Jake SetterlunFounder, Setterlun University™ · 🚀 Helping Scale Your Online Offer to $1M/month @ Setterlun University™ (1,000+ Students) 🏆 2x 2CCX

Should You Work for Free at the Start? (Sometimes) 💸➡️📈

26 Sept 2025 · 1 min

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In this short dialogue, Speaker A advocates using free work as a launch strategy for newcomers lacking case studies or a track record. They share an example of offering to set up and run ads for free, with payment only after leads are generated, noting that this approach can attract initial clients. Speaker B adds a critical caveat, emphasizing that providing free, full-service work is a poor business model for coaches unless the coach retains total control over the process; otherwise, it can be unsustainable. Speaker A then clarifies that a free‑to‑paid model works better for transactional or software‑based services, where the client receives a tool or done‑for‑you service, sees results, and then pays, making it suitable for refining skills in a service‑based market. The overall takeaway is that free work can be a strategic entry point when structured carefully, but the model must align with the type of service and the provider’s control over outcomes.

If you're just starting out, like, go and just do free work. We launched an offer that was, we'll set up and run your ads for free, and then when you're getting leads, you start paying. And we had a lot of good response to people. If you're coming into an industry and like you don't have case studies, you don't have results, you don't have a track record, people are still willing to give you a shot if you're just willing to work for free for the first couple of weeks.
Now, I want to say a caveat to that, though. Yes. If you're doing everything for them, I work with a lot of coaches and you're coaching people. That's a really poor business model. That's just a really bad model. It's only a good model if you have total control. Yeah. Anything outside of that, it's not. Sorry. I'll make that clarification.
And I will say that, and if it's super like, if it's more of a transactional offer where it's like, I'm giving you a software and then, you know, once you start getting results with the software, then you pay, then that— it's really for refining your skillset in the done-for-you kind of like service-based market.