Why I Only Work With Small Businesses
People ask why I do not chase bigger clients. It would be easier money, fewer conversations, better margins.
The honest answer is that I do not care about them.
Nothing changes for a big company
If I build something brilliant for a large company, a number moves on a dashboard. A department reports a good quarter. Nobody's life changes.
If I build something for a woman running a bakery on her own, she gets her Sundays back. She stops missing enquiries at ten at night. She takes on more work without breaking herself. That is a person, and it is a family, and I can see it.
Same work. Completely different weight.
I know what it is like when it goes wrong
I built a business from nothing in my twenties and I lost it, publicly and painfully. I know what it feels like to have everything you built come apart while people watch.
I am not going to retell it here, it lives in my book for anyone who wants it. But it is the reason I take a small business owner's money seriously. I know exactly what that money represents, because I have been the person counting it.
That is also why I would rather talk someone out of spending than take a fee for something they do not need.
What I have seen done to small businesses
This is the part that genuinely annoys me.
Small business owners are the easiest people in the world to sell to, because they are exhausted and they want to believe someone can help. So they get monthly retainers for work that never quite happens. Reports full of numbers that go up while the phone stays silent. Contracts they cannot get out of, built on tools they do not own.
I have sat with owners who could not tell me what they had been paying for, for two years. That is not a business model, it is a con with an invoice attached, and it is why I think everyone should ask harder questions before paying anyone.
The underdog thing
I cheer for the David. I always have.
Not because the big player is evil, but because the small one is doing something harder with less. Competing against companies with a hundred times the budget, on nothing but being better and caring more. When that works it is the best thing in business.
Modern tools have quietly tipped the odds. A one person operation can now do things that needed a team of ten a few years ago. That is genuinely exciting, and it is why I do this work rather than something easier.
What it means if you are that person
It means when you talk to me you get a straight answer, including no when the answer is no.
It means the thing I build is shaped around how you actually work, not a template with your name dropped in.
And it means I care whether it worked. Not because it is good service, but because I want to see your business do well. That sounds like a line. It is the actual reason I turn up.
If you are running something small and working far too hard at it, that is exactly who I build for.
Want to talk about what your business actually needs? Get in touch. No pressure, no pitch.