Featured Listing: Software Development & Staff Augmentation Studio Empowered by a Remote Freelance Network

About the business

Tell us a little about yourself. What’s your background? How did you start the business?

My name is Ryan. I am a software engineer, solutions architect, a project and talent manager.
I have been developing software for 8+ years and have experience working at Australian Startups, some of which are now ASX listed.

I started this business as a freelancer, primarily to liberate myself and explore my own ideas and curiosity. As we took on more work and matured as business owners, the business evolved accordingly into what we have today.

As an eCommerce business, where are your products made?

We operate a small eCommerce marketplace for industrial and business goods. All items are sourced & manufactured domestically in Australia.

What can you tell us about your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Our CAC is basically $0. This is because all of our leads are inbound via Word of Mouth. We haven’t invested in growing the business using paid or content marketing.
The reason for this because our time is split between businesses and the businesses that we operate.
CLV can be anywhere from 3 – 6 months for a single project turnaround, or short-term staff augmentation, to more than a year for where we deliver multiple projects or remain available for updates and project operation and maintenance.

How have you marketed the product and where are your customers originating from?

We have not invested nearly enough into marketing and advertising. Customers originate via our network through referrals and word of mouth.
We’ve established a reputation for reliable software delivery on short-term cost-effective contracts.

Is the asset on your listing owner-operated, how much time does it take to run the business, who else is needed on the team, and what is automated?

This business is owner-operated.
It takes anywhere from 10 – 40 hours a week for the owner, or a lead solutions architect and technical lead to manage the projects related to our software development services.
Staff augmentation causes this time allocation to grow depending on the number of active clients.
Administration of the business can be up to 5 hours of work per work.

What does someone need to do to continue operating the business in its current form?

The skills required are

• Technical/Cloud solutions architecture
• (Ideally/Optionally) Software Engineering
• Project and talent management
• Sales and Proposal Development
• Customer Support (Standard for any business)
• Business Administration

A new owner can either carefully hire a single individual to work full-time who could cover these skills, or distribute these responsibilities amongst a team.

Sales and Solutions work hand in hand.
Currently, we have the same person who is producing technical flowcharts/diagrams/solutions and also producing sales proposals that incorporate these schematics.
This can, however, be split between individuals.

We currently have the same person managing projects and task delegation, as well as sourcing & managing contractors and supporting their requests.

Software Engineering skills are ideal, but not required. We currently take on some minor engineering tasks internally to expedite project delivery, but the same contractors hired to work on projects could also cover these requirements.

Growing the business

Can you list a few opportunities for a potential new owner to continue growing the business?

A new owner who is currently already operating an agency with custom software development services could simply

• add to their bottom line
• grow their client base
• upsell to these new clients
• tap into a new market (if they’re operating outside of Australia)
• incorporate freelancer/contractor management into software delivery processes

A new owner who is currently not offering custom software development services could use our existing business operation as a foundation for their expansion into this domain.

Other opportunities for new owners include

• A growing portfolio of offered services
• leveraging vetted contractors for elastic spending on talent

What has been the evolution of this asset since its launch?

After launch, we operated for two years primarily experimenting with SaaS offerings and learning ways to scale our agency services.
After trial and error, we realized that in order to grow, we needed a process for accepting and delivering projects concurrently and elastically.

It was clear that incorporating contractors into a pragmatic process for accepting requirements and delivering outcomes was the way to achieve this goal.
This process involved sourcing talent, allocating projects and tasks, consolidating and reviewing deliverables, and then serving the outcome to clients.

Since this catharsis, scouting for talent and curating a network of amazing engineers and designers from across the world who offer their services as contractors have become integral to the business.
After operating with this strategy for over a year, it became apparent that had achieved this plan for delivering projects concurrently and elastically.

This is also an indicator that we have a reproducible process for operating and growing the business that even another business owner could orchestrate.

How does this business make money? What are the current revenue streams?

The business makes money primarily by selling technical labour at an hourly rate.
This can be in the form of a retainer for projects that require maintenance and availability or can be estimated for a project, where a client simply desires the final deliverables.

Other revenue streams include recurring subscriptions for hosting, operations & software services, as well as eCommerce revenue from our in-house Industrial & Business goods marketplace.

What marketing channels are most profitable for the business?

Word of Mouth

How does the business currently acquire customers and what is your breakdown for marketing costs?

Word of Mouth and Inbound Leads.
We have not invested in marketing or advertising.

How big is your current team? How many people does it take to run this business?

The current internal and operational team comprises two people.
It takes 1 – 3 people to run this business.

There are also 8 contractors working on 10 active projects.
These contractors will be introduced to the new owner, where there is an acquisition.

What’s the reason for selling your business on Flippa?

I’ve been granted an opportunity to start a new business venture, and by doing so, cannot allocate the time necessary to ensure this business’s prosperity. An acquisition will offer our clients closure that their active projects are still taken care of. It will also allow this business to continue thriving, or be leveraged under new management.