[popemarijuanaxv]

Everything about working with small local clients is a mistake. I'm sorry, but it is. If you must, be very clear about what done means. Be very clear about who is responsible for maintenance after your job is done. If you don't, you will still get calls 8 years later to update the prices on the website, etc. Invoice absolutely everything. If you feel like a client is trying to get away with something, use an invoice to clarify that they can do so at X cost. I once billed someone $30,000 for an website update. I didn't get paid, but I never heard from them again. And by all means, don't work where you live. Ditto re: family/friend/friend of friends. Just don't. No money here. I dunno, just everything about this clientele screams avoid to me, especially their near complete inability to understand how much education goes into being able to do the sorts of things we can do with software, and therefore unable to understand why it costs so much or why they should pay even a 10th of it. Trying to pull money out of a small business is often tantamount to teeth-pulling, and a very large majority of small business owners work for themselves because no one wants anything to do with them, so choose who you work for very carefully. Sorry to spook you. Can you tell I've enjoyed my time in this space?

[vector_spaces]

There are very intelligent people out there who aren't software engineers or who don't work for Fortune 500s. The logistical challenges that go into operating a small e.g. grocery store probably vastly outweigh whatever a typical FAANG or YC startup engineer has to contend with.

People start businesses for lots of reasons, and if you've built a small business that's been around for more than several years, in a lot of industries, that means that you know how to work with people. The food business in particular is that way -- if you can't build good relationships with your suppliers and customers, you're dead.

I agree with your overall point that, if you're looking to optimize your payday, working with small businesses probably isn't the way. But it can still be fulfilling and reasonably lucrative.

[MattGaiser]

Eh, unless it is a niche grocery store, every actually independent grocery store I have visited has had limited selection and mouldy fruit.

I don't think anyone disputes that running a small business is hard. It is just that most don't do a terribly good job of it.

[908B64B197]

> The logistical challenges that go into operating a small e.g. grocery store probably vastly outweigh whatever a typical FAANG or YC startup engineer has to contend with.

Doing in a scalable way sure. Grocery margins are razor thin.

Doing it at a loss or break-even by working 80+ hours a week understaffed no, everyone can do that.

[radu_floricica]

It all probably boils down to you being of less value to smaller clients than to larger ones. Software and web are a force multiplier. They don't produce value on their own, they just increase what's already there. If a new, better website can get the client a 20% better conversion rate, or if a new software will decrease their costs by 5% - that can be dramatically different in CorpX and in Ma&Pa.

The multiplier itself can't be dramatically different - you can't write software that'll bring a 99% decrease in costs. But the base that you're multiplying can easily be 100x larger (10000%). That's the value you're creating, some part of which is your fair share.

So how to successfully sell to small clients? The correct answer is "en masse". The only way to make up for the difference in productivity is with numbers - you don't write custom software, you make a product and sell it to thousands and more.

Small clients simply should never work with service providers directly - they just waste time that'd better be spent by making a bigger client 0.1% more efficient. I know that's the opposite of what idealism would say, but it's true. The _smaller_ cost for society is burned out and pissed off developers. The real one is the opportunity cost of what they could have been doing instead.

[scrozier]

I have spent a good deal of my career trying to figure this out. I love small businesses and not-for-profits (not to muddy the waters, but they pose similar challenges). I've reached the same conclusion as you. To a small business, every dollar is critical, so they are compelled to micromanage. Many small business owners are very smart, but not well educated, so they tend to lack some perspective and try to substitute their "street smarts," which doesn't work very well with technical/creative work. As much as I'd love to serve this market, I've never figured it out.

[mgkimsal]

> To a small business, every dollar is critical, so they are compelled to micromanage.

We'd need to define 'small business' size, but more importantly, who you're working with. Working with the owner of a small business... every dollar effectively comes out of their pocket (at least, that may be the mentality). Working with a small business that has enough folks to have a team, they're more likely to have some actual budget to work with that isn't 'their' money. They have to achieve business goals and have money to spend.

Who you're working with and how small 'small' is are the critical factors, I've found.

[scrozier]

Absolutely. I was talking about what would probably be called "very small businesses," in which I was almost always working directly with the owner. Probably in the range of 5-50 employees. 300bps has an interesting take on the size issue, elsewhere in the comments.

[disease]

I've sometimes wondered why so many restaurants (even some chains) don't have any kind of online presence outside of a crappy HTML 'poster' that tells the world they exist. No delivery. No online orders. Seems like a missed opportunity.

Then I remember that it is an industry with tiny margins and remember my past work with small clients and come up with a similar list of thoughts that you have outlined here.

[MattGaiser]

The restaurant industry has a scary number of people who just toss their retirement savings into it and treat it as a retirement hobby. Then they get slowly bled dry.

[josefresco]

There are web firms that work solely with restaurants. I've lost a couple clients to them. The come in with a slick sales pitch, and sell restaurant owners on the idea that "their menu will be everywhere!". This particular example actually builds decent websites, but what sold my (former) client on it was their tech surrounding menu distribution. Where do these menus appear? No clue.

[datavirtue]

Yes, small businesses have been left behind. Almost completely abandoned by tech. The only progress has been those shitty web based payment terminals with scant support for inventory and e-commerce.

[jpm_sd]

Yeah this is why small businesses have all ended up on Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Squarespace. Big players providing a consistent service with a simple interface is going to win every time.

[josefresco]

The "fabled" small biz move to Facebook happened 4-5 years ago and has since shift back. During that time, I'd hear warnings (much to my enjoyment) that my job would be in jeopardy. Things are shifting back now, hard. I've had clients stop posting to social media, and instead are reinvesting in their website, which they control 100%. The social media shine has warn off for small biz - it's just another marketing channel and one you don't control.

[teddyh]

Yes: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people_2021

[beckingz]

I had wondered why I hadn't seen the oatmeal in a long time.

[tlogan]

This is very much spot on.

And you will find that some of these “small business” are actually failure and they are alive just because somebody else in the family is paying the bills.