Lessons we've learned the hard way

While it would be easily to fill up our blog with success story after triumph after success story, it wouldn't show you the whole D4 picture — like every other business, there are times when things don't necessarily run to plan for us, and learning from those experiences (and telling others about them) can be very valuable.

In that spirit we present to you some of the lessons we've learned the hard way, through chastening experiences and wasted time and effort. They're presented below and we hope you find them helpful in plotting a future course for your own company : if others are able to benefit from these experiences then they haven't been totally in vain.

Not every client is a good fit. It seems antithetical to running a business to turn clients away, but the truth is that not all of them are a good fit for your company, and the drawbacks of such a relationship can quickly overwhelm any advantages. Take the example of Y2 Marketing and businesses like it — you're not just looking for anyone who shows an interest, you're looking for partners who fit well with your vision and ethos. Of course it's important to be flexible and cater to a wide range of client needs, but some kind of filtering and discernment is necessary when choosing who to work with to keep both sides prospering.

Stay in control of the process. It's our process for a reason, one that's been refined and tweaked over many years so we don't repeat the same mistakes or get into the same harmful situations. As many a coder knows, the common pitfalls for developers are so common because they're so easy to fall into — if it was obvious how to avoid them then programmers wouldn't keep repeating them again and again and again. But they do, which is why we like to stick to our own way of working and our own roadmap. Be wary of straying too far from the route and structure you know well. See Steve McConnell's 26 classic mistakes for examples.

Don't do work you're not proud of. Although it's tempting to reach the finishing line as quickly as possible, that's not a foundation for long-term success. As Jessica Livingston puts it in Founders at Work: "Successful startup founders typically get rich from the process, but the ones I interviewed weren't in it just for the money. They had a lot of pride in craftsmanship. And they wanted to change the world. That’s why most have gone on to new projects that are just as ambitious. Sure, they're pleased to have more financial freedom, but the way they choose to use it is to keep building more things."

And that's a philosophy we buy into at D4. We started this firm because so many other providers did mediocre work that left customers unhappy. When the reality of the day-to-day running of a business kicks in, it's easy to revert to just doing it the same way as everyone else — after all, that's what our competitors do. But that's not why we started this business and it's not an approach we're satisfied with. If your standards are just as high, get in touch.