Code Doesn’t Build a Business… Clients Do
And most dev businesses fail not because of bad code but because there’s no one to sell it.
*Start by finding a good salesman and make him a cofounder if possible. *
Remember - No deals = no coding. No coding = no money.
Most probably, you will not fail because you do a lousy job at coding, but because you run out of work.
Find something that differentiates you and make sure it is not the price….
Pamper your clients, always go an extra mile.
Focus on maximizing the value for the client (and it rarely has anything to do with using that fancy new framework).
Set your pricing transparently and stick to it.
The best deals are on an hourly rate, but they are almost always the hardest from the relationship standpoint as developers always think they are underpayed and clients think they pay too much.
Be careful of your budget and capacities.
Most good development shops sustainably use around 70% of their capacity (but the employees should be payed for 100% of their time).
And you should plan for a lower percent initially.
Learn to estimate
Be sure you include a 20-50% of safety pillow in every estimate you make.
If you finish on time and work on an hourly rate model, the client will be happier than if it is the other way around.
The underpromise-overdeliver rule is your friend.
Create a proffesional image for your company - do some open source projects, organize meetups, attend hackatons...
There is so much more to be told. It is fun, it is hard, but it pays off.
Just dive into it, treat every employee, partner and client with respect and you may have a shot at succeeding
It’s tough. It’s fun. It’s worth it.
And if you’re building dev tools or services, I’ve created a few that save time and help you scale.
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