> "web agencies" who build shitty typo3 pages en masse This is what our initial success was built on. We had a two-pronged approach. First, in the homeland of

> "web agencies" who build shitty typo3 pages en masse This is what our initial success was built on. We had a two-pronged approach. First, in the homeland of typo3, we got massive mileage out of our own CMS product which could do everything that was oh so painful with the usual products in this space. We became the "can do" guys, and we could do everything so much faster and more elegantly than the competition. Our second angle was our stealthiness: since agencies are in the business of appearing way larger and more talented than they actually are, bringing in outside contractors was a serious loss of face for them. We offered to appear as internal agency staff in all customer interactions. We would go to on-site meetings in their clothing style, even. Technical customer support calls were transparently routed to our office, to complete the illusion that everything was done in-house at the agency. Everything else we did wrong, though. We had too many employees, some of them were bad hires to begin with, and we worked them too hard, too. You can't keep a whole team in death march mode all the time. We founders were terrible bosses, as well. I was way too friendly to the point of being taken advantage of, another founder was just generally clueless about everything, and the third one was so harsh and troubled when he patrolled through the offices it actually looked and felt like he was captain Ahab tormenting his trembling crew. Then the budgets of the agencies crumbled suddenly, and almost over night there was just no more money. The little work we got came at unworkable margins. Agencies were poaching our employees. We took on big, risky projects just to stay afloat. One of our biggest customers went bankrupt and then sued us for everything they had paid for our services in the last 12 months. And they won (still a bit unclear how that was even possible, but I found out later their CEO was personal friends with the judge). All in all, it was one hell of a learning experience. But there were some good times as well. And the freedom to work on something you care about is just priceless.