Some ten years ago, I worked as a freelance web developer. Or — to put it as I preferred to define myself at the time — I made a living by running a small web agency.
Regardless of the label, I did web development, design, and some strategic consulting. And I had a product: my own content management system (CMS) called, *drumroll*, Sitereactor.
The bulk of my revenue came from collaborations with real agencies. Thanks to them, I got to be involved in projects I probably never would have landed on my own. The CMS was the door opener, and the projects provided funding and feature ideas for the future development of the CMS.
Life was good. Or so I thought.
In short — the tempo was pretty intense. I worked crazy hours and rarely took time off, but since the CMS was a passion project, it didn’t matter. This wasn’t a job; this was a hobby that made money.
The problem was that I had no clue about how profitable my business was. Nor did I know whom of my clients was the most lucrative one.
For starters, I didn’t keep track of the hours I put into the development of my CMS. It was always like: “if I don’t fix this feature, I won’t get project XYZ.”
Had I just seen the proverbial forest, I had realized that sometimes the project acquisition cost is…
