Key Metrics

• One-line pitch: DesignBake is a subscription service for startups to get monthly advice from design leaders.
• Revenue: $0
• Designer leads: 2
• Startup leads: 2

Public Update #2 🧗

This past week, I made some good progress on DesignBake. I still haven't made revenue, but took tangible steps in getting there by onboarding my first 2 startups (potential customers) and 2 design advisors. My current goal is to make first revenue for DesignBake as soon as possible.

PS: I've added a little 'Key Metrics' call-out at the top of each week's blog so you can follow along to see if/when I can make it! :)

Revenue as a measure of early-stage progress

I think it's really, really important to measure progress for a new product or service idea through revenue.

Making first revenue is not so much about the money itself or what I could do with the first $250, but more about validating that I'm building something that people actually want. A product or service that someone actually sees the value in and is ready to pay $250 for it — today.

In my case, I'm building a design subscription service that starts at $250/month for startups — and I need to get really specific about the problem I'm solving for a startup, the value/benefits of the solution, and why a startup would want to pay $250 to solve it today.

For example, while building my previous startup, I often got unknowingly (at the time) 'distracted' by secondary metrics that didn't often move revenue or another meaningful metric for the company. I thought that if XYZ metric moved first, then I could figure out how to make revenue later. I thought to myself "If only I built the best product first, then I could make revenue from it." "If only I built the best community first, then I could make money from it." I thought it would be 'greedy' or 'selfish' for me to focus on making revenue as a 1-person team with just an idea. After all, I was building a social-impact startup and I wanted to help people — so I didn't want to focus on revenue before I could help people.

Over time and experience, I've learned this hard truth when building or launching a new idea. Revenue indicates so much at this early stage — the fact that I've found a customer with a problem that they care about solving. A problem so important that they're actually willing to pay someone to solve it for them.

In taking ideas from 0 to 1, this is a really hard step, and one that every early-stage entrepreneur or indie maker needs to ruthlessly focus on. It's hard because the journey to first revenue often involves iterating on all the different aspects of your idea till it 'clicks' — tweaking the problem you're solving, the target customer, the messaging, value prop, pricing, communication, etc. The goal is for your potential customer to realize that the value they would get from paying for your product or service is magnitudes greater than leaving that problem unsolved or poorly solved.

Next up, I'll share some more about the operational side of the stack/tools I'm using and how I'm approaching the setup.