How to Price Your Consulting Services as a Freelance Developer
Most freelance developers price themselves wrong and leave significant money on the table for years. Here is what I learned the hard way about charging what you are actually worth.
Read the articleHow to Price Your Consulting Services as a Freelance Developer
Most freelance developers price themselves wrong and leave significant money on the table for years. Here is what I learned the hard way.
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Dynamics 365 Licensing Explained: Stop Paying for What You Do Not Need
I have sat through more licensing conversations than is healthy. Here is what you actually need to know before you sign anything.
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What a Non-Executive Director Actually Does (And Why I Now Have Two)
People picture a NED as someone collecting a fee for turning up twice a year. The reality is quite different, and the role is one of the more underrated ways to apply experience at a board level.
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IR35 Has Been a Disaster for UK Tech and Nobody in Government Cares
Five years since the private sector rollout and the damage is everywhere. Fewer contractors, higher costs, slower projects, and a brain drain that shows no signs of stopping.
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Best Motorhome Accessories That Are Actually Worth the Money
Walk into any motorhome accessories shop and your wallet starts weeping. Here is what actually earns its place on board after years of trial and error.
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Why Your Dynamics 365 Users Hate the System and How to Fix It
You spent six figures on a CRM implementation. Your sales team is still using spreadsheets. Sound familiar?
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What Nobody Tells You About Selling Software as a Technical Founder
The first thing you learn when you try to sell software you built yourself is that nobody cares about the code.
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How to Secure Your SaaS Application Without a Security Team
You do not need a CISO or a penetration testing budget. But you do need to stop pretending security is somebody else's problem.
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The Myth of Passive Income: What Running a SaaS Actually Looks Like
Everyone talks about SaaS as passive income. It is not. Here is what nobody tells you about what happens after you launch.
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Cheap Motorhome Overnight Stops in the UK: Your Complete Guide
Fed up paying top prices at big campsite chains every night? Here is every affordable option I have found after years on the road.
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Dynamics 365 vs Salesforce: An Honest Comparison from Someone Who Has Used Both
Most comparison articles are written by partners selling one platform or the other. Here is what it actually looks like when you have built real systems on both.
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Why Most Software Rewrites Fail and What to Do Instead
The rewrite always sounds like the right answer. It almost never is. Here is what actually works for modernising legacy systems without torching the business.
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How to Market a SaaS Product When You Have Zero Budget
The honest guide to getting users when you cannot afford ads, a marketing team, or any of the things startup Twitter tells you that you need.
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Why the UK Cannot Produce Enough Software Developers
The government wants the UK to be a global tech hub. The education system, the apprenticeship levy and immigration policy are all working against that goal.
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No Code Tools Will Not Replace Developers Any Time Soon
No code and low code platforms are brilliant for certain things. But the idea that they will make software developers redundant is nonsense, and here is why.
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How to Survive a Dynamics 365 Go Live Without Losing Your Mind
Every Dynamics 365 go live feels like defusing a bomb while someone reads you the instructions over a bad phone line. Here is how to make it less painful.
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How to Build a SaaS Product While Working a Full Time Job
Everyone has a side project idea. Very few people ship one. Here is what actually works when you are building a product around a day job.
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How to Keep SaaS Customers Without a Customer Success Team
Churn will kill a bootstrapped SaaS faster than a bad product ever will. Here is how to retain customers when it is just you and a support inbox.
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Upgrading Your Motorhome: When It Is Time to Move Up and What to Look For
I went from an Elddis Autoquest 196 to a Swift KonTiki 774 and the difference was night and day. Here is what I learned about knowing when to upgrade and what actually matters when you do.
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How to Run Multiple Businesses Without Everything Falling Apart
I run three businesses and do consulting work on the side. People keep asking how. The honest answer is that most of it comes down to saying no to almost everything.
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AI Coding Tools: Are They Actually Making Developers More Productive?
After over 25 years of writing code the old fashioned way, I have spent the last year working with AI coding assistants on real projects. Here is what actually happened to my productivity.
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Dynamics 365 Data Migration: What Actually Goes Wrong and How to Avoid It
Data migration is where Dynamics 365 implementations go to die. Here is what I have learned from doing it dozens of times.
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Why Microservices Are Wrong for Most Small SaaS Products
You do not need twelve services, a message queue and a service mesh to serve 500 customers. You need a monolith and a good deployment pipeline.
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Why Every Developer Should Start a Business at Least Once
You already know how to build things. The bit nobody teaches you is how to build things that people will actually pay for. That gap is worth closing.
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How Much Does Motorhome Travel Actually Cost
Everyone talks about the freedom. Nobody talks about the diesel bill, the pitch fees and the mysterious rattling noise that turns into a four figure repair.
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Why UK Tax Policy Punishes People Who Start Businesses
The UK government loves talking about supporting entrepreneurs. The tax system tells a completely different story.
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How to Get Your First 100 Customers Without a Marketing Budget
You do not need a marketing budget to get your first paying customers. You need a thick skin, a decent product and the willingness to do things that do not scale.
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Dynamics 365 Customisation: When to Configure and When to Write Code
The line between configuration and custom code in Dynamics 365 is where most implementations either succeed or quietly start falling apart.
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Technical Debt Is Not the Enemy: A Practical Guide for Small Teams
Every codebase has compromises. The question is not how to eliminate technical debt but how to stop it managing you.
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UK AI Regulation Is Being Written for Big Tech, Not Small Business
The people writing the rules have never shipped a product in their lives. The people who will suffer the consequences ship products every day.
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How to Validate a Business Idea Before You Build Anything
Most startups fail because the founder fell in love with a solution before checking whether anyone actually had the problem. Here is how to avoid that.
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How to Keep Your Azure Bill Under Control
After rescuing a dozen Azure bills that quietly got away from their owners, here are the mistakes that blow them up and the habits that keep them sane.
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Dynamics 365 Integration Patterns That Actually Work in Production
After years of plugging Dynamics 365 into everything from accounting systems to warehouse kit, here are the integration patterns I keep coming back to and the ones I now refuse to touch.
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How to Plan Your First European Motorhome Trip
Everything you need to know before driving your motorhome across the Channel for the first time. Ferries, routes, wild camping, tolls and the stuff nobody tells you until you are already there.
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How to Price Your SaaS Product When You Are Bootstrapped
Real pricing lessons from building four SaaS businesses without investors telling me what to charge. Spoiler: you are probably charging too little.
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The Real Cost of a Dynamics 365 Implementation
The honest numbers on a Dynamics 365 implementation. Why budgets blow out, what licences actually cost, and how to keep the whole thing under control.
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How to Choose a Tech Stack for Your SaaS Product
I have built four SaaS products on four slightly different stacks. Here is what I wish someone had told me before the first one, and what I still get wrong occasionally.
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The Best UK Motorhome Destinations (From Someone Who Has Actually Been)
Not a sponsored listicle. Not written by someone who Googled it. Actual places I have driven to, stayed at and would go back to.
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Five Things I Learned Bootstrapping Five Businesses
No VC money. No safety net. Just real problems, real stakes and a lot of lessons learned the hard way.
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Build vs Buy: A Practical Guide for Business Owners
After twenty five years of building software and advising businesses, here is how I think about the build vs buy decision. Spoiler: the answer is almost always more nuanced than you think.
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The Seven Biggest Dynamics 365 Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)
I have worked on Dynamics 365 implementations for utilities, financial services, housing and government. These are the mistakes I see again and again.
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What a Fractional CTO Actually Does (And Why Your Business Might Need One)
It is one of those job titles that sounds impressive but nobody quite understands. Let me clear that up.
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Hiring Your First Developer: What Non Technical Founders Get Wrong
You have a great idea and you need someone to build it. Here is how to find the right developer without getting burned, from someone who has been on both sides of the conversation.
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Working From a Motorhome: The Honest Truth
It sounds like living the dream. Sometimes it is. Sometimes you are sitting in a car park with no signal trying to join a Teams call.
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Why Small Businesses Should Care About Microsoft Power Platform
Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI. You have probably heard the names but have no idea what they actually do. Let me explain in plain English.
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The Only SaaS Metrics That Matter When You Are Bootstrapped
Forget the vanity metrics. When it is your own money on the line, here are the numbers that actually tell you if your SaaS business is working.
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Why UK Small Business Policy Keeps Failing Entrepreneurs
I have started businesses under three different governments now. The rhetoric changes but the problems stay the same. Here is what they keep getting wrong and what would actually help.
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