3 ms·
I'm a one-man shop, with both an online product and an unrelated consultancy. If potential customers are banging down your door, and you're worried about not h
by witten 18y ago
I'm a one-man shop, with both an online product and an unrelated consultancy.
If potential customers are banging down your door, and you're worried about not having the time to develop all of their software, then you need to raise your rates. At least some (more likely, most) of your customers will stay, and you'll be able to afford working on just one or two interesting software projects at a time.
There are other downsides to a lack of diversification though, like being less able to drop one of your customers if necessary.
- hhm 18y agoThanks for your advice; I've been raising rates for development but what I'm afraid, is that sometimes I'm very busy with projects for months, and then I just can't work in other projects... And if other clients ask for development at that time I just can't offer them it then. I'm afraid of slowly losing those clients, of course (that's why now I only "offer" consultancy, because then I don't break any clients' expectatives, and now and then I just start development for some months, in a project for some of those clients).
- witten 18y agoI'd say that if you're finding you always have work, or rather, if you have enough work, then you don't need to worry about turning away clients due to being too busy. As a consultant, it's a good thing to have to turn away work. You should also consider sending clients you turn away to another consultant. The idea is that when you're really busy, you send "overflow" customers to him (or her). And the other consultant would ideally return the favor as necessary.