Hi friends,
In January 2023 I quit a $220K W2 with a stay-at-home wife and a one-year-old to build a one-person consulting shop.
Here's the update I should have written sooner.
The headline
2025 revenue: $4.85M
Team today: ~25 people across USA, Brazil, India, Pakistan
For context on the journey:
Year | Revenue (recognized) |
|---|---|
2023 | $618K |
2024 | $2.49M |
2025 | $4.85M |
2026 | Targeting 50% growth |
From $618K in year one to nearly $5M in year three. Revenue nearly doubled from 2024 to 2025 alone.
What changed (the "me" → "we" part)
Year 1 was me, Upwork, and a prayer.
Year 3 is:
Dan put fuel on the fire. Best decision has been bringing him as my partner.
VP on sales on board + real sales team (4 full-time sellers)
Delivery directors and great day-to-day client leaders
Consultants with incredible pedigree - truly the best talent in our space
Ops in India and Pakistan keeping the machine running behind the scenes
I didn't set out to build a global team. I set out to not go back to a W2. The team showed up because the work demanded it.
The part nobody warns you about: you stop being the best consultant in the firm and become the bottleneck if you don't hire. That transition was harder than quitting.
What worked
1. Staying in an unsexy niche
Privacy, compliance, OneTrust implementations - not the topic Twitter gurus want to DM you about. But corporate buyers pay real money for it, and we got very good at delivery.
2. Fixed-fee project work
I still believe in selling outcomes, not hours. That discipline let us scale revenue without scaling chaos at the same rate.
3. Bookings stayed strong even when revenue timing got weird
Sales(Bookings) cures all. Keep selling. Sell your way through difficult client calls and late payments. Sales is the way out.
4. May was a monster collections month
Not every month feels like winning. May did. Good clients, good collections, momentum heading into summer.
What was hard
Revenue timing is a rollercoaster.
Project-based work with upfront payments and long delivery windows means a great sales quarter doesn't always show up as a great revenue quarter right away.
Q1 2026 is the example. Bookings beat plan. Revenue recognition didn't - mostly timing, not demand falling off a cliff.
Building a sales org is expensive.
We invested heavily in people, commissions, travel, and conferences in 2025. Right long-term move. Doesn't always feel good in the month you're writing the checks.
You can't be the hero IC forever.
The skills that got you to $500K solo are not the same skills that get you to $5M with a team. I'm still learning but feel like I’m making the transition well-ish.
Life outside the spreadsheet
We're a party of 4 now. Two kids. The company is actually having 6 kids this year. Very cool to support growing families.
What I'd tell January-2023 Nik
Hire earlier than feels comfortable. The revenue ceiling is almost always a people problem, not a market problem.
Bookings ≠ cash in the bank ≠ revenue on the P&L. Learn all three. Watch all three. Panic about none of them alone.
Your niche is a feature, not a bug. The "unsexy" work is what funds the life you actually want.
Where we're headed
2026 is pacing toward strong revenue growth if we execute. The number gets harder to grow every year.
We won't hit every monthly plan line. The macro trend is up and to the right and this time I have a team, a partner, and three years of scar tissue to prove it.
If you want these updates in your inbox - the real numbers, the hard months, not just the highlight reel - you're in the right place.
Text me if you're building something too: 404-731-7814
Go big!
— Nik
P.S. I'm updating my About page and X pinned post so they match reality. If you only know me from the "one-man shop" tweet — welcome to the sequel.
