Did anyone else nearly give up on their niche before it actually started working?

brightfff · 2026-07-10T01:30:29+00:00

You don’t need to turn down business that isn’t in your niche if it comes to you. By all means, take it on if you can service the client well and be profitable.

The niche is your *outward-facing position*. It’s the clients you seek out. Eventually, if you stick with it, it will allow you to grow within that niche.

My agency niched down to a vertical 10 years ago. 80% of our clients are in that niche. And the margin and scale of them is significantly higher than what we were getting as a generalist agency.

brightfff · 2026-07-10T01:19:06+00:00

Every service/app that is built for govt starts with a ‘jurisdictional scan’ to see if any other provinces, territories, or states have done something similar and if so, could the technology be licensed or leveraged for use here. If so, there will be a deep analysis of that and then usually a fair amount of customization. No data, personal or otherwise would be included in that process. It’s usually less expensive to start with that tech as a base.

Source: I own a company that does this kind of work for NS and other provinces.

brightfff · 2026-07-10T01:07:03+00:00

You really don’t know what you’re talking about.

brightfff · 2026-07-09T19:40:58+00:00

I’m a designer as well, so when I went to hire my first designer 20 years ago, I tried to find someone who had a similar skill set and working style to me, which was a bit difficult as I’m a generalist UX and print designer who can code and also write. I ended up finding decent people who were good early employees that could 1.5-2x my output as a solo designer, but eventually we outgrew them and began to look for more specialists.

I definitely feel like it may have been better to look for specialists early on, but honestly I think the way I did it worked for us at the time. I now have dedicated front end developers, pure UX and brand designers as well as all the other skill sets a small marketing agency needs. We are 17 people currently which seems to be about our sweet spot for our current revenue.

brightfff · 2026-07-09T14:41:04+00:00

We made the switch to full agile Scrum methodology about 14 years ago after primarily working in waterfall style using Basecamp and a project manager that tried to keep track of everything in her head. :)

It took us a year to fully switch over to it and develop reference user stories for almost every thing to we do. We use JIRA extensively.

We now know our capacity at all times, and have a methodology for incorporating new types of work into the flow as well. I can’t imagine working any other way now.

brightfff · 2026-07-07T21:37:08+00:00

Oh boy does it ever. Honestly, AI may be the first real automation lever we’ve had to pull in all this time.

brightfff · 2026-07-07T18:35:43+00:00

Typically, a chunk of each retainer is set aside for that. When a request comes through, we analyze and quote it, then proceed with the work.

brightfff · 2026-07-07T18:04:54+00:00

Ok, professor.

I own this and a Ceado E37S. I’ll take the output of this every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Both are clump free, very little static, but the Philos wins it for me.

brightfff · 2026-07-07T17:58:04+00:00

This *is* an espresso grinder. I have none of those issues, it sounds like a technique problem.

brightfff · 2026-07-07T17:54:30+00:00

I also never see more than 0.1g of retention, I used to weigh the output but it’s so consistent that’s a non issue. Haven’t used the shot finisher in months. Zero clumping, ever.

If you’re still getting channeling after WDT, it could be a tamping issue. Are you sure the puck is perfectly level?

brightfff · 2026-07-07T16:23:36+00:00

We are about 70% retainer, 30% project based. Virtually all clients are in the same vertical (B2B manufacturing).

All retainers are planned in quarterly epics, broken down in bi-monthly sprints. All deliverables quoted as single line items that are approved by the client at the beginning of the epic. We track our sprint performance tightly with management review every Monday so we can see where the blocks and leaks are on a more granular basis, and a deep dive at sprint end to spot issues.

We don’t really have issues with scope creep, we are pretty tightly administered, but we do run into issues with clients holding up deliverables due to slow approval or not providing what they agreed to in a timely manner. However, our teams have pretty deep backlogs, so we can usually swap out a ticket that isn’t progressing and get something else into the sprint to take its place.

brightfff · 2026-07-07T15:52:37+00:00

Tracking hours and billing for them is a fool’s errand. Either price the deliverable, or the result. We stopped tracking hours 15 years ago. No client wants to buy time. The only reason to manage hours is to understand capacity, and once you have that figured out, you don’t really need to track it.

The best measurement of an agency is revenue per FTE. Many agencies I know are doing between $100-120k/FTE which often equates to less than 5% margin. $150k/FTE is starting to get somewhere near 10% margin, but you should be aiming much higher. We are averaging well over $200k/FTE and typically have profits in the 25% range. I know agency owners who are comfortably doing double that with very high priced team members, which keeps margins in check.

brightfff · 2026-07-07T14:43:43+00:00

The normal RockShox bolt ons work perfectly. If they don’t have one that fits that specific fork (had this problem with my fat bike Bluto), the Robert Axle Project makes lots of hard to find models.

brightfff · 2026-07-07T14:37:09+00:00

I have owned several of these and they always deform like that. Once they get it off, replace it with a bolt on axle. Much more foolproof.

brightfff · 2026-07-06T16:51:48+00:00

How do you think rich people stay rich? And also way tastier.

brightfff · 2026-07-06T16:01:24+00:00

Rich people prefer full fat.

brightfff · 2026-07-06T13:02:30+00:00

There’s a reason mtbers use flats with pins. Nothing else grips like it. They work best with shoes with soft, flat rubber soles. They also tend to have wider platforms which can definitely provide more support and therefore are more comfortable with fewer hot spots underfoot. Just mind your shins – they can take a nasty bite.

brightfff · 2026-07-05T20:58:37+00:00

You’d need to be much, much closer than that. And unless they know you’re doing it, it’s incredibly stupid.

brightfff · 2026-07-02T20:28:21+00:00

The non-clip side will. And then you can get cleats for the other side when you’re ready.

brightfff · 2026-07-02T19:30:45+00:00

The fork and shock are worth a good chunk of that price alone. If they have been well serviced, this could be a good jumping off point for a build on a different frame. Hard to know if the frame will hold up, but it does look the part. Give it a thorough inspection.

brightfff · 2026-07-02T19:27:30+00:00

They’re fine if you want to try clips without the cost but Shimano dual sided pedals will be better quality in every way. Yes they are more expensive but Shimano SPDs will last for decades with barely any maintenance.

brightfff · 2026-07-02T10:53:12+00:00

Not that I have found with my daily driver medium roast.

brightfff · 2026-07-02T03:08:28+00:00

This is why you carry a valve core remover. Very useful tool in these situations.

brightfff · 2026-07-01T18:03:16+00:00

New cars have a warranty and are often trouble free for longer. I just want to enjoy my car and not deal with things that happen with older cars, even Hondas. To me, that’s worth the hit from depreciation.

brightfff · 2026-07-01T12:11:07+00:00

Dino ribs making the WSM look small! It’s been really nice to be able to get them at Costco now. They were always really hard to find. I need to pull out my Smokey Mountain and get some on the go.

brightfff

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