If you were starting today, how would you land the first 5 paid projects without spending your whole week on admin? I’m in Austin, solo, on Adobe CC; quoting $600–$1k logos with a 50% deposit and using Wave for invoices, but I’m torn between cold DMs to local cafes/gyms and setting up a simple referral plus Calendly flow — what’s worked for you?
Lean referral+Calendly, but make Calendly paid — require the “50% deposit” at booking via Stripe and add 3 pre-qual questions so you only meet buyers. Then send 45‑sec Loom audits to 10 Austin cafes/gyms you already like with one clear CTA to book; I closed 4/6 logos at ~$800 doing this and the admin was zero. If you’re sticking with Wave, just fire the invoice after Calendly books and keep the Loom link handy: https://loom.com.
@fgreen19’s paid booking is smart; I’d productize a ‘Logo Sprint: $800 same-day’ with Wave checkout, then hit 3 Austin cafes.
I’d skip Calendly at the start and send a single Notion page with two fixed logo packages ($600 and $1k), a 4‑question brief, and a Wave checkout link for the ‘50% deposit’; once paid, I auto‑send a Google Calendar invite and a Dropbox folder, which kills most admin. If you’re in Austin, would you commit to one niche on that page for a month (say, indie gyms) to make the DMs land harder?
I’d skip both for week one and set up a single Tally form with 3 must‑have questions that zaps into Wave to draft the invoice and auto‑drops a calendar invite — kept my admin to about 10 minutes per client. Then pull a Yelp list of new Austin food trucks and boutique gyms with shaky branding and send a one‑liner offering “2 logo concepts in 48h for $800,” linking the form: https://tally.so. If DMs feel , ask two past coworkers for one intro each to the same link — would that get you to five fast?