I always wanted to build a software development agency. I have a team of 25+ people, having a stable Upwork Agency profile with the revenue I mentioned above, but I am having a hard time scaling the sales more.
I know if any other US or European agency Acquires us, they’ll have the benefit of getting cheaper labour, having a team which is well trained in talking to clients, closing leads and delivering projects. Plus I have rented and furnished a whole physical office where people come on daily basis to work. So they can have it all.
With the client base they can find in US and even with our already well reputed Upwork profile, they’ll be able to secure a lot more projects.
You ask, why won’t you be able to secure more projects if the profile is that good? Because it’s a Pakistani profile. Not sure how unaware you are from reality, but there exists a certain bias towards India/Pakistan/Bangladesh/Nepal. They’ll create their individual US/EU profiles and be added to Agency as owners, and it’ll become a US profile, Top Rated Plus, Expert Vetted, with all good reviews.
What should I do? Should I find someone to acquire? Will anyone be interested in acquiring us and for how much?
Another fact, we have been profitable for every month. The cost is hardly $10k-$18k per month and the revenue per month ranges from $23k-$35k, and that’s in the time when there’s a lot of news of recession.
I hate to get political, but have you tried marketing your agency to entrepreneurs and business folks from ally countries of Pakistan? Chances are that there could be a language barrier, or inability to understand the culture of those respective countries. It makes sense to hire a business development executive from one of these countries (maybe the country that loves Pakistan the most) and start networking with the top 25% of the business community there. Unless you change the strategy and try something out of the blue, you’ll never know. If it works, hire more business development executives from different countries, to reach out to their respective business communities.
I think language Barrier is not much of an issue as all of the team members are pretty good with English. But yeah, a more native accent always helps. As for some offshore business rep, yup, tried that and currently trying as well.
Hired someone from a European country for 2 months, he couldn’t generate any results.
Did a partnership with someone from UAE, it’s been 2 months, no leads so far, but I think it can lead to something good.
Recently hired a sales agency from Netherlands, it’s been 2 weeks, they’ve been able to generate one meeting, we have 5 more weeks left for the paid trial I opted in for.
I am hopeful that partnering up with someone can work. It’s just the matter of time. But I just wanna spend time learning more by focusing on other things. Just feeling burnt out.