Web studio development trajectory: agency, production, conveyor, product
According to data provided by the analytical portal CMS Magazine , there are 286 live Russian-language web studios with a size of 1-3 people, 626 - 4-7 people, and 556 - 8-15 people. “Living” are those who published at least one work on the portal in 2012–2013.
That is, more than a thousand companies that have already ceased to be a freelance couple from a designer and typesetter programmer, but have not yet grown into a big business, are constantly looking for customers and in constant thought about how to start earning more.
In recent years, the market is increasingly talking about the need for positioning, marketing and PR for web studios, and if previously it was related to the Top-10 companies, today these alien matters from Internet specialists have to think about the thousand with 4-15 employees. Fortunately, good articles on this topic appear on Habré. We want to give a look at the problem of positioning on the one hand.
The cumulative marketing truth: positioning is not what you say, but what your target audience thinks of you.
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Therefore, any positioning must be confirmed by practice. If you say that you can do high-load projects, they should not just be in your portfolio, your process should be tailored to them - from the competences of employees to the scope of work. If you are talking about supercool client service, the process should also be sharpened under it - account management, identifying hidden expectations, customer training and much more.
This means that the choice of positioning is often associated with the choice of where you generally want to grow as a business.
There are two classes of competences that are expensive to pump together - technological competencies (super-adaptive cross-browser layout, high-loaded applications, complex services, etc.) and competences of customer interaction (good contracts, powerful pre-sale, identifying and fixing expectations, identifying hidden parties affecting the project, creativity, etc.).
Relatively speaking, one normal programmer in a small web studio can grow either as a super programmer or as a project manager, and this is difficult to do at the same time.
The same applies to the company as a whole - if the company is fully provided with loading and receives payment on time, it is more profitable for it to pump over either technological competencies or client competencies.
Until recently, any company was forced to pump both those and those.
For large companies with pumped customer service, each project is unique. Because each client has its own positioning, its own target audiences, its own key messages, services, products, its own business structure. Therefore, the solution of such tasks requires processes built for solving typical tasks (“make me a website”), but for unique clients.
There is another option when a company gets tired of making unique products and creates a formed product. A striking example is the companies 1C-Bitrix and UMI.CMS, which grew out of web studios, but stopped making websites for customers and started selling boxes.
Some companies are starting to build and sell SaaS services (for example, QSoft and amo.CRM). Obviously, a completely different organizational structure is needed for developing and selling a SaaS service, rather than for custom client development.
Now multiply these two axes and get a plane.
And let us see that from this, starting with the most familiar story about the agency.
By definition, an agency is a company that represents a customer. Agencies have high competences of client interaction, and are able to translate from the language of the “client problem” into the language of “concrete solutions”. Already specific tasks of the agency are placed among professional companies that create certain products.
For example, an advertising agency creates creative ideas, selects advertising channels and engaging mechanics, and then places orders for the production of videos, websites, social networking, and so on. among the companies that do it. Supervise the results of work and analyze the overall exhaust advertising campaign. Today there are almost no clean agencies on the market, most of us have our own production inside, but a number of works are actively placed on subcontracting.
It may seem that this is an extra link between the client and the final implementers, but this is not so. Most of the clients of agencies simply can not find a common language with most end performers. This concerns, for example, setting tasks, work processes, contracts, and tolerance for financial gaps.
To become an agency, it is necessary at all levels to pump over the competences of customer interaction related to the implementation of unique projects:
A web studio that does not become an agency, but has a desire to engage in unique projects, can grow into a good custom production (production-company).
In contrast to the agency, custom productions work either with very competent end-users (for example, where they have their own really powerful Internet marketing department), or with agencies as subcontractors.
Unlike the agency, custom-made production can and must fix requirements in advance and take a surcharge for derogating from them. For agencies, this is simply impossible, since client requirements at the start of most projects are missing or vague.
Customized production can be very well positioned, and it will be greatly appreciated by the agencies. “We make only social networks in Python”, “We are 20 programmers on 1C-Bitrix, capable of solving any task without breaking the kernel”, “We always hand over the layout without bugs”, and so on.
To become a custom production, you need to pump processes a little in the other direction:
In that case, if you suffer with each client or snobo customer agency is tired, a good option is to go into creating your product. One way or another, many companies passed through this stage, and either ceased to exist as a web-studio, or they isolated the products that appeared in separate businesses.
Such a product can be a “box”, a massive online service, or something more exotic (a professional system for automating contextual advertising rates, for example).
The problem with going to your product is that in the idea of ​​your product and in financial possibilities, it is some time to invest resources in it without getting a profit.
Practice shows that for the emergence of an idea, you need to thoroughly boil somewhere in the upper half of the matrix in order to finally realize what product on the market is extremely lacking, and you are really able to create with your competencies. If you pay attention, it is clear that Internet companies create products based on a unique many years of each: the already mentioned QSoft and amo.CRM, TRINET and eLama, RealWeb and "Harpoon", "Kelnik" and Planoplan ... We did not take ideas at random, they grew out of our experience.
Conveyor production is extremely undervalued and is often viewed by other companies in the market as “stamping substandard products” (substitute synonyms for taste). In fact, pipeline production has great prospects for the lower and middle price segment.
“Conveyor” is the production of standard products with typical quality in typical terms (as opposed to agencies and industries, where the product and terms are guaranteed unique). Of those who actively talk about themselves in the last year, such companies include Smolensk Web Canape and Kazan Reaspect.
A conveyor belt is not a product because it requires more client competencies rather than technological ones. Especially here plays a role that you have to communicate with less competent customers, perhaps with the first experience of ordering a site. However, recently, pipelines have a new clientele - competent customers who want to make an inexpensive website for solving basic tasks. For example, to test a business idea.
It's summer now, a great time for reflection. Think about where you are today and where you want to go. The choice is useful because it cuts off all unnecessary.
Do you want to become a production? Stop learning to "lick" incompetent customers. Look for good agencies.
Do you want to become an agency? Invest in training managers and learn to reduce project uncertainty iteratively. Systematically reduce domestic production.
Do you want to create your product? Save money for start and right now start making the minimum version of the product. Do not go into product development for a year, try to do something that you can start selling right now.
Do you want to do the conveyor? Stop talking about the “young dynamically developing full-cycle agency” and just make typical low-cost sites, strictly observing the deadlines. Explain to customers that you will not play fonts, as he bought a sample product.
That is, more than a thousand companies that have already ceased to be a freelance couple from a designer and typesetter programmer, but have not yet grown into a big business, are constantly looking for customers and in constant thought about how to start earning more.
In recent years, the market is increasingly talking about the need for positioning, marketing and PR for web studios, and if previously it was related to the Top-10 companies, today these alien matters from Internet specialists have to think about the thousand with 4-15 employees. Fortunately, good articles on this topic appear on Habré. We want to give a look at the problem of positioning on the one hand.
Positioning and processes are inextricably linked
The cumulative marketing truth: positioning is not what you say, but what your target audience thinks of you.
')
Therefore, any positioning must be confirmed by practice. If you say that you can do high-load projects, they should not just be in your portfolio, your process should be tailored to them - from the competences of employees to the scope of work. If you are talking about supercool client service, the process should also be sharpened under it - account management, identifying hidden expectations, customer training and much more.
This means that the choice of positioning is often associated with the choice of where you generally want to grow as a business.
Technology or customer service?
There are two classes of competences that are expensive to pump together - technological competencies (super-adaptive cross-browser layout, high-loaded applications, complex services, etc.) and competences of customer interaction (good contracts, powerful pre-sale, identifying and fixing expectations, identifying hidden parties affecting the project, creativity, etc.).
Relatively speaking, one normal programmer in a small web studio can grow either as a super programmer or as a project manager, and this is difficult to do at the same time.
The same applies to the company as a whole - if the company is fully provided with loading and receives payment on time, it is more profitable for it to pump over either technological competencies or client competencies.
Until recently, any company was forced to pump both those and those.
Unique designs or a formed product?
For large companies with pumped customer service, each project is unique. Because each client has its own positioning, its own target audiences, its own key messages, services, products, its own business structure. Therefore, the solution of such tasks requires processes built for solving typical tasks (“make me a website”), but for unique clients.
There is another option when a company gets tired of making unique products and creates a formed product. A striking example is the companies 1C-Bitrix and UMI.CMS, which grew out of web studios, but stopped making websites for customers and started selling boxes.
Some companies are starting to build and sell SaaS services (for example, QSoft and amo.CRM). Obviously, a completely different organizational structure is needed for developing and selling a SaaS service, rather than for custom client development.
And now what?
Now multiply these two axes and get a plane.
And let us see that from this, starting with the most familiar story about the agency.
Agency
By definition, an agency is a company that represents a customer. Agencies have high competences of client interaction, and are able to translate from the language of the “client problem” into the language of “concrete solutions”. Already specific tasks of the agency are placed among professional companies that create certain products.
For example, an advertising agency creates creative ideas, selects advertising channels and engaging mechanics, and then places orders for the production of videos, websites, social networking, and so on. among the companies that do it. Supervise the results of work and analyze the overall exhaust advertising campaign. Today there are almost no clean agencies on the market, most of us have our own production inside, but a number of works are actively placed on subcontracting.
It may seem that this is an extra link between the client and the final implementers, but this is not so. Most of the clients of agencies simply can not find a common language with most end performers. This concerns, for example, setting tasks, work processes, contracts, and tolerance for financial gaps.
To become an agency, it is necessary at all levels to pump over the competences of customer interaction related to the implementation of unique projects:
- Contracts
- Processes (presales, tender histories, offers, design and iterative development ...),
- People (we need managers with steep experience and communication skills, as well as cool techlids in the team, able to control the result of any level of complexity)
- Financial planning (work with receivables, “airbag”, payment stages, customer base segmentation ...),
- Subcontractors (the necessary accumulated base of subcontractors for a very wide range of works - from illustrations in the style of engravings to fine-tuning of exotic databases).
Custom production
A web studio that does not become an agency, but has a desire to engage in unique projects, can grow into a good custom production (production-company).
In contrast to the agency, custom productions work either with very competent end-users (for example, where they have their own really powerful Internet marketing department), or with agencies as subcontractors.
Unlike the agency, custom-made production can and must fix requirements in advance and take a surcharge for derogating from them. For agencies, this is simply impossible, since client requirements at the start of most projects are missing or vague.
Customized production can be very well positioned, and it will be greatly appreciated by the agencies. “We make only social networks in Python”, “We are 20 programmers on 1C-Bitrix, capable of solving any task without breaking the kernel”, “We always hand over the layout without bugs”, and so on.
To become a custom production, you need to pump processes a little in the other direction:
- Contracts must include other conditions for changes in requirements and more stringent sanctions for deadlines,
- Processes are more lined up for high performance with a uniform load, there is almost no pre-sale, instead of sales - the search for partner agencies and working out the interaction, more or less flexible production methods are possible,
- People are pumped into powerful technicians and technicals,
- Financial planning involves the formation of a uniform load due to work with several regular partners ...
Own product
In that case, if you suffer with each client or snobo customer agency is tired, a good option is to go into creating your product. One way or another, many companies passed through this stage, and either ceased to exist as a web-studio, or they isolated the products that appeared in separate businesses.
Such a product can be a “box”, a massive online service, or something more exotic (a professional system for automating contextual advertising rates, for example).
The problem with going to your product is that in the idea of ​​your product and in financial possibilities, it is some time to invest resources in it without getting a profit.
Practice shows that for the emergence of an idea, you need to thoroughly boil somewhere in the upper half of the matrix in order to finally realize what product on the market is extremely lacking, and you are really able to create with your competencies. If you pay attention, it is clear that Internet companies create products based on a unique many years of each: the already mentioned QSoft and amo.CRM, TRINET and eLama, RealWeb and "Harpoon", "Kelnik" and Planoplan ... We did not take ideas at random, they grew out of our experience.
Conveyor
Conveyor production is extremely undervalued and is often viewed by other companies in the market as “stamping substandard products” (substitute synonyms for taste). In fact, pipeline production has great prospects for the lower and middle price segment.
“Conveyor” is the production of standard products with typical quality in typical terms (as opposed to agencies and industries, where the product and terms are guaranteed unique). Of those who actively talk about themselves in the last year, such companies include Smolensk Web Canape and Kazan Reaspect.
A conveyor belt is not a product because it requires more client competencies rather than technological ones. Especially here plays a role that you have to communicate with less competent customers, perhaps with the first experience of ordering a site. However, recently, pipelines have a new clientele - competent customers who want to make an inexpensive website for solving basic tasks. For example, to test a business idea.
Quo vadis?
It's summer now, a great time for reflection. Think about where you are today and where you want to go. The choice is useful because it cuts off all unnecessary.
Do you want to become a production? Stop learning to "lick" incompetent customers. Look for good agencies.
Do you want to become an agency? Invest in training managers and learn to reduce project uncertainty iteratively. Systematically reduce domestic production.
Do you want to create your product? Save money for start and right now start making the minimum version of the product. Do not go into product development for a year, try to do something that you can start selling right now.
Do you want to do the conveyor? Stop talking about the “young dynamically developing full-cycle agency” and just make typical low-cost sites, strictly observing the deadlines. Explain to customers that you will not play fonts, as he bought a sample product.
The article was prepared on the basis of a report at the SPICES seminar.
For the first time, ideas were voiced at a workshop of the community of St. Petersburg digital agencies . For the video of gratitude to colleagues from Denero.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/184752/
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