Systemized.ly

David Abrams wasn't always a systems thinker. He graduated college with a creative writing degree and took an internship in marketing, working his way up to director of marketing within six months through sheer effort and determination. But his real education came from his first entrepreneurial venture: a web development agency called Paint Your Brain.

Paint Your Brain ran for about two and a half years, but David admits he "messed it all up" by not understanding operations and systems. That painful experience became his greatest teacher. When he launched Systemized.ly in 2014, he brought that operational mindset front and center. The agency focuses on strategic funnels and marketing automation consulting, offering custom packages ranging from $5,000 to $20,000. The process is methodical: strategy calls with the client, then work with design, copywriting, and development teams to build fully functional funnels, implemented into tools like Infusion Software or Active Campaign.

David deliberately keeps Systemized.ly boutique. "We don't want to work with a lot of clients," he explains. "Our goal is to work with the right clients because we want to put in as much effort as we can for each client so we can give them the results." By October 2015, the agency was onboarding 4-5 new customers per month, with about six active in any given month. Most clients stay on with recurring consulting or advertising packages, with a few remaining customers since the agency's 2014 launch.

In October, Systemized.ly generated $35,000 in total revenue: $20,000 from new professional services projects and $15,000 from recurring packages. David realized early that pure professional services—while profitable—creates a relentless sales treadmill. In 2015, he made a conscious shift to prioritize recurring revenue packages and develop complementary software to create passive income streams. "I really didn't want to take money out of the company and put it in my pocket," he says. Instead, he reinvests almost everything back into building scalable assets. He maintains a tight cost structure, keeping headcount at around 40% of revenue (8 people total—some full-time, some contractors) to preserve margin for unexpected project expansions. This allows him to scale up or down based on incoming projects.

At 28, David is building toward a larger vision. Systemized.ly generates consistent revenue and keeps him operationally sharp, but his real play is Demio, a webinar platform that's been in development for a year and set to launch in beta in December 2015. He's thinking in multiples: a SaaS business generating $1 monthly recurring revenue is worth roughly $60 in equity value (annualized to $12, multiplied by a conservative 5x SaaS multiple). "I look at [software assets] like I want to build them to sell," he says. His strategy is clear: use professional services as a cash engine and proof-of-concept lab, while building recurring software products that can scale infinitely without his time.