Nailed it. Not rocket science; focusing on delivering VALUE in exchange for the money you charge has always been the obvious, unsexy, boring, fundamental thing

Nailed it. Not rocket science; focusing on delivering VALUE in exchange for the money you charge has always been the obvious, unsexy, boring, fundamental thing that makes any economy function. So yeah, it's not surprising your friend has closed over 30mm. Especially if he's treating his employees well (which is what it sounds like, esp. wrt. pension). And there's unsexy rule number 2: you treat the people who do the hard work really well, you pay them well, and you hire accordingly because that translates into an intangible competitive advantage that doesn't lend itself well to quantifiable measurement, but something we all have a word for anyway: OPTIMISM! It's no secret why these shit-for-pay businesses all over the country are having a hard time filling open hiring reqs; because the pay sucks! And that's usually a fair indicator of how your employer's going to treat you if you join them, too. If they're not willing to pay a reasonable living wage, you can be pretty sure they're also not going to bother making the working environment anything even marginally better than the law requires as an absolute minimum. And frankly that legal bar is far, far too low to begin with (and we're not even talking minimum wage here, just basic human decency is lacking most of the time). So yeah, kudos to your buddy there. If small businesses want to compete with the big guys, this is how you do it. You don't undercut, you charge fair, you pay better, and you over-deliver. It's called "hard work", and that's precisely why it's so damn rare.