I started Devino Solutions in 2021 with no clients, no team, and $500 in a business bank account. This year we crossed $1M in cumulative revenue. Here's what actually worked — and what nearly killed it.
Year 1: Freelancer Disguised as a Studio
I registered "Devino Solutions" but I was the only person at it. The name was aspirational. Every client deliverable went through me; I just didn't advertise that.
The mistake: saying yes to every project. A landing page. An iOS app. A scraped dataset. A WordPress migration. I churned through 40-hour weeks with no leverage, no recurring revenue, no flywheel.
The turning point was saying no. I picked a lane: full-stack web + mobile with DevOps. Anything outside that I referred to someone else. Within two months, my close rate doubled because I stopped being a generalist and started being an expert.
Pricing: The $25/hr Trap
I started at $25/hr on Upwork and treated every rate increase like a risk. It wasn't. I tested $40. Closed the same percentage. Tested $65. Still closed. Tested $100. Slower closes, better clients.
The insight: clients who push back hardest on price are the worst clients. They're price-sensitive because their budget is limited, which means their projects are often underfunded and their expectations are often over-scoped.
Now I quote fixed-price projects for scope-able work and $75/hr for advisory or open-ended work. Both are easier to manage than hourly + scope creep.
Hiring: The First Contractor
The most paralyzing decision was my first contractor hire — another developer I'd worked with on side projects. I was afraid of:
- Having to manage someone
- Finding the work to keep them busy
- Quality variance
All three fears were valid and all three happened. Managing someone is a skill, not a natural gift — I had to learn it. There were slow weeks where I underutilized them and felt guilty about it. And our first contract deliverable together was mediocre by my standards; I had to redo 30% of it.
But the second contract was better. And the third. The growth curve from hiring is delayed; you pay the cost upfront and see the return over months, not weeks.
Retention: The Engine That Actually Scaled
In year 2, referrals became the primary source of new business. I didn't run ads. I wasn't posting content consistently. New clients came from old clients.
The engine: deliver something that exceeds expectations on the first contract, then do one thing for free afterward — a bug fix, a small feature, a technical audit. Not because it builds goodwill (though it does), but because it creates a natural touchpoint for the next conversation.
My two highest-revenue clients both started as one-month projects. Both have been working with us for over 2 years.
The Almost-Quit Moment
March 2023. A client I'd been working with for 14 months went dark two weeks before a go-live. No response to emails, Slack, or calls for 10 days. Then: the company had been acquired. Our contract was being "reviewed." Three months of work at risk.
That week I had 3 other contracts delayed and one team member asking for a raise. The business had $18K in the bank. I had never felt more like shutting it down.
The contract resolved (we got paid, eventually). But that week permanently changed how I run the business:
- Net-30 is the max. Any client pushing Net-60 or longer gets a discount incentive to pay earlier.
- Milestone-based billing for projects longer than 4 weeks.
- 3 months operating expenses in reserve at all times. Non-negotiable.
What I'd Tell 2021 Me
- Niche down earlier. Generalist revenue is a ceiling, not a floor.
- Raise rates sooner. Almost every developer underprices by 40-60%.
- The first hire is the hardest. It gets easier, and you can't scale alone.
- Boring retention beats exciting acquisition. Your current clients are your best marketing.
- Cash flow is more important than profit margin. A profitable business with bad cash flow is a business that can fail.
The $1M number is a milestone, not a destination. The goal for next year is better margins, not more revenue.