Back for another update after a quick realization I had yesterday.
And it’s largely related to the key decision-making differences that come along with running a tech company, versus a service business.
If you run or have ever ran a business before, you’ve probably been faced with a client – or potential client – who is asking you to do something beyond the scope of your typical services or agreement.
A quick add-on service, or a different spin on a regular service, or something beyond your typical focus.
And I found this was much easier to deal with when growing my law firm, a more “traditional” solopreneur business. Because you or someone else that works with you is providing the service, it’s pretty easy to decide if you’re able (or in the mood) to help them in the way they need.
In tech it’s a different story, something I’ve only come to realize more recently.
The main reason is because when you’re building tech, everything needs careful planning and then time to actually build (ie. code) it. This takes time and resources, and isn’t as easy as expanding into another service.
For example, when running my immigration law firm, if a client asked for help with a type of file I didn’t normally do, it would be relatively easy to learn about that kind of file, offer a price and then do it for them.
In tech, if a client is asking you for a new feature or functionality, it could take weeks or months to build it and make it available.
Especially if you have limited resources, in this case engineers, then you need to be very careful with how you’re spending their time. If you spend it building one very specific feature that won’t appeal to other clients, it may not be worth it. Or if you lose that client, you may never get another one who uses that same feature again.
In short – I’ve noticed there’s a LOT more flexibility when running a service business than tech company.
Not saying one is better, just one of the many differences.
It also made me realize something else about business in general – that saying “no” to clients or people is actually a valuable skill in a solopreneur business.
Even if you’re running a service or product biz.
Why?
Because focus, especially as a solopreneur, is so key. The reality is that if you or your business is making anything less than $100-200k per year, you shouldn’t think at all about additional revenue streams.
Instead, focus on one key problem, create one clear solution, pick one promising marketing/distribution/sales strategy, and put all your effort into that.
Anything else is probably white noise, and/or not as productive as just keeping the blinders on and scaling your first solution up.
At least that’s from my experience and also advice I’ve heard on podcasts/videos before. Some people – way more successful solopreneurs than I – even say you should focus on getting that one product/service to $1 million in revenue per year, THEN you can start thinking about other products/services.
Food for thought.
Have a great day, don’t miss out on my daily updates here, and keep grinding.
