[yixiang]

You have three options.

1. Learn management. If you want people to do things to your satisfaction, you have to be explicit about your expectations, communicate it, monitor progress, and review results. Even if you get a talented coder to help you, he probably has different ideas about how things need to be done, and you still need to clarify who's responsible for what.

2. Give some of your projects to others. Instead of split a 50k project, you give this entire project to others, maybe charge a fee. You'll earn less and have less headaches.

3. Raise your fees so you have less clients.

[devtrepeneur]

I think you are spot on about learning management. I spoke with one of my mentors, and he feels I don't know how to manage because I never needed to. So it's a skills gap I have. I'm not really sure I have the time to invest in it at this point. It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario.

I also raised my fees, so that now I will only discuss projects at a minimum of €10K. It definitely helped shift some of the crap :)

[yixiang]

After reading your comment about more context. I honestly feel you should seriously consider learning how to manage people/projects. Or, how to bring in help without bringing in problems.

Ask yourself is this increase of work temporary. After all current deadlines are met, will you still be as busy? Can you expect to relax and rest, or are you expecting as much new work waiting for you? Will there be as much work two months later? six months later? Will there be more work? Will there be new clients?

If it's not temporary, if there will be only more work, then it's only reasonable to focus on seeking help now. You can't handle the workload you can't handle forever.

You probably need to change your mindset too. From "what do I need to do to solve this problem?" to "what help do I need to solve this problem?"

I recommend reading E-Myth Revisited, exactly the book for small business owners facing too much work to do.

[cattlefarmer]

Back in uni, a friend of mine interned at a place that was basically like yours. Just one guy running everything by himself.

Obviously it didn't turn out very well for my friend as he didn't really get do much. I suspect the owner however might have learned a thing or two about managing people.