

The agency model is broken: Why we sell teams, not projects - cal5k
http://myplanetdigital.com/article/agency-model-broken-why-we-sell-teams-not-projects

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onemorepassword
We tried that. The clients that went with it loved it (and we loved working
for them).

But the business reality is the most clients want to know what the whole
product, not just the "Minimum Desirable Product" is going to cost them. Hell,
so would I for most work, like re-modelling my house, and most people don't
understand why software should be any different. (Unfortunately they do
understand the "soft" part, as in "changeable".)

Also, managing expectations about that minimum desirable product is very, very
hard since it's very difficult for clients to imagine clearly what that
product will be like.

In the end we decided that clients we could do our best work for were too few
and far between, and that as long as clients don't understand software better
the agency model will remain broken because that's the only model for which
there is enough of a market.

And since we wanted to make great software for happy clients and not deal with
that 50% broken projects anymore, we pivoted to a (semi-)SaaS model and
focused on a specific niche we were already building a name for ourselves in.

Being an agency in an immature market was just too frustrating.

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cal5k
It is frustrating sometimes, but I think with the increasing popularity of
books like The Lean Startup and an overall broader understanding of how
startups actually work, people are more willing to try new engagement models.

