And they're willing to give us money to solve those problems because they see the value. That sets up this competitive tension, where they're always telling the client, “that's a change order” or “that's out of scope.” The agency is trying to do as little as possible for that agreed upon price. What I see over and over again in a fixed model is the incentive for the client is to get as much as they possibly can for the agreed upon price. We can tell our client that this stuff takes time. Get it done no matter what.” How do we create a situation where we can respect the hours that employees are putting in? It always felt broken to me to say to a team, “I need it done by this date or we don't make money. The only way we make money is to make sure that costs are less than the money we're charging for the work. Time is always a factor when it comes to your cost. They're still paying people a salary for some unit of time. The humans doing the work suffer because the studio is incentivized to get things done by a given date - no matter what it takes - so they can make their margins. I don't like the abuses it sets up between the leaders of a studio and the person doing the work. The thing I don't like about fixed pricing or value pricing is that you're still promising to deliver a thing for the price. In my opinion, value pricing is just a fancy fixed price. That’s how most of us start, and that's okay. It’s the kind of work they can get and they're willing to under-promise and over-deliver. I think most studios start out doing some kind of fixed pricing. Why and how did Sparkbox transition from fixed pricing to hourly? I've always loved the people side of things and I think that's been the key for me. It’s just different ways to look at them. Those are the same problems I deal with now: From operations to finance, running the business, and figuring out how we translate sales into profit, those are all people problems.
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I was always attracted to people problems because projects don't fail for design or software reasons - they fail because you can't get the people on the same page. My favorite part of working in software was always the people problems. I was pretty good with spreadsheets at that point, and I just jumped in and learned everything I could.
One of those brands became Sparkbox, and we only did web.Īfter running that way for about a year, I decided somebody had to learn the operations and finance side. Then about two years in, we decided to split that into two separate brands. We did marketing, design, branding, and web stuff. We were an agency trying to be everything for everybody. Much later, I met some guys who were trying to get small studio set up. So, I went to school for computer science. I was sure that was what I wanted to do from that point forward.
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He taught me how to write code when I was about ten and I fell in love with it. And I knew I wanted to build software from an early age.
My dad graduated with a degree in Computer Science in the late 70's. I'm a second generation software engineer. How did you transition from software engineer to operations and finance? We talked with Rob about pricing models, forecasting, and his empathetic approach to putting people at the center of his company’s success. Rob’s success with Sparkbox is a shining example of the foundational role that operations and finance play in guiding agencies toward sustainable growth. What’s their secret? Over the past nine years, Sparkbox Vice President Rob Harr has been behind the scenes, ensuring their growing agency runs like a well-oiled machine. There are two things you need to know about Sparkbox: They’re passionate about helping their clients build great online products, and they’re really, really good at forecasting. Getting started with the Smartsheet API.ENGAGE 2023 Smartsheet ENGAGE brings together our global customers, experts, and partners to share their experiences, ideas, and best practices.Smartsheet events Your hub for Smartsheet events, webinars, Q&As, and user groups.Partners Learn about the Smartsheet partner program and access our partner directory.Community Explore user-generated content and stay updated on our latest product features.Help and Learning A comprehensive knowledge base, including articles, tutorials, videos, and other resources that cover a range of topics related to using Smartsheet.Content Center Articles and guides about project management, collaboration, automation, and other topics to help you make the most of the Smartsheet platform.
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