<story><title>Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?</title><text>I run a one-person company and struggle with the workload across planning, development, finance and managing contractors.&lt;p&gt;How do others in similar situations manage tasks and maintain sanity? Which strategies and tools do you find effective?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>mamcx</author><text>The major trick, IMHO, is not to grow.&lt;p&gt;While a &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; startup is focused on growing! growing! growing! a small company should instead think like a physical restaurant:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I have 10 tables * 4 seats. 4 waiters. Operate Lu-Fri 10 am - 6 pm. I can serve only up to 40 customers max per hour. My income will never be bigger than 40* Average meal. My income needs to be at minimum Costs + 3% profits&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Then you see you have too many waiters. You cut it to 2.&lt;p&gt;Then you see your meals are too cheap. You increase it a little.&lt;p&gt;Then you see you have little customers. You grow a little.&lt;p&gt;Then you see you have TOO MUCH customers. You stop growing. More costly take-over, increase the cost of the meal, etc.&lt;p&gt;What you NOT MUST DO is grow more than your max capacity.&lt;p&gt;That is it.&lt;p&gt;Size your capacity. Figure a nice profit. Keep it small.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wrs</author><text>Another example from another context: I have a friend who became a solo consultant. Specifically, she is great at diagnosing and fixing dysfunctional relationships between executives that can tank productivity for a whole company.&lt;p&gt;She found herself with too many clients, too much work, not enough sleep, and was frustrated that sometimes people didn’t even listen to her advice. She was happy as a solo practitioner and didn’t want to manage people.&lt;p&gt;My advice to her was to raise her rates…a lot. (Somehow that hadn’t occurred to her.) Now she’s happy with her time commitment, still well-compensated, and people pay attention because they’re paying more!&lt;p&gt;Bottom line: don’t assume you have to grow, but you do need to keep searching for the optimum setup for the size you want to be.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?</title><text>I run a one-person company and struggle with the workload across planning, development, finance and managing contractors.&lt;p&gt;How do others in similar situations manage tasks and maintain sanity? Which strategies and tools do you find effective?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>mamcx</author><text>The major trick, IMHO, is not to grow.&lt;p&gt;While a &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; startup is focused on growing! growing! growing! a small company should instead think like a physical restaurant:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I have 10 tables * 4 seats. 4 waiters. Operate Lu-Fri 10 am - 6 pm. I can serve only up to 40 customers max per hour. My income will never be bigger than 40* Average meal. My income needs to be at minimum Costs + 3% profits&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Then you see you have too many waiters. You cut it to 2.&lt;p&gt;Then you see your meals are too cheap. You increase it a little.&lt;p&gt;Then you see you have little customers. You grow a little.&lt;p&gt;Then you see you have TOO MUCH customers. You stop growing. More costly take-over, increase the cost of the meal, etc.&lt;p&gt;What you NOT MUST DO is grow more than your max capacity.&lt;p&gt;That is it.&lt;p&gt;Size your capacity. Figure a nice profit. Keep it small.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zebraflask</author><text>Indeed.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d only add (or rephrase other comments to the same effect) that slow growth is not only about staying within your capacity, it&amp;#x27;s also about learning what you&amp;#x27;re doing so well that you can systematize your processes for maximum results with as little speculation and risk as possible.&lt;p&gt;You could call that &amp;quot;being efficient,&amp;quot; I guess, but I think I mean it in the macro sense, not looking for nickel and dime efficiencies.</text></comment>