We Started This Before Our Car Insurance Dropped

I started Str8shift in my early twenties with more going on than is probably advisable. Isaac, my co-founder, runs a real estate business on the side. Neither of us had managed clients before, and we made the standard first-year mistakes plus a couple that surprised me.

I said yes to the wrong clients

The clients who argue about price before you've discussed scope are the same ones who argue about everything else. I took a few of those projects before I figured that out. A difficult client at a low rate costs more in time and frustration than the invoice covers.

I tried to make us look bigger than we were

I wrote our early copy to say things like 'our team' and 'our process' as if twelve people were involved. There are two of us: me and Isaac. Once I stopped writing around that, conversations with clients got more direct. People hiring a two-person shop want to know who those two people are, not read a mission statement.

I treated being busy as a metric

I have a full schedule outside the agency, and so does Isaac. Early on, I wore that as a badge. It isn't one. Saying no to projects that weren't a fit opened up time to do the right ones well.

The short version for anyone starting out

Price the work correctly from the start. Be specific about who you are and who you're for. Take fewer clients and do better work for them. These aren't complicated ideas. They were harder to follow than they sound when I was trying to get this off the ground, which is the only reason they're worth writing down.