Behind the Scenes: Creating a Client Management System for Creatives with Becca and Jake Berg of Dubsado
Episode 067: Show Notes
Today on the show, we have Becca and Jake Berg of Dubsado. We are super excited to have them on! They are a husband and wife team that are the brains, power, and genius behind Dubsado, which is a client management system for creatives. They have built one amazing and beautiful platform for all of those things that you have 75 different logins for, including your contracts, how you get paid, and how you respond back to clients after they book with you. All of those pieces are neatly tied up in one amazing software bow.
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In today’s episode, you are going to get a peek behind the curtain. We are walking you through the steps they took to build the software company, from idea to launch, and how they did it while building a family and working full time jobs. They share with us how they have been able to grow and scale their business, and how Becca had to make sure it was her own. They also dive into exactly how they were able to make this awesome idea into an actual product, get it launched, and then how they have been able to scale and grow their team. We are even talking about some inside scoops on how to better perfect your client based business and get paid faster. So we are excited for you to jump in, listen, and learn!
From Mere Idea to Literally Next Steps
For Becca and Jake, the first hints of the idea for Dubsado came from Jake. He has a developer background and came up with the idea to create an online platform for a management system while trying to manage his own organizational frustrations. It was not until Becca was experiencing the same frustrations in her own photography business that she jumped on board with the idea. From there, the next step was to build a website actually describing what the platform was and how it worked. It was also what they used to pre-market the product on their social media to educate potential customers. After gathering feedback and building their email list, their idea was confirmed and they made the call to build the software.
Moving from Brainstorming to Building an Actual Product
In the beginning, Becca and Jake went from notebook to notebook, filling them with tons of ideas as they just kept flowing in. They would spend every free moment talking about how they would turn this idea into an actual product, and figuring out exactly what it was they wanted as an end result. Their biggest struggle in building it out was finding focus, because their ideas would just keep flowing. Once they finally found that focus, Jake spent the next 10 months building the software, racing to try and finish before their baby boy was born. Once it was ready, they launched the beta version to their email list, tested it for a few months to work out all the kinks, and then finally launched it to the world.
Using Feedback From Social Media to Build Your Product
When building out Dubsado and what it would look like, Becca did a lot of research, questioning potential clients and surveying people on social media to find out exactly what customers were looking for in the product. Facebook groups and Instagram were truly Becca’s biggest tool. She would look at the different tools that people were using, and why they ditched some and preferred others. By simply asking people what they were looking for in a software and how it would work best for their business, Becca and Jake were able to mould, shape, and adjust Dubsado and the platform to better suit their already captive audience, and truly design a product that would cater to their potential customers’ specific business needs.
Converting Free Trial Customers Into Paying Clients
For Dubsado’s pricing structure, all of their beta group clients were grandfathered in at an incredible price. Any new clients also have the ability to take part in a free trial period, forever, or until they reach three clients. The biggest reason that Becca and Jake were able to offer their clients such extensive free trial periods was because when they launched Dubsado, both of them had full-time jobs. On top of that, Jake also felt from personal experience that when a trial episode ends too quickly, oftentimes we do not get enough time to try the system out properly. With a “forever” free trial, Becca and Jake have seen much higher conversion rates because of the great incentive it provides their clients to try it out whenever they have the time, and as a result are much happier in the end.
Being the Face of Your Product-Based Company
From a strategic perspective, for Becca and Jake, becoming the face of their company was very purposefully done. Becca felt really strongly about feeling emotionally connected to her clients and being super approachable, even as a software company. For her, personally, she loves giving her money to support other business owners who are just like her, so she did not want to miss out on the opportunity to be the face of her own company. Instead of conforming to the norm, Becca wanted to be a different kind of software company, connected to their customers, and reliably approachable. That way, if their clients have any immediate problems, they can simply reach out and get the support they need.
Quote This
We’re human beings; we don’t need to type like robots in emails. We’ll show our feelings.
—Becca Berg
Highlights
Understand how Becca and Jake took their idea to the actual next steps towards building their business. [0:06:46.0]
Find out how Becca and Jake progressed through the brainstorming process towards building a product. [0:07:42.4]
Learn how Becca and Jake used Instagram and Facebook groups to build their product around their customers. [0:11:30.5]
Becca and Jake share more about their pricing structure, and how they convert free trials into paying clients. [0:15:08.4]
Understand why Becca and Jake purposefully decided to become the face of their company. [0:20:30.9]
#TalkStrategyToMe [0:43:37.8]
Gather your information through a questionnaire, and take on your clients like they are the only clients in the world.
Accept money upfront through a deposit, and lock down the contract before doing any work.
Don’t be desperate; only work with your ideal clients and be okay with saying “no”.
ON TODAY’S SHOW
Becca and Jake Berg
Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Becca is the creator of Dubsado, Client Management System for Creative Entrepreneurs along with her husband, Jake. They have two kiddos (3.5 and 1.5) that keep them prettttty busy to say the least. Her husband says it is good when she is busy though, since she stopped coming up with crazy new ideas to bring to life! But no matter how busy she is, 2 hours are blocked off each night for some brain relaxing Netflix marathons (yes 2 hours is a marathon when you have two kids) with tea in hand.
