How to Start Your Own Software Agency, Part 1

Five Important Questions to Ask Before Starting Your Agency – Q1
Hey, Congrats!
I commend your desire to launch out and create your own agency!
Entrepreneurs are the drivers, the movers and shakers of the world. They make things happen. If you launch your agency, then YOU will make things happen in your part of the world.
I want to help you get there.
I did the same thing you want to do. I had worked with FileMaker since the mid-nineties, creating applications for myself and others in my spare time. I started in earnest in 2013, when I decided to go all in on building my own agency.
First, I attended the FileMaker conference, which at the time was called DevCon (now, Claris Engage). I came back certain I could learn everything needed about FileMaker and how to build my own agency.
I started as a solopreneur and began building FileMaker solutions for clients. But here is the first lesson to learn about doing that: if you do well, and treat your clients well, in no time at all you’ll have more clients than you can take care of by yourself, and you’ll need to hire others to help you.
Here are five important questions to answer before beginning the journey of creating your own agency. In subsequent posts, I’ll unpack these and go into more detail for each.
Here are the Five Questions to ask before launching your own agency:

- Why?
This is the question of motivation. Why do you want to start your own agency? This is related to your heart’s passion. What do you want to do with your life? If money were not an issue, what would you do with your time? How would you spend your life?
Possible reasons people have for starting their own agency are: “I want to fire my boss!”, “I want a bigger piece of the pie!”, “I just have this desire to launch out and control my own destiny.” or “I have a great idea that will set the world on fire!”
The main point is: Find your reason and focus on it. When the going gets tough – and it will – you’ll come back to that reason and look at it closely. Make sure it holds up under scrutiny. Because starting your own agency from scratch is like writing your own movie script and then producing, directing, and acting in it. You’ll wear out unless you know why you are doing it.
I’ve run three Chicago marathons. Starting an agency is like running a marathon. When I was at mile 22 of the 26 mile race, I felt like giving up – every time. As I was running, I started asking myself ‘Why did I decide to run this race?’, ‘What am I hoping to achieve?’, ‘Will it really matter if I just walk the rest of the way?’ Then my brain answered my tired legs and body, “I can’t remember why Bill signed up for this, but I’m sure he had a good reason, so we need to keep going!” When you start your own agency, if you are unclear about your Motivation, you’ll have the same conversations with yourself.
List ten reasons why you want to start your own software or creative agency. This will force you to drill down to your motivations.
Here’s another motivation exercise. Ask yourself “Why?” four times. For each answer, then ask ‘Why?’ of that answer. Do it four times. This will force you to drill down to your bedrock convictions.
In the next blogs, we will look at four other questions:
- When?
- Who?
- What?
- How?
Here’s some practical steps to move forward on your own agency:
1. Sign up for our “Automate Your Business” eNews to receive future articles right in your email box.
2. Download and try some software to help you run your agency: projects.highpowerdata.com. We have two programs specifically designed to help you start your business. The free, PowerStart, FileMaker template is available here. Or try our awesome Freelance program. We use it to run our own business at HighPower Data Solutions. You’ll need FileMaker to run either of these templates. You may purchase a discounted license from us. Call 612-401-7550 for more info. Or, buy a group license (5) here.
3. Keep reading the next set of blogs.
~William Miller
Minneapolis, MN
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