| This sounds like you have several bugs in your processes. That's likely normal as you grow, and luckily you have a built-in alarm to beep that now it is time to fix them, it is no more premature optimization. Congratulations for hitting that point, don't kill yourself or quit yet, fix the problem. You get a text every 5 seconds? Where is it coming from? Clients? Introduce an issue tracking system, or some kind of a queue, so that you can handle those problems asynchronously. Are those messages immediate bug fix requests? Fixing bugs should eliminate them over time. If they are not, you are not doing it right. Introduce test driven development, rewrite code. Often, most of the bugs are contained in few modules of a program. Localize and rewrite (not fix) them. (Idea source: Code Complete) Are your colleagues pinging you for approval all the time? Introduce decision making guidelines. Possibly with some examples how they were applied in the past. Clients asking the same questions repeatedly? Create a FAQ or some Help. I made a policy for myself once to always just answer client requests with links to the Help. If I could find answers in the Help, I linked them, otherwise I added them to the Help first. This teaches clients to first check the Help.
One client was asking the same questions all them time. I made that client a custom private help page with a link collection - it helped. Another I printed a paper he could glue over his monitor on the wall because he couldn't find anything on his computer. For all your other issues: identify what bothers you; keep asking why it is happening and how you could fix it. Fix one problem at a time so it won't recur. You will have loads of free time really soon. That said, you might as well consider raising your prices as others noted if your current margins can't justify the effort needed to deliver. Otherwise, you just created some new jobs that pay worse than the alternatives. In that case, everyone is loosing and closing your company would make everyone better off. But most likely you could add processes to handle things better. Or cut back on 20% of the features that require most of your time, but deliver least of the value. Also, you should talk about the problems with your colleagues. You are better off solving them together because it starts to build a culture of solving these problems. Good luck. |