JimDesigns

So I’ve been running Jim Designs (https://jimdesigns.co/), my one-person subscription-based design studio for SaaS startups, for a bit more than a year now, going from making my first internet dollar to close to $10k MRR.

I’m getting too much demand these days, and I’m genuinely wondering if I should raise my rates.

The obvious answer is yes, but I know these spikes come in waves, and I'm concerned that if I raise my pricing, it will diminish future demand, and I’d lose a competitive edge.

I’ve been gradually increasing my pricing ever since I started, but I feel like I'm hitting a glass ceiling, although I realize my current rates are quite low for the provided value.

I’d for sure rather have fewer clients willing to pay more, but I see quite some benefits in having lower prices:

- Gets you more clients, thus a bigger reach, and an increased word of mouth potential - Feels more sustainable in the long run as you need a continuous stream of new clients with this model.

I’m not sure if these arguments are legit, or if I’m just trying to justify my lack of confidence here.

The one thing I’d like to avoid is to increase my rates, but then have to revert back in case it doesn't work out well. I'd feel bad for the customers who'd go for a given price point, then later realize prices went down :/

I don’t wanna sound like I’m creating reach man’s problems for myself, but I’m genuinely interested in what the best approach would be here.

Jim

PS: You can follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/JimDesignsCo) as I continue to share my journey.

5 months ago, I launched jimdesigns.co, my one-person subscription-based design studio for SaaS startups, and by doing so, made my first internet $.

Today, I passed $10,000 in cumulative revenue. This is not a significant amount whatsoever, but it means a lot to me and feels pretty surreal tbh.

This is neither an overnight success as I previously tried for years to make money online by building online tools, without any success.

Therefore, by no means do I pretend to have the secret sauce on how to make money online. I just thought I’d share a few thoughts on how I believe that happened for me:

1. Focus on what you’re really good at, and what you know best instead of trying to solve problems that you don’t have for an audience that you don’t know. In my case, as a product designer with +10y of experience designing SaaS products for startups, I didn’t have to look further.

2. Don’t fall into the build trap. In my case, a design studio only requires building a landing page, which means that the rest of the time can be focused on getting traction (+ client work).

3. Deliver outstanding value (product or service). That’s the only thing that matters to your customers. There is no shortcut here, your product or service got to provide significant value. In my case, getting high-quality designs for your SaaS at a fraction of the cost of hiring a world-class designer is a no-brainer.

4. Make your pricing a no-brainer when you’re getting started as the initial goal is to learn and get traction, not to get rich. The $10,000 is total revenue, not MRR but I’m still pumped to have generated my first 5 figures of internet dollar!

This post is not about bragging about my little win, but rather to inspire some folks out there to get started. In fact, my only wish is that I’d started earlier.

You can follow my journey on Twitter (@JimDesignsCo) as I continue to share my journey.

Jim