A conversation about starting a concrete finishing company gives Designli founders Keith Shields and Josh Tucker a way to examine their own business. The work is different from software development, but the operating questions are familiar: how do customers find you, how do you turn interest into paid work, and how do you deliver reliably?
In this Founder Factor episode, they join the host to discuss what service companies can learn from product development and from one another. The conversation moves from finding the first customer to documenting work, choosing pricing, and planning cash needs. Their examples describe practices and opinions from the interview period, rather than a statement of Designli’s current packages or terms.
What you'll learn.
- Test demand with a small, clearly defined service before making large commitments.
- Give every sales opportunity a recorded next step and set clear expectations about communication.
- Document repeatable work so another person can take responsibility for it.
- Plan future cash needs, including a realistic cost for the founder’s work.
A product experiment leads to paid client work.
Shields and Tucker describe an early venture built around crowdsourced app ideas. The plan was to let a community vote on ideas, build the popular ones, and share the proceeds. People began asking a different question: could they pay the founders to build an app privately?
That request helped create the service business. Instead of waiting for a consumer product to reach a large audience, the founders had someone willing to pay for a defined outcome. They still had to learn how to deliver it, but the customer’s interest gave them a concrete starting point.
They recall initially treating services as less appealing than a scalable product company. Over time, they came to value the business they could build around client work. Their comparison is based on their experience: a service may be easier to begin with limited resources, while growth brings its own challenges around people, process, and capacity.
Help customers find evidence that you can deliver.
The founders organize the business around marketing, sales, and delivery. The first part of the discussion focuses on visibility and credibility: what will a potential customer see when they search for a provider?
They use local concrete finishing as an example of checking directories, business listings, and existing competitors before spending heavily on promotion. Reviews and case studies can give a prospective customer evidence of completed work. A useful case study explains the project and result in more detail than a brief rating can.
The conversation includes a suggestion about offering a discount in exchange for a five-star review. That suggestion is part of the historical discussion, not a recommended step here. The useful operating question is how to make honest customer feedback and evidence of actual work easy for a prospective buyer to find.
The host also describes beginning with a simple website, a business listing, and accounts of completed projects. The emphasis is on building a credible starting presence and learning what brings inquiries before assuming an expensive marketing program is necessary.
Test a small version of the service.
A minimum viable product is the smallest useful version of an offering that lets a business learn from real customers. The group applies the same idea to services. A concrete finishing operator might rent equipment for an early job rather than buy it immediately, provided the job and its costs can be covered.
They also discuss offering a narrower piece of a larger engagement. The host describes testing a website planning service before selling the full implementation process. That creates a smaller commitment for both sides and lets the provider improve one part of the work.
The conversation recognizes a tension: founders want the process to feel polished before selling it, but customer work is often what reveals which parts need improvement. A trial needs clear expectations about what is included and what the provider is still learning. It should not depend on the customer discovering those limits after the work begins.
Make the next step in sales explicit.
A service owner can receive inquiries through phone calls, texts, email, and website forms while also trying to deliver existing projects. Shields describes how easily a lead can disappear when follow-up depends on memory.
The group discusses using a customer relationship management system, or CRM, to record the opportunity, its possible value, and the next action. An inquiry should lead to an agreed conversation or visit, with the next meeting placed on both calendars. A quote without follow-up can leave an interested customer stranded.
Communication boundaries can support that process. The concrete finishing example includes setting a clear window for responding while the owner is otherwise on job sites. The point is to make a dependable commitment about when a customer will hear back, then keep it.
The founders mention specific software and automation examples, but the principle does not depend on one tool: keep a record of each opportunity and make the next action visible.
Automate after you understand the repeated work.
Tucker cautions against building elaborate automation immediately. Early in a business, the owner may not yet know which messages, tasks, or decisions will repeat. After handling customer conversations manually, recurring patterns become easier to identify.
The group distinguishes having a dependable sales process from automating every part of it. A new business still needs to prevent missed inquiries. It may not need a complex set of sequences before it has learned how customers respond.
Personal attention can also be part of the reason someone chooses a young company. As the business grows, automation should preserve clear communication and useful attention. Repeated administrative work is a stronger candidate for automation once the team can explain what the process is supposed to accomplish.
Match pricing to the work and explain the estimate.
The discussion compares hourly work, dedicated teams, and pricing for a defined result. The founders describe arrangements used in their software business at the time and contrast them with work such as lawn care, painting, or polishing a measured area of concrete.
The choice depends partly on how predictable the work is and what the customer is buying. A known scope may support a price tied to a result. Work that changes as people learn may require a different arrangement. These examples explain tradeoffs, rather than establish one pricing model for every service.
Whatever the model, customers need to understand the estimate. The group discusses showing where the budget goes, what the provider expects to deliver, and how the working relationship will operate. A stated hourly rate alone may leave the buyer unable to judge the likely commitment. Clear scope and assumptions make the conversation more useful.
Document the work before handing it over.
The host describes writing down implementation procedures so projects can follow a consistent process even when their content differs. The team can reuse its approach to planning, delivery, feedback, and communication without pretending every customer has the same needs.
Shields and Tucker extend that idea to job descriptions. A practical role description names the work someone will do, rather than relying on a broad title. Even a solo founder can map the different roles they currently fill and identify a group of tasks someone else could own.
The first hire may cover several functions. As the company grows, those responsibilities can separate into more focused jobs. Documenting them early helps the founder see where time goes and makes a handover easier to define.
Look ahead at cash before making commitments.
The episode closes with the founders’ use of a cash flow spreadsheet. They describe projecting revenue and expenses by month, then looking at what those assumptions would mean for the bank balance.
They consider several scenarios, including a severe loss of work, existing customers continuing with limited new projects, and a more likely outcome based on sales opportunities. Those scenarios help them think about hiring, marketing spending, and owner payments with more context than today’s bank balance alone provides.
The host adds that founders should include a cost for their own work, even when they are initially taking little money out. Treating the owner’s labor as free can make the business look healthier than it will be once it needs to support a salary or replace that labor.
The spreadsheet does not make uncertain revenue certain. Its value in their account is that assumptions become visible, so the team can examine a decision before committing to it.
The common thread is a service business that becomes easier to understand and operate as it grows. Customers know what to expect, inquiries have next steps, employees can follow a documented process, and the owners can see the financial effect of a decision.
The conversation starts with concrete finishing and returns repeatedly to software and web design. Across those examples, the founders focus on learning from paid work, delivering the promised result, and turning useful habits into repeatable ways of working.
