“Things are getting more interesting”
I addressed the team by the beach.
“We are building SEO Hacker to be a truly great company.”
I looked around at familiar faces eager to hear what the next step is.
“In order to do that, we are pivoting to partner up so that our income will be incentivized.”
I walked around trying my best to bring through the vision to the team.
“Not relying solely on clients and their budget and the contract anymore but relying on our efforts and output.”
I stopped, raised my clenched fist and smiled.
“At that, we will need to be more efficient.”
Then I pointed to my temple.
“And the things we learn, we will apply to our own product which we are developing as we speak.”
The Pivot Point
SEO Hacker is going to a new phase in its corporate life. While client work is our main cash cow today, we no longer want our company to be intricately tied up under the mercy of these corporate giants.
There is a way – and that is to develop our own product – which we tried with SEO Hacker School.
Unfortunately, there is no real tested market fit for this so it took more and more time to get the idea out and gain profits.
Until today, SEO Hacker school is not profitable. And that is because I have missed important points that I should have met before starting this project out.
There is a missing link that connects SEO Hacker as a client servicing company to marketing its own product – and that is being a marketing partner.
We have started undertaking this missing link with an online Squalene shop named Issho Genki.
While I know that this should’ve happened way before, please note that SEO Hacker is just coming in its third year this November 2014.
Fast Forward
I don’t want to make things happen too fast that we burn everything else along the way.
The pivot point is important and we all realize that – we also want to arrive in the main vision which is marketing our own product and reaping the benefits of having our own end-to-end product and marketing control.
You may think that I’m in a hurry – I’m not.
This is really just the way (being in the tech industry) to go. If you don’t innovate, if you don’t take the next step, you’ll be the next battered old Brontosaurus waiting for extinction.
That’s not gonna happen on my watch.
Not with SEO Hacker.
Exciting things to come! Hope this pivot point proves successful and gives us the leverage we need to finally expand our development and creatives team.
