<200k revenue in year 3 - keep going or give up?

★ signal-weak r/entrepreneur · ↑ 64 · 💬 107 · 2026-04-05 · kw: any tool that · open on reddit ↗

Tool

none

Issue

IT-support freelance business generates $100-150k annual revenue but owner works 15h/week maintaining it while partner works full-time dev job; customers are price-sensitive (rejecting $200 WiFi router purchases) and acquisition is slow (one-by-one monthly) despite physical marketing (banners, flyers, cold calling); no scalable customer base despite 3 years of operation.

Cost

$0 salary draw for owner in some periods; partner forced to full-time employment elsewhere; <15h/week maintenance load with family obligations

Recommendation

Switch to higher-value clients or get stable employment while keeping business as side project (none for specific tool/platform)

Date context

2026-04-05; German market context mentioned as 'shambles'; year 3 of operation

extracted with

anthropic/claude-haiku-4.5 · 2026-05-08

Body

TL;DR: I'm lost, defeated, burnt out. I could keep going and hope for the best/luck or quit and build a stable career as long as that's still possible. After finishing my Bachelor's in Comp. Sci. in Germany I started working and tried out some startup ideas here and there. I wanted to run my own business no matter what. I hated working on tickets for someone else. Obviously all my ideas where pretty techy, had no market and thus failed. Then an opportunity opened to freelance as IT-Support for the company my father worked at (a machine shop). I talked about it with my buddy I did the startup projects with and we agreed we'd give this a shot but handle it like a business from the start. We founded a C-Corp and startet working on our business model. We had stuff to do, infrastructure needed to be built, tools to be evaluated. During that phase almost all our still existing and best paying customers came in through word of mouth. Then it became quite. We tried marketing with flyers and banner ads (physical PVC ones) and even ended up trying cold calling and D2D. It was a miserable time. We stopped the cold stuff but kept the banners since they worked okay but still: Customers dripped in one by one month after month. The customers we got also where the opposite of spending happy. I had to look at someone decide against investing 200 bucks for a WiFi router and just accepting to have no WiFi in his office instead. So here we are. Numbers: Y1: 40k revenue, a few thousand losses Y2: 100k revenue, about 15k profit Y3 (now): Probably between 100k and 150k revenue We came by until now mostly without paying us a huge salary or by working part time in the first year. Now my partner had to go back to working almost full time as a dev since the money coming in just isn't cutting it for the both of us. I basically have nothing to go back to and need to support my wife and two small children. I stopped working \_on\_ the business a few weeks ago and am rn just keeping it alive basically. This sums up to less than 15h/week. I use the rest of my time to reflect on my situation. So far I think that I am where I am because of multiple factors: We had no network to start with and are both not especially extroverted. We had little money to spend on marketing. We have no sales background. Our market is saturated and the overall economy here is in shambles. We could go over and over talking about how to change the offering, we have no one to offer it to. Options: I could just coast by and see what happens, enjoy seeing my kids grow up, spend time outside, idk. Or I could quit and start over on my career. The thought of having to ask for permission to spend my toddlers birthday at home with him haunts me though. If you have ANY questions, feel free to ask.

Top comments (7)

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[score=56] Fantastic-Hamster333

from a hiring perspective, the fact that you kept a business alive for three years while learning sales, marketing, and operations from scratch is worth more than you think. most people have never run anything. you did. and you didnt fake it with investor money or burn through savings pretending. you made it work on 40k, then 100k, and kept your family fed. the question isnt whether you failed. you didnt. you built something that generates six figures a year. the question is whether this specific thing is the right vehicle for the next ten years. going back to employment doesnt mean throwing away what you learned. if anything, youre now the kind of person companies want. youve got technical skills, you understand how a business actually runs, and you know what its like to be on the other side of a hiring decision. that combination is rare. if you go back to a job, negotiate for flexibility. remote work, flex hours, whatever lets you still be around for your kids. companies that refuse probably arent worth your time anyway. the leverage you have now is that you dont need the job to survive. you have a business generating income. use that. or keep the business running at 15 hours a week and treat it like a safety net while you work. plenty of people have done that. worst case, you have two income streams. best case, one of them takes off and you drop the other.

[score=5] _truth_teller

Why not get a job and continue to grow your business as well until you can quit

[score=6] Julia_dlt

Hi! I believe there are quite a few red flags here that you should analyse. First of all, you mention that customers leave quickly and are not happy spending money on your services. Well, you need to check what's happening there. Are you offering a bad service? Are you unclear when negotiating the contract and then customers have expectations that you cannot meet? Second, you have started without a clear idea of what you were doing, only because an opportunity arose... and while it's a way to start, why not, at some point you need to think a bit about what makes you different than others, what is your main strenght, how you can sell it, etc... I believe those are two key points you need to analyse carefully. And then, of course, you need to think about the alternative: is your profile sought in the labour market? What are your current options if you decide to become an employee again? The value of the "employee option" is also key when you need to decide whether you keep your project going or not. Good luck! Julia

[score=6] [deleted]

[removed]

[score=3] trachtmanconsulting

Except for marketing what are your expenses? You are freelancing as tech support, after all. Margins should be super high

[score=3] Security-Arts

Doesn’t sound like failure tbh. You got to 100-150k in a tough market with no sales background - that’s real. The issue feels more like the model (low-ticket, high-effort clients), not you. Also, the fact it still runs at around 15h/week says a lot. Honestly, I’d either: - switch to fewer, higher-value clients; - or get a stable job for now and keep this on the side. You’re not at zero - just stuck in a model that’s draining you.