Beating Burnout: Overcoming Energy-Draining Business Models
Insights I've gained watching my wife overcome an energy-draining business model.
According to Naval Ravikant (famous angel investor), startups ultimately fail when the founders run out of steam. One reason this happens is that the founders pick an energy draining business model.
It's been fascinating seeing this concept firsthand with my wife's cake business.
In this blog post, I want to share some insights I've gained watching her overcome an energy-draining business model.
Why Custom Services Are Draining
My wife's cake business started out as a custom service model. Each cake order began from scratch, with the customer describing the concept, providing design inspiration, and requesting specific flavors, toppers, and fillings. This led to several problems:
She had to create designs that she wasn't proud of.
As a custom service provider, the customer is often coming to you with the exact thing to be implemented. For cake design, my wife was often creating exactly what the customer asked for, but her creativity wasn't put to good use. The customer might be thrilled to have the idea come to fruition, but my wife wouldn't care for the design.
I hope this cake doesn't get shared on social media because it's not my style
Delivering work that you don't like as a core part of your business is an energy drain.
Answering to multiple bosses.
She quickly discovered that a custom service model is like working for multiple bosses. A customer would often come to her with the exact requirements and design for her to create, which made her feel like she was in a role of employee.
Would you wake up each day excited to answer to a dozen different bosses?
Customer communication overhead.
Every potential cake sale would require back and forth communication over email or phone. To add to this energy drain, she would occasionally interact with rude or difficult people during the sales process.
I hope this person doesn't close with me!
Each cake required an estimate based on the complexity of the design and material costs. In order to close a sale, this work had to be done up front. Imagine getting ghosted after all this effort!
Output consistency.
Even if significant upfront effort is put into gather requirements, scoping out the work, and providing mockups, there's a higher chance that the customer isn't happy with the final custom product compared to a product that has been tested and proven.
For some custom cake orders, a customer would have a design concept which sounded good in theory, but just didn't work when it was put to the table. This added an extra level of anxiety to each order because each design was untested.
Regaining Energy through Productizing
After a few months, my wife switched a portion of her business to a productized model. She created her own catalog of cakes that customers could select from, with options for semi-customization (colors, flavors) and add-ons (custom messages).
The benefits were clear:
- She could create designs she was proud of and that appealed to her ideal customers.
- Customers shifted from bosses to consumers, and she just needed to fulfill predictable orders.
- Design consistency and control meant customer social media shares were welcomed instead of cringed at.
Now her focus is Cake Delivery in Denver - people from in or out of town wanting to send a semi-custom cake to someone special. These customers care more about consistency, quality, and experience rather than a from-scratch design.
Prioritizing Business Model Over Revenue
Switching to a productized service meant that my wife had to redirect custom order requests to her product catalog, losing some customers in the process. In some cases, the customer would find a comparable design in her catalog and place an order even though it wasn't a custom design. However, there was a stressful transition period where she was constantly having to turn down custom orders and resist the urge to make exceptions.
She remained focused on achieving the right business model instead of chasing the closest source of revenue. This paid off in a big way as she was able to achieve a business model that was sustainable.
Reducing the Custom Service Model Energy Drain
Instead of pivoting completely away from custom services, one solution is to focus in on a specific niche.
For example, my wife realized that custom wedding cakes were a better fit for her creative side since these customers were more likely to lean on her design expertise. These custom orders were worth the effort since customers expected to spend more to get her time and design expertise.
If you're able to focus in on a niche where the custom services are more predictable, or the customer is willing to pay more for the custom work, you can reduce the energy drain of a custom service model.
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