Engineering agency founder's 10-year lessons: small teams ship, turn down 30% of clients
alex_verem · x · 2026-11-07
A founder reflects on 10 years running an engineering services company:
- Small teams ship — no room for message-relayers
- Customer references are like three matches on a desert island; strike one only when it counts
- Turn work down: they decline 30% of prospective clients
- Month-to-month keeps you honest — serve every month as if it's the last
- No project succeeds without the customer's subject matter expert in the room
- The boring part is becoming the moat: specs, tests, permissions, and the data nobody cleaned
- No magic — just hard work, done daily
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