Most of us started our tech services companies like this:
- was good at freelancing in language/technique X
- got more projects than could handle alone
- hired one friend
- hired three friends
5–10 years later, we might now employ 15–50 friends (or friends of friends), doing somewhere between $2M & $10M in annual revenue.
Which is… cool? It’s cool. You write off your Netflix account, you make $150K-$200K per year (right?), you call the shots.
Here’s a question:
- are you still programming everyday?
- can the business survive (thrive?) if you take off for six weeks?
- are you still making most of the decisions, bringing in most of the business, and doing most of the recruiting?
A BUSINESS YOU WORK AT IS CALLED A JOB.
So, play this out (maybe for the first time); this job/ownership thing goes on for how long? Your goal is to, what? You will… stay this size? Still be tweaking JavaScript libraries into your 60s? 70s?
There are no wrong answers, but let’s talk about the three ways your dev shop/tech consultancy/”digital product studio” ends, regardless of what you want:
- “Someday” you find “a buyer.” (If you’re over $10M in revenue, growing, profitable, have automated yourself out of a role, and spend two years working on nothing else but an exit… and even then, at this size you have to time the market, get lucky, and deal with one or two small offers, and plan for a three to four year earn-out.)
- You eventually, personally “save enough” and… “go do something else.” (Have you done that yet — saved enough?)
- One day, you just turn off the lights. (Tired of this bullshit.)
The above is what smart programmers like you have done for decades. 2 & 3 are most common. If you’re a professional services firm (a collection of talent that is work-for-hire), those are your three options for wrapping up a career.
BUT OMG I LOVE CREATIVE PROGRAMMING I NEVER WANT TO STOP
Loving technology challenges is not the same as running a successful business. You can build stuff your entire life. You can work on meaningful technology.
You are, however, not guaranteed a meaningful job just because you have one today.
- Your business will need to evolve or die. (All tech breakthroughs are eventually commoditized.)
- You will need to grow or you will wither. (You will lose your best people if you don’t give them career-pathing options.)
- Your hands & wrists will eventually reject the mouse and keyboard. (Pain or brace already?)
- The next generation will be faster and hungrier. (Just like you were.)
Right now, you’re paying your mortgage. You might be paying a lot of mortgages. For how long?
BUT MY EMPLOYEES CAN BUY ME OUT
And what would they be buying? Why would your friends — remember, that’s who are still around you — cut you a check for doing no work? How does you no longer showing up to the office create an incentive for them to pay you for that privilege?
A CONSULTING FIRM WILL JUST BUY US ONE DAY
Why, because you’re “agile?” Because you can recruit people to your kewl company, while they cannot? (What happens when you merge?) Because tech talent is “in demand?”
Employee transitions and niche mergers are rare. If you didn’t start out on that path, you likely won’t end there.
At BigCyber, we’ve talked to hundreds of dev shop owners like you, at all stages of their career. We know you like technology, we know you might still feel energized, we know you might have a sweet lifestyle business.
But rest assured, you will turn off the lights someday.
When that time comes, will it be by choice?
—
Post by Josh Oakhurst, Managing Partner
Web: bigcyber.co
Twitter: @bigcyberco
LinkedIn: BigCyber
