Dev

Found a fun one in mine while chasing exactly this: the signup conversion event fired on form submit rather than on successful account creation, so every failed signup - taken email, weak password, validation error - counted as a conversion. My analytics conversion count was about 20% higher than my users table for a completely mundane reason. Worth checking where your event actually fires before you go looking for anything clever.

Prep everything the night before, and I mean everything, because you will not be thinking clearly. Gallery images exported and checked at small sizes, your first maker comment written and edited in a text file ready to paste, tagline under the character limit, and - this is the one that got me - actually click through your own pricing page and signup on a phone. Mine 404'd on mobile for the first ninety minutes of the busiest traffic day the site ever had.

What changed my results most: stop finishing mixes. Get it to 90% and print it, then open it fresh the next morning and spend 20 minutes fixing what you hear in the first two minutes. Your first impression on a new day is the most honest feedback you will ever get on your own mix, and it's free.

I bought a refurbished machine specifically so this question would have a boring answer. Around a hundred and eighty for a three generation old business laptop, and it runs the editor and a browser fine because that is all the project needs.

Compare that to one consultation with an employment solicitor, which around here starts at roughly the same number for half an hour, and it is not really a decision. Tether it to your phone rather than the office wifi and the separation is complete for the price of a weekend.

A backup you have never restored is a folder of files with an optimistic name. Restore one into a scratch database, write the date in a text file, do it again in three months.

Duvet in front, panels behind the singer, and it's already a different vocal. The 400Hz thing is maybe a third of what it was.

Tried it out of curiosity. Less boxy, but a weird nasal thing instead. Might be my wardrobe.

Going to be blunt: take the money and stop agonising. At 30 customers you are not defending a roadmap, you are defending an idea of yourself as a product company.

2,000 is real, the relationship is real, and a customer who pays for work is a customer who stays. The mistake people make is not doing bespoke work, it is doing it for free as a favour, or doing it without saying it is bespoke and then supporting it like a core feature forever.

Charge, deliver, be clear about what it is.

Did a version of this last spring and the part I did not anticipate was the feature requests. Lifetime buyers ask for roadmap items with a directness that monthly customers do not, and because they were your first ten they genuinely were there at the start, so saying no feels rude. I would cap it at five, not ten, purely so the group stays small enough to say no to.

By ear is fine, just turn the reference down until it feels the same weight. Any level-matching plugin does it more precisely if you want, but the point is not being fooled by the louder one sounding better.

Get one reference track you know extremely well, in the same genre, and A/B against it at matched loudness while you mix. It won't fix your room but it will tell you immediately that your kick is 6dB hot or your hats are miles too loud, because the reference is being coloured by the same room as your mix.

Get closer first. At 15cm instead of 30cm you need 6dB less gain for the same level, and the noise floor drops with it. Broadcast dynamics are designed to be spoken into from very close range and it also gets rid of a lot of room.

Moved to a merchant of record last year, here is what visibly changed for customers, because I had not thought about most of it beforehand.

The seller on the receipt is the platform, not me, with their entity name and address. Their name shows on the card statement, which generated a few what is this emails in month one until I added a line about it in the welcome email. Refunds go through them so I lost the ability to just click refund in my own dashboard. Invoices got better - they generate proper ones with tax breakdown and a VAT number field the customer can fill in themselves, which killed a whole category of support requests.

On balance a clear win at my size, but it is a real change to the customer relationship rather than a plumbing swap.

The payout conversion is exactly the part I was not counting because it never shows up as a fee. It shows up as a slightly disappointing number in my bank.

Mild disagreement on order: if your speakers are close to the front wall and you can't move them, that reflection is a real audible comb filter and one thick panel behind each monitor helps immediately. I'd do two corner traps and two front panels rather than all four in corners. Compromise, but it's a small room and you'll hear both.