This is the third open financial report of my business as an independent creator and consultant. A bit later than usual, the Corona lockdown has taken a toll on the amount of time I can spend in front of a computer.
Birds-eye view
Let’s start with the summary first and do a break-down further down this post. If all you care about is “how much money is Mattias making", you can probably stop looking after the first table.
My income comes from 4 main sources: DNS Spy, Oh Dear!, consultancy and cron.weekly advertising.
| Total revenue | Total costs | Net profit | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| €5,683.40 | €1,923.00 | €3,760.40 | +97% |
These numbers don’t mean much in and of themselves, so let’s dive in.
Business costs
Overall, most money was spent on:
- Social security, healthcare & pension plan
- Digital Ocean server equipment
- Internet, cell phone subscription, electricity & gas for my home office
This was a quiet period with little to no special costs: €1,631.00.
Oh Dear
Oh Dear! is the monitoring SaaS that Freek & I are building. We employ a 30/35/35 rule for our revenue: 30% of our revenue gets re-invested in the company (advertising, art designs, external freelancers, …), 35% goes to Freek, 35% goes to me.
| Type | Amount | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| Total revenue (VAT excluded) | €7,392.82 | +33,5% |
| Costs | €750.00 | +50% |
| 30% to marketing/investment | €2,217.60 | +46,8% |
| 35% to Freek/Me | €2,587.20 | +46,7% |
We had an exceptionally good month for Oh Dear, but the main reason were a few big yearly subscriptions that got purchased (worth more than €2,000.00). These don’t renew next month, so while I’m happy with the spike in revenue in March, I’m anticipating a (relative) drop in April because of this.
Note: costs are averaged and rounded to the upside, to keep budget available for sudden spikes in activity (aka: more server capacity needed).
DNS Spy
DNS Spy is a much simpler product than Oh Dear. It has less features and only focusses on DNS, a much more narrow use case. As a result, its proceeds are also lower.
DNS Spy is owned and operated by me, so all profits flow to me directly.
| Type | Amount | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| Total revenue (VAT excluded) | €896.20 | -41% |
| Costs | €153.00 | +61% |
| Total profit | €743.20 | -48% |
In february, I was able to realise a +36% growth for DNS Spy. A Hacker News post had brought in several new clients.
There were a lot less new clients in March, and the dramatic drop by -41% is the direct result of it.
(For DNS Spy, it’s common to see users take on yearly subscriptions instead of a low monthly renewal.)
Consultancy
I didn’t take any consultancy assignments in March.
cron.weekly
The sponsorship schedule for the weekly newsletter is coming along nicely.
| Type | Amount | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| Total revenue (VAT excluded) | €2200.00 | +700% |
| Newsletter costs | €139.00 | +95% |
| Total profit | €2,061.00 | +910% |
For the next few months, this revenue will continue to be stable. Sponsorship slots are booked (and payed for) until mid-May.
Summary
To summarize, here’s the revenue and costs per income stream.
| Revenue | Costs | Profit | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oh Dear! | €2,587.20 | - | €2,587.20 |
| DNS Spy | €896.20 | -€153.00 | €743.20 |
| Consultancy | €0.00 | - | €0.00 |
| cron.weekly | €2200.00 | -€139.00 | €2,061.00 |
| Business costs | -€1,631.00 | - €1,631.00 | |
| Total profit | €3,760.40 |
Gross revenue of €5,683.4, which adds €3,760.40 net profit to the bank.
Net results
Things are looking good, so it’s time to take my salary out of minimum wage territory.
From now on, I’m paying myself a net salary of €1,825.00.
This marks a pretty big turning point for me, because it now means I no longer have to touch our savings account any more! 🥳
Extra note: because I now own a business, I get to (partially) pay things like my home office internet, electricity, heating, … with pre-tax revenue. This allows me to receive a lower-than-before salary while keeping the same standard of living.
Hours worked vs Money made
I received an interesting question on Twitter as feedback of earlier reports: how much time did I spend working to get that revenue?
This leads me to an interesting statistic I want to keep track of: what am I worth per hour?
Corona was already impacting available working time in March. It comes down to:
- Hours worked per week: 15h (~60h in the month)
- Gross revenue: €5,683.4
- Hourly revenue: €94.72
By working less, I’m actually pushing my hourly revenue up.