping their students/clients get an MVP fast and cheap and start validating their idea.
On the other hand, we’ll also start to work with mid-enterprise companies where they have constant needs for building MVPs, automation, etc. This is a very large and interesting market since they have the budget to do a lot of things, keep us busy, and the ROI for them hiring us is crazy. Mid and large sized enterprises are saving tens of thousands of dollars per month, and they’re paying us 10%, if not even that.
I’m very excited to see our clients grow, and that’s something we’re dabbling with. Not only building an app for them, but helping them with the next few steps; client acquisition, product-market fit, and a bit of marketing and content. We are applying the same lessons that have allowed us to grow by double digits every quarter and implementing that playbook with our clients so that they can avoid the mistakes we made when we were starting.
Have you read any good books in the last year?
I read Built to Sell by John Barrillow. While we don't have plans to sell our company right away, we are thinking about productizing our services. It's something to keep in mind if we eventually want to move from individual, one-off sales, to a monthly recurring revenue that investors like better and allow you to sell for a higher multiple.
A book that I'm reading right now is 100M Offers by AlexHormozi. It has a few golden nuggets in terms of creating an offer that is one of a kind and can’t be compared to your competitor's offering.
Finally, my favorite podcast episode was My First Million with Rob Dyrdek. It was so inspiring that I started to implement some ideas and frameworks in my life right away after listening to that episode.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
I’ve said it before, but go down the rabbit hole into a niche. Everyone can be a generalist (just go to Fiverr and see how many social media managers there are); however, you won’t find on Fiverr a social media manager for make-up brands that target Asians, for example. And that’s because those guys are busy, they have niched down so hard that they have work.
Listen to your customers. You might need to pivot your offer if you’re not growing as you wanted. If you have customers, they already trust you. Spend some time with them, ask them about their business, and see what their biggest pains are. You might not need to pivot 180º, but maybe just a little to get a product-market fit.
You should focus on creating a lot of content around you, your product, and your industry. Good, niche content is usually scarce. Do blog posts, YouTube videos, TikTok, podcasts, interviews… it all adds up.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We would love to onboard someone who is very good at SEO, link building, doing content distribution and getting backlinks. This would be a part-time job but could easily become a full-time hire.
We are currently hiring for a designer (we will probably have one before this gets published). They will help us with our content but also with our client work, especially now that we’re providing services like landing pages, content marketing, and more.
We are always looking for no-code builders using Bubble, Webflow, Softr, and Glideapps.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, leave 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.
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