Three ways to create your Digital Product
You‘re looking to build your first website or online shop. These approaches will guide you.
👋 Hi Everyone,
time flies by it’s been a week since the last post. In the last couple of days, I’m thinking about strategies and ways about how to get to your first digital product.
The reason behind ist that I had many insightful conversations with retailers. Many are hit hard with COVID and think about bringing their businesses online. They share an interesting characteristic together:
It‘s their first contact with some digitalization of their core business. Some have okayish websites. But they only serve as an online business card.
Due to the circumstances, they have to move reasonably fast
As a small or medium-sized company, the budget is limited. Mostly to very low five figures.
Thinking about the situation a company like that has in general three possibilities.
Depending on the degree of individuality and costs they can choose between a DIY approach, hiring a Productized Service company, or work together with an agency. By the way, this rule applies to products like websites and apps as well.
Of course, each route has its pros and cons. Let‘s have a closer look.
DIY
For many first-timers, this approach seems to be awful. Trying to solve a complex topic on your own is an endeavor. Let me explain why it works oftentimes. It‘s because you don‘t reinvent the wheel. Furthermore, you‘re riding on the shoulders of giants. This could mean in terms of an online shop that you‘re combining Shopify with a template. In the beginning, it's mostly plug and play. There are tons of learning material out there.
Building a website is pretty similar to that. The main investment is your own time. As a business owner, it‘s maybe limited but when you just get started with a side project. But It‘ll save you a lot of money. If you agree on a very easy solution.
Productized Service
Maybe you‘re hearing for the first time the term Productized Service. Brian Casel sums it up perfectly:
From your customer’s perspective, a productized service offers a specialized “done for you” solution with a compelling value proposition, packaged at a set price and scope.
From the founder’s perspective, (that’s you), a productized service is one that runs systematically and continues to produce and grow with or without your direct involvement.
Services like Ethercircle are specialized in doing only one thing. They‘re creating and optimizing Shopify shops. This means for you that they exactly know what they‘re doing and execute effectively on your request.
Saving time comes with some costs. But it‘s maybe worth it when you‘re busy managing other things.
There is a huge variety of Productized Services from bookkeeping up to marketing. Maybe it‘s something to have an eye on in the future.
Your shop will be much more individual but you need some money in your pocket. If timing is important this will be probably the fastest solution with much higher quality as the DIY approach.
Agency
As a co-founder of an agency, I‘m a bit biased here. When you‘re looking for a completely custom solution that reflects all your wishes and dreams. Then there‘s no other way around in hiring an expert team. It‘ll advise you and build a solution which fits your needs. Maybe it‘ll be a Shopify shop, maybe a Prestashop or something completely different.
You get what you want. Something that represents your brand and products the way you want to. But it comes with some trade-offs as well. This solution is like a piece of luxury. The highest degree of individuality means the highest cost and the longest development time. This might be unimportant for you but maybe it‘s way too much optimization in the beginning for you.
Conclusion
Summing it up, there‘s not a right way. Like always. Depending on your needs there is a clear distinction between your strategies.
Do it yourself when the budget is pretty tight but you want to test your idea of a digital product like an online shop. Quality will suffer and it‘ll be a slow execution. But you‘re going to learn a lot.
Utilizing a Productized Service when you‘ve got some budget, quality is an important aspect and you want to use your time for something else. Those services provide a clear scope and know what they do. Your risks will be minimal.
Working with an agency is the right way when you‘re looking for a shiny solution. This means that you don‘t back off from a high investment with the knowledge that you‘ll get a solution that really fits your needs.
Either way, the most important thing is just to get started.
See you soon.
– Dennis
PS: You want even more insights about digital products? Follow me on Twitter @DennisKluge. I regularly post about the things I learned during my work on digital products.