Growing a productized service to $9k MRR in 1.5 years while working a full-time job

In less than 1.5 years, Jim Harrison went from making his first internet dollar with his productized service, Jim Designs, to crossing $9k MRR with $100k in total revenue. And he's doing it on the side, while working a full-time job.

Here's Jim on how he did it. 👇

At the mercy of a job

I was mostly happy as an employee, but back in 2020, I was reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad and I realized how risky and foolish it actually was to rely on a paycheck — I was entirely at the mercy of my job. The Covid era and all the layoffs happening around me made it clear that I needed another revenue stream. So I decided to take a stab at launching my own business on the side.

I immersed myself in everything related to financial freedom. I started to spend hours lurking on IH, Product Hunt, and Twitter, taking in all the insights.

After a couple of failed SaaS projects, I came across Brett from Designjoy on IH. I got really inspired and thought that there was an opportunity to launch something similar, but niching it down to product design, exclusively.

Taking the leap

I knew that finding a great product designer was — and still is — surprisingly hard and expensive, despite the growing number of designers out there. And I was pretty confident in my craft. So it wasn’t a jump into the unknown.

That’s something I’ve learned and mentioned in one of my previous blog posts here on IH: Focus on what you’re already 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.

So, back in Jan 2023, I took the leap and launched Jim Designs.

That's how I earned my first internet dollar. A little over a year later, I'm $9,315 MRR and just crossed $100k in total revenue. And I have a 93% margin.

It’s not a life-changing amount of money whatsoever, but it’s the most rewarding money I’ve made, and the crazy part is that I’m still doing this on the side.

Low entry costs

To launch a design studio, all you need from a product perspective is a landing page. That's really convenient, as you can launch fast and focus on attracting users, instead of falling into the building trap.

So I designed it, coded it (yes I do code), and deployed it. All up, it took me about two weeks, working around my full-time job. 

Then I was able to spend most of your time on marketing — something that most first-time builders seem to neglect.

For the day-to-day process, everything happens on a Trello board + Figma. So it really is the minimum viable product in that sense as well.

For the domain, I went with jimdesigns.co because I wanted something that highlighted the one-person aspect of my design studio, as I believe people want to know who they work with. And I wanted something dead simple.

Business model

Jim Designs has a subscription-based model where clients can request as many designs as they want. Requests get delivered one at a time, within 2 business days on average.

It’s pretty similar to a SaaS, in a sense, but with a much higher LTV. Another way it differs is that retention tends to be lower since most clients only have two to three months of work, though some have been working with me for over a year now. So distribution is key with this model — you need a constant stream of new clients to replace those who pause their subscriptions.

Also, it can't scale indefinitely since I have limited bandwidth and don’t want to hire or outsource whatsoever. The only way to grow the business is to increase my rates over time, which is something I’ve been doing ever since I started.

Growth

I didn’t struggle that much to get my first clients, which was quite fortunate. I got my first clients from my Product Hunt launch. Since then, my main acquisition channels have been referrals and building in public.

Building in public

Most of my clients come from social media, where I share my journey and design snippets.

I’m still not sure if it is the design snippets or the journey sharing that attracts clients. I guess it’s the combination of both.

In any case, building in public has been instrumental for me, and I think this is even more important for a service business than a SaaS, as you need that personal connection. People want to know who they work with.

Referrals

This is something that I’m particularly proud of, as word of mouth testifies that you’re onto something good.

Timing

Being among the first to launch a subscription-based design studio definitely helped capture leads, and build up credibility. I now see many designers launching their own design studios, so the space now feels more saturated. It’s harder to build credibility when starting from scratch.

Pricing

Starting with reasonable pricing also helped in getting my first clients. I know this goes against the “charge more” idea that many seem to praise in the service space, but I felt like my initial goal was to build credibility – as I had almost no online presence – and get traction. It was not to get rich.

Value

The other point I would mention — which sounds obvious, but many overlook it — is that you have to provide great value. ‘Build something people want’ as the saying goes. That’s the only thing that matters in the end for customers.

There is no shortcut here. Your product or service has 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.

Highs and lows

One of my biggest challenges was – and still is – juggling between peak demand periods followed by low activity periods. The trouble is that I tend to do less marketing when there's a lot of demand, which impacts the number of leads I get and results in lower demand later.

Finding the right balance between marketing and delivery is something I still need to crack.

Start now, on the side

I really wished I had started earlier. The sooner you start, the faster you learn the ins and outs, and the more time you have to build credibility and an audience.

So I’d really advise people to stop overthinking things and get started.

Do it on the side, while having a full-time job to cover your back. We can all free up a few hours in our weeks to work on a side project, I think.

The other thing that I realized is that you don’t need to launch something new. Building your own improved version of something that already exists can be a smart move as the initial idea has already been validated. 

What's next

My goal for the next 12 months is to grow revenue to $25k MRR. At that point, I feel confident enough to go full time.

I know things can take time, and I’m patient. I’m also not looking to scale things to a boiling point. My goal is to do something that I enjoy while building up my financial freedom. 

You can follow along on X and at jimdesigns.co