The document discusses strategies for Drupal shops to grow recurring revenue, emphasizing the importance of sustainable income over volatile project-based revenue. It outlines various models for creating passive income, such as selling support and maintenance services, and encourages collaboration with customers to develop products. Key takeaways include protecting company values, using projects for innovation, and focusing on long-term growth strategies.

2. Recurring Revenue
for Drupal Shops
Manuel Pistner
Business Track

3. That's me
Manuel Pistner
CEO of Bright Solutions
Drupal since 2007
First time Drupalcon speaker
@manuelpistner
Drupal.org/u/manuelbs

4. What to expect
„Why recurring revenue?“
„How to grow recurring revenue?“
First steps for you to start growing
recurring revenue for your Drupal shop
https://www.flickr.com/photos/planeta/902805910

5. Good and Bad
revenue?
You can grow to death
In the end profit counts
How much revenue remains
Say NO to bad revenue!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/light_seeker/677988464

6. Project business
is dangerous!
Hard to predict
Hard to scale
Little sustainable company value
Always to many or to few projects!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ericconstantineau/561857627

7. Dangerous
dependencies
Many developers serve few customers
Few developers serve many customers
Will you survive loosing your most
important customer or developer?

8. Value of your
company?
Assume all people leave
Value = Revenue - Expenses
Passive recurring revenue
makes your business valuable
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tadarammaradas/518594288

9. Passive income
Build a revenue machine
Don't be the revenue machine yourself
Let your team care about growing
an marketing your machine
http://www.industrialbrand.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/AEC-website-lead-generating-machine-marketing-

10. Why
unpredictable?
Always unique
Fixed start and end
Big ONE TIME revenue
Big project revenue doesn't allow to
predict the future
https://www.flickr.com/photos/light_seeker/6779884645

11. Why hard to
scale?
More projects = More revenue
More projects = More people
Project stops = revenue stops
Project stops = PEOPLE STAY
Scaling project business = stuff up
https://www.flickr.com/photos/26073928@N03/245230449

12. Transactional
business model
Big one-time revenue per client
No sustainable revenue
Hard to plan, grow, predict
Start every year from ZERO
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mo_ie_us/5275319814

13. Recurring
business model
Smaller revenue but recurring
Win customer ONE time, earn for a lifetime
Grow with new customers
Start new year based on last years
success
https://rasica.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/printing-money-288.jpg

14. Care about your
own values
Care about your own products
Invest in the short term
Benefit in the long term
Build your own product, build
sustainable value
https://www.flickr.com/photos/limaoscarjuliet/154567026

15. Avoid volatility
Plan more reliably
Reduce „bad months“
Focus on growth
https://smallimprovementsstartup.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/all-
hands_july_2015_public1.jpg

16. What we wish
for
Hold customers with good service
Grow a sustainable team
Predict revenue for a year
Plan, grow and sleep well
https://smallimprovementsstartup.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/all-
hands_july_2015_public1.jpg

17. Productize
Solve ONE problem that MANY have
Sell it as a service (SaaS)
Use your cusomter base as
innovation pool
(Don't disrespect NDAs)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gerlos/3119891607

18. Resell
Hosting
Monitoring
Update automation
Payment gateways
Integration platforms
Add additional value for
your clients AND your busuiness
http://www.picserver.org/images/highway/phrases/adding-value.jpg

19. Strategic
maintenance
Sell support contracts
Sell update SLAs
Sell development retainer
Use projects as a strategic tool to grow
recurring revenue
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mourner/3273137788/

20. How to sell
support
Keep the project team available
Sell reliable dev time
Sell security update reaction time
Support fee is like an ensurance fee for
your customer
Don't close deals as shown in this video :-)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mourner/3273137788/

21. Cooperate with
customers
Great idea but little money?
Build a product in cooperation
=> Your customer is your first product's
customer
Don't be shy, this works great!
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/40/77346889_91ec153c36.jpg

22. Revenue share
Get paid for product success
Cover expense in the short term
Recurring revenue in the long term
Will pay off after one or two years

23. Maintain a distro
Sell support
Sell integrated services
Sell as SaaS
Distro to transport and market paid
service to niche customers
Panopol
y
Many others at
https://www.drupal.org/project/project_distribution

24. Iterate step by
step
Test with a landingpage
Get first interested customers
Build, Meassure, Improve your product
Build your product with your customers
and learn learn learn
https://www.flickr.com/photos/spidermandragon5/2922128673/

25. How-to template
Start with small steps
Try to solve your own needs
Be open to find real world problems
Cooperate
If you fail, LEARN and fail often to
improve using SMALL steps
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Otto_is_going_to_fly.jpg

26. Deliver more
efficient
After finding out what REALLY works,
AUTOMATE
Consider making your automation
available for others
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Broadc
ast.svg/2000px-Broadcast.svg.png

27. Multiple examples -
one process
Drop Guard to automate Drupal updates
ERPAL to build business apps faster
bright-guide.de (cooperation)
MyFoam.net (cooperation)
DON'T LEAVE your core competency!
DONT'T STEAL ideas!
test it ! landingpage ...
cooperatedevelop
improve succeed
Idea to change the world

28. 4 things to take
away
Use projects to grow recurring revenue
Protect your values (and maintain them)
Use project ideas for innovation
Cooperate with customers to build products
Start small and improve continuously!

29. BoF: Support + Maintenance
https://www.flickr.com/photos/amazeelabs/
9965814443/in/faves-38914559@N03/
Right after this session
Topic: Brainstorming on how to build
and operate a support business as Drupal
shop with value for both, the customer and
the Drupal shop.
==> Room 128
See you there!

30. Sprint: Friday
https://www.flickr.com/photos/amazeelabs/
9965814443/in/faves-38914559@N03/
Sprint with the Community on Friday.
We have tasks for every skillset.
Mentors are available for new contributors.
An optional Friday morning workshop for first-
time sprinters will help you get set up.
Follow @drupalmentoring.