Creating a Client Management System for Creatives with Becca and Jake Berg of Dubsado

Episode 452: 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 geniuses 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 peak behind the curtain. We are walking you through the steps they took to build the software company, from idea to launch, and doing all of this amongst building a family and having 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. With his developer background and trying to manage his own organizational frustrations, he came up with the idea to create an online platform for a management system. It was only 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 is and how it works. 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 is 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 asking potential clients and surveying people on social media to find out exactly what a customer was 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 adjust 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 why 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, often times we do not get enough time to try it out. 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 be sure to reach out and get the support they need. 

 

Quote This

It’s about making your service based business feel a little bit more passive.

 

Highlights

  • Understand how Becca and Jake took their idea to 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]

  1. Gather your information through a questionnaire, and take on your clients like they are the only clients in the world. 

  2. Accept money upfront through a deposit, and lock down the contract before doing any work.

  3. Don’t be desperate; only work with your ideal clients and be okay with saying “no”.


ON TODAY’S SHOW

Becca & Jake Berg

Dubsado

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 our tea in hand.

KEY TOPICS 

Idea to business, Brainstorming, Product creation, Using feedback, Free trials, Converting clients, Being the face of your company


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