How I get my first customer for my software projects and how you can too!
I’m back! I know my last article was quite a while ago, but here I am again.
Today I want to tell you about my journey of getting my first customer and how you can too!
If you’re wondering how I got into software development I’ll link you my first article at the end (How I fall into mobile development).
But let’s start with the story you’re here for ;-)
After I finished school I decided to start working in emergency medical services. At this time I haven’t got any contact with software development at all.
But as I was working and getting experience in emergency medicine I got ideas… I mean IDEAS, you know? :D
So but as we all know ideas themselves are worth not much without proper execution.
I quickly understood that either I got to get somebody to “build” my ideas or I need to learn to build them myself.
You may have guessed it: I decided to learn to build them on my own.
And there we are… the fundamental question: Which programming language to learn?!
I know you want me to answer it now for you as well, but I can’t or at least won’t.
When it comes to deciding what to learn let me tell you that it (in terms of just learning to code) doesn’t matter.
Just pick one, keep hustling and learning. After you understand one language you can easily learn other languages as well.
If you want to do it as I did, think about what the software you are planning to code should do and especially on what platforms it should run.
In my case, I decided that my ideas should run on mobile, desktop and on the web. But as I want my software to run with the highest possible performance on as many devices as possible, I decided to learn Flutter/Dart.
Do you want to know more about Flutter? I wrote an article about what Flutter is. Check it out!
https://medium.com/flutter-development/what-is-flutter-fda58f239a76
Now as I know how to code, at least the basics, I started to build one of my ideas.
The first idea was a mobile app to keep track of medical equipment.
Because I want you to fully understand what I was coding we’ll take a short look into emergency medicine in at least Germany.
Let’s think about a case where you got a person falling down the stairs with afterward pain in the spine.
A patient with pain like this will be transported either on a spineboard or in a vacuum mattress.
In most cases, you will leave the patient in this immobilized state until it is out of the question that the spine is hurt.
Because an ambulance can’t wait at the hospital until all investigations are completed we will drive back to our ambulance station.
With my mobile app, it should be possible to create an entry containing the following pieces of information.
What medical equipment is in the hospital? Which hospital? And which ambulance left it there?
Now there should be a list containing all entries. If now an ambulance is coming to a hospital, where equipment is ready to be picked up, they can select it in the app, select the ambulance picking it up and press a ‘pick up’ button.
Really basic and easy idea, isn’t it? :D Perfect for my first project!
There are two possible ways to find a customer for your app/software.
You can either tell your idea / show a prototype to a possible customer in the hope to get a downpayment for your development or you build your idea and show it to a possible customer afterward.
You have to choose from.
I decided to build it and show it to my boss if it’s ready for release.
And I did it just 6 days… 6 DAYS!… later.
Oh man, I was soo nervous… Even I had that feeling that this will be good! :-D
I sat down and pushed my phone with the opened app over to him. He looked at it and started to navigate through the app while I was explaining what I was thinking in regard to the features and so on.
His first expression was “Nice, do you have ever think about selling it?” and my response was “Yeah of course I did, otherwise I haven’t built it?!”.
This was a really funny moment and he said: “Well, we’ll use it.”
Man, I was soo unbelievable glad and happy!
So I also told him what my next project will be (a management software for emergency medical services) and he nearly instantly replied: “We’ll use that one too.”
And now I am working on this management software project with realtime feedback and inspiration, wishes and much more of my colleagues.
So I can create an exactly on their needs fitting software!
What I want to tell you about this is really simple. You are a domain expert in whatever you are doing for a living. So use your knowledge and insights to build an application fitted to the needs and wishes of the people in your domain field.
Don’t be shy. Just build something (It doesn’t need to be finished, but something to show and to “touch” makes your life easier, believe me) and show/offer it to your company, friends, etc.
And think about this one:
Even small applications, even for free, can be the best way of “marketing” for you and might be the ticket for paying customers and contracts.
Give away a license for free to one or two companies and in exchange, you’ll be allowed to list them as reference customers.
Get yourself ahead of the competition by listening to the needs of your customers, using your domain knowledge, world-class customer support, and most important, think differently!
As mentioned above, give your software away for free to one or two customers and I’ll guarantee you will be getting new customers much easier because of the references you have now.
To convince someone to be the first one buying a new software without you/your company “having a name” is incredibly hard, maybe even impossible in certain fields.
Another very positive side effect of giving your software away for free to some customers is that you’ll get feedback and can improve the software to be even better. Otherwise, you maybe have never get that feedback.
And now, think about it.
It is as simple as mentioned above. Be confident and try yourself. I mean what could go wrong? You’ve been working on it for hours, that’s the worst thing that can happen, so go out there and DO!
Please feel free to share your thoughts with me!
Just reply or write me an email: info@qubeta.de
I hope you’re doing all good and wish you all the best! Keep hustling!
Talk to you later!
How I fall into mobile development:
https://medium.com/@joshuawellbrock/how-i-learned-to-code-fall-into-mobile-development-and-then-just-started-to-develop-a-business-9f85cc3c8ca
What is Flutter:
https://medium.com/flutter-development/what-is-flutter-fda58f239a76
