Blog

• The estimate you gave on the phone

  The price you say on a phone call is the one a customer repeats at the counter. Name what it covers, send the range in a text, and call again before the job grows.

• Cash in the Till Versus Cash in the Bank

  A full drawer feels like a win. The bank balance is what pays rent. Here is how to stop mixing the two.

• The invoice you keep forgetting to send (and what that costs)

  Finished work that never gets billed is a quiet leak. What it really costs a small shop, why it happens, and a closeout habit that stops it.

• When a small shop should raise prices (and how to say it)

  How to tell when your rates are too low, and how to raise them without a long apology or a messy discount habit.

• The difference between being busy and being profitable

  A full schedule is not the same as a healthy shop. How to tell which week you actually had, and what to change when motion outruns money.

• The first hire question

  How to know whether your next dollar should hire a person or buy a tool, with the shadow-week exercise that makes the answer obvious.

• Should I take payments via Square or Stripe?

  The honest answer is it depends, and the thing it depends on is one specific question about your business.

• Why technical founders often fail to sell their first thing to small businesses

  A guest post from the Tiny Revenue Stream team on the patterns that cause technically capable founders to struggle when selling to small business owners, written for the owners on the receiving end.

• Five tools a one-person business actually needs

  An honest list of the small set of tools that earn their place in a one-person business, and the much longer list that does not.

• Picking your first business software when you are not technical

  How small business owners can pick the first piece of paid software in any category without ending up locked into a tool that costs more to leave than it does to run.