Finding Your First Client: A Freelancer's Journey
Monday, September 2, 2024
Finding your first client as a freelancer or agency can be incredibly challenging. It's easy to feel overwhelmed, especially when your primary focus is on providing value before earning any money.
# My Journey to Securing the First Client
When I started Designah, it took me three months to secure my first client. During this time, I constantly searched Google for "How to get clients," only to see the same advice repeatedly: "Send cold emails," "Make cold calls," "Write blogs," and so on. Despite diligently applying these strategies, nothing seemed to work, which was frustrating and overwhelming.
I also came across posts suggesting that traditional design agencies were becoming obsolete due to no-code tools, which made me question my own efforts. I felt like a failure, and I know many others have experienced the same feelings of doubt.
# The Breakthrough: Creating Something Simple and Remarkable
After months of trying different approaches without success, I realized that I needed to think outside the box. I decided to create something simple yet engaging that could go viral. I built the simplest, ugliest UI application I could think of—a button that simply counted how many times it had been pressed. It took just two hours to create, using a free SQLite database to store the numbers and a free Vercel domain.
countMeUp
Surprisingly, this no-cost app, countMeUp went viral, attracting 3,000 users in just four hours. I strategically placed the Designah name in the footer and navbar, which brought around 1,000 visitors to my designah and generated 10 leads.
countMeUp Google's Analytics report
While this approach worked for me, it's important to note that creating viral content can be challenging and may involve some degree of luck. Traditional methods like cold messaging and cold calling can still be effective, but to reach a significant audience, it's often beneficial to have a unique and impactful offering.
Ship things ASAP
Slow development killing your MVP dream? We build lightning fast MVPs with SvelteKit.