The next time a recession hits, i’m gonna buy property, i’m gonna invest, i’m gonna…

Okay Millennial.

First off, I’m gonna make sure I still have job.

That’s what i’m gonna do.

Because being self-employed in a recession (unless you are at the level at which you-don’t-give-a-rats-patootie-about-the-economy…) and not worrying about it comes down to a couple factors:

• Timing
• Prep
• Shit ton of luck (and a lottle bit of privilege on the above two)

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I’ve spent the last 2.5 years self-employment (I’ve been self employed for 5+ years, mind you) trying to make sure I still had a job now and next month and I can honestly say that at this point I think we’re in a really great spot to weather a recession.

And that is because of prep and timing.

And the bad (good?) luck of me almost tanking us twice.

So I gave us recession lite.

Am I a whiz at predictions? Hells to the no. If someone had told me in the last year i was gonna get a job, have a six-figure year, fall in love, and start learning Turkish, I would have giggled into a chortle right in front of you with side-eye from here to Istanbul (not Constantinople).

But I am an armchair economist who has quickly realized that it’s easy to get lost in the sauce of a daily bad news barrage and not take the steps you need right now to make sure you’re still with us.

So, some recommendations on recession-proofing - and exactly how I’ve done and am doing it.

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I got a (not quite real) job

I’ve talked about Workflow before, but I’ll say it again - the reason that Ignore No More is doing well is because I don’t need it to pay my salary. Which means I can use the cash from agency work to actually fix all the branding, update the website, take the time to buddy up to Claude and build workflows that work, and get our SEO TO BE DING DANG DONE.

And I can use my brain to think about the future instead of worrying about rent and salaries.

This is how i’m thinking about “getting a job” when you are practically unemployable (mentally, mentally unemployable).

• If you run a product company, doing some consulting, ideally one with a pay-my-bills retainer.
• If you’re a services company, buy or start a product company with some of your knowhow (ideally one that has either a very high or very low subscription cost, more on that in a sec)
• If you’re a tangly mix of many income streams, then figure out where your bread is buttered thickest and chow down, but don’t kill any of the income streams, just set the ones that aren’t the big one on autopilot so they’re not wasting your time.

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In short, be manageably overemployed.

I think the Patagonia-fleeced finance bros call it “diversification”.

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Fix your sales process (and your marketing one too!)

For Ignore No More, that’s meant:

• Working with Brandon to fix our sales process - He laid out his whole process for it here
• Taking the time to talk to clients , figure out who’s actually paying us, and get our ICP sorted. We used an ideal customer profile template to lock down our target market, then created an ideal customer profile template B2B teams can actually adapt. Did it once in Fall 2024 and haven’t stopped.

• Upgrading our branding, messaging to match what clients were actually hiring us to do (Internally: sales scripts, messaging, who I’m pitching, Externally: stay tuned!)
• While keeping the marketing and sales chugging (Newsletter, LinkedIn, sales followups (sooo many followups)
• Experimenting with marketing channels (Workshops, Reddit, incentivized/intentional word-of-mouth)

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I spent 6 months blathering about it (RIP 2024), and another 9mo+ to do the work.

I’d wager we’ve got ~3-6 mo left in the US before this thing called the economy, stupid (aka a war in Iran and Hormuz and oil prices) kicks us in the fanny, so if you’re in the blather stage, exit stage right ASAP and do the work.

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For Workflow, that actually means fixing the product > doing marketing because it’s a product-led company.

• Building features that keep people from canceling because “they’re not working on a website right now” → That’s half of our churn right there
• Making it really easy for people to want to share Workflow with their friends because I can’t be everywhere at once → that’s 50-70% of our growth, WoM
• Experimenting with SEO because that’s where the other half of our traffic comes from (30-50% of our growth) → And this is where I’m up at night with Claude
• Plus playing with the foundations in place (emails, mostly) to see how I can get people who peaced out because of the product to come back. Each email gets us ~5-15 return customers, which is a big deal for us rn

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Dumping money in marketing before the product is in better shape would be like pouring water into a sieve.

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Know how Trickle-down economics are gonna work for your industry and the two right next to it

For Ignore No More (Agency that sells marketing plans and peace of mind to companies with a lot going on)

• Who we’re selling to: independent SaaS and SMB’s
  • What are they worried about right now: Not taking advantage of all the great parts of a company they have in front of them because they’re marketing is a nonexistent mess
• Who is buying what our customers/clients sell?: Literally this could be almost anything, but usually it’s some form of confidence, community, or peace of mind.
  • What are they worried about right now: lots of different things that is frankly not quite our paygrade unless we’re working with them.
• Industry we’re in: Marketing/Agencies
  • What are they worried about right now: Impending rise of AI that could theoretically make us obsolete to Claude + an intern (it’s not and I’m tired of trying to explain that)

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Pivot note: Previously we mainly sold to SaaS. I pivoted away from doing mostly that because it took a lot more work to sell to indie devs and I already had the playbook to do it if i wanted to. But the companies we were doing the best work with - whether it was a SaaS co or something else - were “tangly” companies that had a lot going on and no marketing foundation. We’re pretty industry agnostic at this point and our clients span a local coffeeshop franchise, a niche hiring platform, and an industry community.

What defines our great clients as a great fit is humility, being bootstrapped, and playing the long game.

That diversification to a “founder mindset” over industry is why I think we’re actually going to do really well when shit hits the fan.

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For Workflow (Client communication and work management tool for freelance or small team website designers)

• Who we’re selling to: Website Designers
  • What are they worried about right now: Delivering great sites on time.
• Who is buying what our customers sell?: small mom-and-pop businesses, service industry, hospitality, weddings, coaches, handcrafted ecommerce
  • What are they worried about right now:
• Industry we’re in: SaaS
  • What are they worried about: Literally none of the things that make a business work: They’re focused on AI and not basic business operations or math. I’m ignoring almost all of the “SaaS advice” and waiting for the recession to weed out the foolishness.

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Which means I’m keeping an eye on: the state of small businesses buying websites. Our product works for a designer designing in any platform for any kind of company.

That’s where the diversification is for us. That’s why I’m not worried. Sites are gonna get built, and clients will have opinions on them.

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🔥 Side note: I know who they are and what they’re worried about because i asked. If you've ever wondered what is customer discovery, it's literally this: running targeted customer discovery interviews to find out what buyers care about. Knowing how to do customer discovery is the foundation of why is voice of the customer important. This is why you HAVE to keep doing customer research, it can’t be a one-time thing!

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Decide whether you want to be the budget option or the expensive one

Short detour into my economics rabbit hole matrix mind - I promise, it’s a worthy detour.

Say you sell software to accountants that mostly work with businesses (not individuals).

Businesses hire accountants so they’re not worried about their money or about the government.

In a recession businesses need to have as few money surprises as possible.

Their willingness to pay to avoid a more expensive surprise from the government is directly correlated with their belief that they can shortcut doing their accounting/bookkeeping to begin with.

Which means their mindset deciding to pay for an accounting agency OR a software to help them with accounting looks like this:

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The accountants that will do well in a recession are the ones who have decided where they are on that line and are sticking to it.

The ones in the Top Left quadrant should focus on customer service and a quality product that’s not that flashy but does the job (TM symbol). It’s not bargin-priced, but it’s not break-the-bank either. It’s “a price that makes sense”.

The ones in the Top Right should focus on expansive products that can do all the things and sells to people that need All The Things (TM symbol). And sells at a price that elicits, “Damn, but, okay, we need it.”

The Bottom Left quadrant are gonna be AI gremlins at the cheapest possible price. Some of them might even be good.

IDK who is in the Bottom Right tbh. Probably people who have money to blow and haven’t been bit by the IRS yet?

This quadrant literally plays out in every industry. Just a little differently in each one.

Once you choose your fighter, make sure that your positioning, marketing, and product features are talking to THAT audience with those specific needs.

Not deciding is a decision btw. And it’s a bad one for them and you (If they’re your main customers).

A quick little callout - I’ve never run a product company in a recession

Yeah, Workflow is my day job, but while i’m not a spring chicken to product, this is my first time calling the shots on one.

What i’ve realized as CEO vs CMO is that it’s a lot easier of a job (yes, really!!).

Literally be a nice human, don’t raise prices or lower quality, and build the features that your core customers want so that they stay and rave about your product.

All of my operations, product, and marketing decisions are based on that because I do NOT have the bandwidth to give 100% to both companies at the same time (read: falling in love and having a wedding to plan in the very near future 😁), but I want to give customers the best product possible within those constraints.

This probably sounds a little arrogant, but considering these are the headlines for Workflow’s competitors rn, I’m not worried.

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My plans for Workflow haven’t changed with an impending recession, in fact, they’ve really only solidified it.

People want to spend money where they’re liked. Build a likeable product. (And if it’s not liked, or better yet, loved, fix that now.)

And finally, a list of “little” things that make a huge difference

• Invoice in a strong currency - I used to invoice exclusively in USD, but we’ve enabled the ability to invoice in Euro and GMB as the USD devalues at a shocking rate. HUGE shoutout to Aelia for being on me about switching this over.
• Have business friends from all over the world and get on calls with them - that “diversity advantage” of multiple perspectives works for geography too. Maybe your SaaS is in a “get squeezed” price in the US market - but it could be the top-end product for the APAC region. Now’s the time to start asking and localizing. We did this with INM out the gate, and Workflow was like this too when I got it. There is almost no reason to have your entire customer base be in one country unless your product service is country-specific by default (like taxes or legal, even still, there are ways)
• Block the doomsayers and “get rich quick” schemes - The way to win is strategy, foresight, and managed risk. Not freaking out or trying to cash-in.

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Whew. That was a lot, I know.

But if reading this (or thinking about an upcoming recession) makes you want to freak out, take deep breath and give yourself a hug.

You run your own company because you’re weird and you want to be your own boss and help people.

You will figure it out. You always have.

And, to repeat one of the most encouraging lines I’ve ever been given, “[name] will find a way because you see opportunities where others do not.” Thanks Dana. 💜

The big companies are raising prices, the small ones are trying to survive (which sucks, again) but you will see a way through.

You always do.

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If you want help seeing a way through then we should talk. Seeing what your customer want and sorting out what to next with your marketing is what we do for a living.

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