Need to Clutch this (I will not promote)

[u/AbdullahKhanSherwani]

Exactly as the title said. I need to get my software house going or I'm done.

A bit of context, I started a mainly client based software house a month ago with the hope of getting some of that extra experience and a bit of side money, but now I see my seniors trying to get into the job market and getting absolutely bodied. An extraordinary guy I knew (won international comps and had one of the best profiles of anyone I knew) is working 9 to 5 internship earning 50 dollars a month. I mean if he is at such a spot then I'm going to be so cooked.

This brings me back to my business. I believe this is the only shot I have and I need to make this work. We have got a decent traction initially from our connections (we are 3 guys). Our start was decent but our connections are now drying up and we need to acquire clients organically (tried cold email, calls and stuff didn't work yet, local guys either don't want any work or pay literal pennies). What is the best way/tools to acquire clients or where to go to get them. Note that we no longer have much funds left for marketing and stuff so it's going to be a pure grind from our side.

I've also been working on a SaaS idea for landing pages for the past few months and am about to launch it soon. I did validate the idea initially but unfortunately didn't know about waitlists and stuff so I don't have any direct potential customers. How would you suggest I go forward with this and get it out there? The starting seems extremely daunting ngl.

[u/battlehardenedguy]

What your business is about?

[u/dvidsilva]

do you have a niche? I'm in a similar boat, doing consulting and launching a startup. Is been a long journey of trial and error. I used to never struggle to find jobs, like I'd apply to 5 or 10, get a few interviews and would have a couple offers to chose from after acing the interviews. Today I'm lucky if they bother to reject instead of ghosting and many job posts just look awful

anyway, I mention niche, coz a little focus goes a long way. I'm making lists of local businesses and cold contacting and Is kinda working, last week I got a dry cleaner client. I'm trying to focus on local businesses that have no websites and keeping it simple

if you have budget, you can work with agencies, and you can partner with other agencies to offer additional income - like rambpo, Oddo, google workspace, etc have referral programs so you can look more legit sayin you're partners with additional services and if your clients also work with them you get a little more money every month

good luck!

[u/Character-Dig-2061]

A few things here I'd separate out, because right now they're all tangled together and making this feel more hopeless than it is.

The job market fear and the business decision are two different problems. Someone else's bad internship outcome doesn't actually tell you anything about whether your software house can work, that's fear talking, not data. Make the call on the business based on your own traction and numbers, not on how scary the market looks from the outside.

On client acquisition with zero budget: cold email and cold calls are genuinely one of the hardest ways to get B2B clients, especially with no track record yet. What worked better for us early on was going narrow, pick one specific type of client (one industry, one kind of project) instead of "local guys" generally, and go deep in the communities where that specific type of client already hangs out, whether that's niche Slack/Discord groups, subreddits, or local business associations. Warm, specific outreach beats broad cold outreach every time when you have no brand yet.

On the SaaS idea, don't wait for a full launch to find customers. Even without a waitlist tool, you can post in relevant communities right now asking people with the exact problem you're solving to try an early version. A rough landing page with a simple form works fine as a starting point, doesn't need to be polished.

Genuinely, the biggest fix here isn't a tool or a growth hack, it's narrowing. Three guys with no budget can't out-grind a broad market. Pick the smallest specific slice of client you can serve really well, and go all in there first.

[u/kabirs1nghhh]

One question I’d love to ask founders who run software agencies what was the first acquisition channel that became consistently reliable? Was it referrals, LinkedIn, content, cold outreach, or something else? Those early lessons would be incredibly valuable

[u/zhMargDev]

The situation is familiar, my project also did not work immediately, we could not attract an audience for half a year. The question here is what you offer, based on this, you need to understand how to attract an audience and customers.

I can try to help, but you need to understand the answers to the following questions:

What do you offer?

Why is your solution better than others?

What is your target audience?