INTRODUCTION:

Software engineers often think about starting a web development business of their own.
We may be talking about a traditional senior software developer working on a product after hours.
No exposure to marketing and sales at work .Traditional Computer Science degree. Complete focus
on software engineering.
They launch a product and probably sell through their own network or social media accounts. A
couple developers join the team, assisting with additional features, maintenance, deployments.
Have you started your own business as an engineer (or considered founding one)?
The beginning is always tough – you need to find your place in the industry, generate some income
and plan for recurring revenue. When you can plan a few months ahead, you can start growing your
team as well, with other experts helping you build more products, double the amount of work you do
or anything that you offer to your customers.
After getting a few people on board, you usually have to start looking for other areas that are not
directly related to your work.
Two of the key areas that I will be talking about in this article are the management and sales areas of
a web development business, focusing more on how the latter can be explored by a technical head
with no sales background.
Building A Customer Base:
Outside of growing a team, the remaining aspect is building a customer base. When starting (often
as a freelancer), you may rely on the 11-step checklist described below, namely:

1. Perfect Your Skills

2. Build Your Portfolio
3. Sign Up for Freelance Networks
4. Start a Pet Project
5. Contact Local Small Businesses
6. Focus on a Specific Niche
7. Attend Local Events
8. Build Your Online Brand
9. Contact Agencies for Outsourcing Gigs
10. Connect With Larger Organizations
11. Partner Up With Freelancers and Agencies

This is the main workflow I’ve followed as a freelance developer before I founded my business
and grew it to a team of 30+. It’s still applicable in terms of scaling opportunities.
Still, this is primarily a kickstart approach over the first months (up to a couple of years). In terms of
scaling a web development business, you have to engage in different activities that overlap with the
initial plan and build upon it. I’ve covered the next step in the growth journey in The Definitive Sales
Process For a WordPress Development Company:

 Presales and Client Vetting

The process of interacting with prospects, assessing a business model, identifying
opportunities and ensuring that the client is a good fit. Once you get some traction, working
with the right clients is extremely important. One problematic client can easily sink your entire
business.
 Customer Satisfaction
– Since you’ve already closed some leads, building an outstanding customer experience is of
utmost importance. Happy clients can convert to a recurring business opportunity, sending
testimonials or even referrals to your business.

 Retainer Contracts
– Building ongoing packages is a great way to turn your business into a recurring revenue
machine. Instead of bidding on fixed-fee projects alone, discuss ongoing opportunities,
maintenance work, regularly scheduled redesigns or new integrations with products that stand
out. Some of our “one-off” clients have been working with us for 3 years and going thanks to
our retainer agreements.

 Industry Expertise
– Profiling in a specific niche or reaching the top 10 in a given field will make your business a
go-to choice for many. Instead of building solutions for a wide range of platforms, pick one or
two and become extremely proficient. Understand the underlying layers, take certifications,
build some high-scale projects and showcase them as proof of your quality work.

 Community Engagement
– Participating in community activities, building open source products, sponsoring events and
the like. If you’re doing web development for a living, it’s only natural that you would be
naturally inclined to engage with other industry peers. Connecting with hosting companies,
product developers, core contributors in your field is an important channel for upping your
skills and increasing your value as a vendor. Plus, it reveals additional opportunities for large
businesses looking for reputable service providers.

 Partnerships
– Building strategic partnerships is also important for a growing business. If you offer back-
end development services, partner up with front-end developers or design companies. If you
are a full-stack team, talk to SEO agencies, creative studios, advertising companies that often
get pitched for web development. If your portfolio is solid, you have a chance for building new
recurring sales funnels and cross-promote your services out there.
  Marketing Activities
– In addition to hands-on activities and sales, you want to focus on your marketing for the long
term. Start a newsletter, build ebooks and whitepapers, build your social media accounts,
craft some designated landing pages, create a freemium software – plenty of opportunities to
increase your traffic and convert some of your readers into prospects.

 Guest Posting
– As an industry leader, sharing advice is important for credibility. Talk to industry blogs and
magazines and suggest topics which would be of use to their audience. Not only can you
reach a wider audience, but backlinks to your site will increase your visibility in SERP.
The further you specialize and build your professional brand, the more your business will shift to
inbound leads instead of cold calls and emails. This will let you discuss ongoing retainer
opportunities which will grow your monthly recurring revenue, letting you hire additional resources,
invest in complementary tools for your business and spend money on ads and partnerships.

How Technical CEOs Handle Sales and Marketing

Their lack of marketing and sales experience will definitely be a blocker. Digital marketing covers
a wide range of skills – content production, email marketing, affiliate and partnerships, social media,
analytics, setting KPIs, tracking and launching new campaigns – you name it.
Sales works in a similar manner, too. An inbound sales person should handle the incoming leads via
email capture or contact form submissions through landing pages, freebie offers, webinars,
partnership campaigns. An outbound salesman will engage in cold calls and emails, attend industry
events, explore prospects on LinkedIn.
That’s why plenty of startups are formed by multiple co-founders responsible for different portions of
the business. A trustworthy expert in business development may be instrumental for a similar role.
However, technical CEOs may have some exposure to marketing and growth.

 Working on projects for marketing agencies.

 Building products or SaaS solutions together with their marketing teams or an external marketing firm.
 Attending industry events and interacting with prospects and clients on-site.
 Engaging with content marketing (blogging, writing tutorials, contributing to magazines, even participating in
Quora, reddit, Stack Overflow).
 Actively maintaining and growing their social media accounts.
 Being a notable member of a community – an open source contributor, speaker at events, organizer of a
meetup.
Those bits may determine the business plan of the startup and uncover successful strategies that
could be explored at the very beginning.
How I Studied Sales And Marketing
I’ve hired marketers and salespeople who didn’t live up to the expectations. They promised a lot but
couldn’t deliver. We spent tons of capital with no ROI whatsoever.
Over the past 5–6 years, I had to delve deeper and deeper into sales and marketing. I went through
rough times while we were generating a loss. I was already into blogging and social media, but didn’t
really understand what converted and what didn’t.
We took on a couple of marketing platforms and I had to study marketing extensively. I hired a
couple of writers for our blog after writing 40 posts myself (after a thorough keyword research,
browsing BuzzSumo for successful titles that convert, looking up our competitors via Moz and
SEMrush).
I spoke to marketing consultants on Clarity and business developers in my network. Same goes
for successful business and agency owners willing to share some tips.
We finally had the data we needed in order to understand what’s worth investing in further. I worked
on a detailed document explaining our marketing initiatives and ideas for expansion.
The list goes on, but our “trial-and-error” led to a better-structured model.