> their revenues were quite small (to the best of my recollection it might have been a few thousand a month total sales)
This may sound out of touch but my advice is: stay away from small clients. They're a pain. It's their money. They're never happy. They find everything is expensive. They love their product so much they can't understand why you don't work for free, since it's such a great opportunity. They're unfamiliar with industry's best practices or fees.
They change their mind often (to be fair, everyone changes their mind but big companies understand that this means a new budget and a new contract, while small ones don't).
I agree that small clients generally are much more difficult than large clients. I would like to find more large clients.
I can say that the work we do now for large clients is light years superior to work of our competitors since we have been through the wringer with people for whom every penny they invest is important.
This may sound out of touch but my advice is: stay away from small clients. They're a pain. It's their money. They're never happy. They find everything is expensive. They love their product so much they can't understand why you don't work for free, since it's such a great opportunity. They're unfamiliar with industry's best practices or fees.
They change their mind often (to be fair, everyone changes their mind but big companies understand that this means a new budget and a new contract, while small ones don't).