FLX Websites

"A web design and development agency serving locally-owned small businesses, with 45+ clients and $11k MRR, built as a side business while the founder works full-time."
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flxwebsites.com
Maker: nicksergeant
$11,000/month MRR (explicitly stated by creator) with 45+ clients

Marketing Channels

Primary

Facebook community pages

Small business owners hang out on local Facebook community pages where people ask for recommendations for local businesses — this is the main promotional channel

Ongoing

Local word of mouth

Serving locally-owned businesses in the creator's town creates natural word-of-mouth referrals

Secondary

Hacker News

Posted on HN yearly projects thread; inspired others to consider starting similar businesses

Growth Levers

  • Continue leveraging local Facebook community pages where small business owners actively ask for service recommendations
  • Build reusable, heavily-themeable component library in Next.js to reduce per-client build time and increase margins
  • Expand to neighboring towns and regions using the same local Facebook community page strategy
  • Create a template/starter kit offering for simpler client needs to serve lower-budget businesses
  • Grow the team to handle more clients without increasing the founder's personal workload

First Customer Strategy

Started 5 years ago by designing and building websites for locally-owned small businesses in the creator's town. Promoted primarily through Facebook community pages where small business owners congregate and ask for recommendations. Growth has been organic and steady, reaching 45+ clients.

Pricing Insight

MRR model at approximately $244/month per client on average ($11k / 45 clients). This recurring revenue model provides predictable income. Some clients have custom Stripe integrations for online payments, suggesting tiered service offerings.

New Market Opportunities

  • Productized web agency template A commenter expressed wanting to start a similar business — suggests potential to productize the process or create a playbook/franchise model
  • Small business online payments Commenter asked about businesses that want online payments — currently handled with minimal Stripe integrations, could be expanded as a premium offering

Key Takeaways

  • • Local web agency businesses can achieve $11k MRR as a side project by focusing on a specific geographic area and building relationships through community platforms like Facebook
  • • MRR model for websites (hosting + maintenance) creates predictable recurring revenue versus one-time project fees
  • • Facebook community pages are an underappreciated channel for reaching small business owners who are actively seeking service providers
  • • Technical stack choices matter for scalability — migrating from Django/Wagtail to Next.js enabled reusable themeable components that reduce per-client effort
  • • Building a team is essential for scaling a service business beyond the founder's personal capacity while maintaining a full-time job
  • • In hindsight, Astro would have been a better fit than Next.js for mostly-static small business websites — framework evaluation upfront saves migration pain later

Sentiment Analysis

2 Pos / 1 Neu

Notable Quotes

"Kudos for finding success in a competitive market. How do you promote yourself? — martyz"
"Mostly Facebook honestly. Small business owners hang out there a ton because of all the community pages where folks ask for recommendations. — nicksergeant"
"I've wanted to do something like this for years. I might have to actually stop fiddling with the idea in my head and give it a real shot in 2025. — faxmeyourcode"

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