The hidden problems of selling a service

Sunday’s meeting with Jonathan turned into an audit of everything our landing-page offer leaves unsaid, and the list is humbling. Entry 4-2 was about winning the client; this is about surviving them.

The traps, enumerated

Hosting is a pipe, and pipes have widths. We offer hosting under our subdomain to simplify the client’s life. But a server is a lake and visitors are cities asking for water: if a client goes viral, either the page slows to death or the auto-scaling bill arrives, and we never specified which, or who pays ▸ 5:07.

One-time payment, perpetual obligation. A single fee with hosting attached means maintaining a stranger’s website in year five. The contract needs an expiry date ▸ 7:40, and the pricing needs to survive us discovering that MVPs or our own products earn more than pages do ▸ 8:09.

Taste is unbounded. Three mockups rejected, three more rejected: some clients never decide. The defense: half payment upfront, so a walkaway still pays the designer’s time ▸ 12:08. Leave no loose ends; some people live in them.

las letras pequeñas nos las escribimos nosotros →

The structural reason

A product is defined once and sold identically forever. A service is renegotiated with every client, and its possibilities are effectively infinite ▸ 13:16. That’s why services feel heavier at the same revenue: you’re not selling the thing, you’re selling the boundaries of the thing, and every boundary you forget to draw gets drawn for you by the worst client you’ll ever have. We’re drawing ours now, on camera, before the first invoice…