The DesignJoy Business Model

The DesignJoy business model needs describing because there seems to be a lot of confusion online about it. Is it new? It doesn't seem right! How can they do this?!

Designjoy is a company run by Brett (we would like an "About Us" section on the website which we cant find). And the business model is very simple to understand:

you sign up for a plan, standard or pro (we are not hugely understanding the difference between the two, they are similar but separated by $3k)
the plan allows you to ask for designs
you get the design within a couple of days
you can ask for tweaks of the designs
cancel when you like

That is it.

Productized Service?

"Productized Service" is the term that is being banded around in regard to what the DesignJoy business model actually is.

The fluff that goes around with the term explains that you are packaging a service as a product with clearly defined characteristics and pricing.

This is meaningless because if you are offering a product you are in its productness (our term, just invented) anyway. So if we were going to go to your party with an ice-cream truck, which you ordered. The ice-cream truck is a service. The phonecall to the ice-cream truck to find out what is offered, to book the truck with a certain idea of what is going to be provided are the parameters.

All services are products because you:

are selling yourself
selling the product in what you are offering
selling the company who you work for

This is what consultancy is all about.

So...the DesignJoy business model is...

We are trying to find something different, something new. But what their model is is basically a retainer. You pay per month and you get a design when required.

It isn't a new business model. Here are some of the common retainer businesses:

Law firms
Accountancy
IT services
Insurance
Consultants

You pay each one a certain amount per month and they handle all the jobs that you send them.

Some have the following:

a certain amount of hours at the rate stated and then charge over the amount if you go over
you have to use a certain amount of hours per year.

Ultimately it is a subscription business model. And subscription business models are very lucrative because:

you have a known source of money
you get money that sometimes doesnt need to be used
the likeliness of you getting inundated daily with requests is very little. Not too many companies will use you all the time- but you have to be ready when they do call.

It sounds expensive...

The DesignJoy business model can be expensive, but it actually should be. It would be expensive if you just wanted an ebook cover or a website to be designed. This is what a lot of the online community are suggesting. But DesignJoy is not necessarily suggesting that you use them for that. If you have multiple items that you require over a long period of time then it could be worth your while to use such a service.

If your company is churning out:

ebooks
flyers
website updates
illustrations/ animations

...to name a few on a regular basis then the accumulated cost and time is going to be more than what DesignJoy is charging. You are also buying a lone consultant- which seems to be the main hook of the site. But one thing that Brett is doing that other should take notice of is... Brett seems like he is positioning himself as the consultant. So why not charge for your time? Brett values his time.

But if you just want an ebook cover then $90 on a freelancer website would be a better match.

And then is Brett making $1million a year as many websites suggest?

Well, we know that a standard DesignJoy plan is $4k and some change per month. Then simple maths suggests that 10 clients is $40k/month...or $480k/yr.

20 clients?

$960,000 per year

Brett knows that just one client can generate $48k/ year. So, more clients, more cash :) And...if you think about it, all you need is 20 clients. Not hundreds, not thousands...just 20.

As long as Brett can handle the requests then he could easy get to $millions/ year. But that is the problem with consultancy. You. You have only a certain amount of time and you are limited with that. But as said previously. The likeliness that 20 companies will call Brett on the same day is going to be rare. So some days Brett would be inundated with work and other days he could put his feet up.

We wish DesignJoy all the best. If you want to know more about digital product ideas and plans, then check out the Jasonera blog here.