[apercu]

My dream was always a very small practice of tightly focused services and a humane work cycle due to low overhead. During crunch time you work hard and during slow times you relax and get paid a lot less.

But every time I had partners or colleagues there is this idea that growth is super important, everyone needs an assistant, and overhead grows to the point that you need $100k every month to make payroll. So everyone has to grind, and you have to take lower margin projects and it's 40 hours a week, except during crunch time where it's, well, a lot more than that.

I helped grow my second company to a profitable 20-person company, but I thought that was too big (and a lot of us worked crazy hours).

I joined and grew another company to around 30 people (I was not the owner so just following orders).

I was never able to find the right people at the right phase of life, with the right skill sets, so I have been a solo practice for a decade. But I always thought a 8-10 person, highly focused consulting practice is where it's at.