Software and tech has been one of the best industries to get into for a high salary. Making 500k/year as a total compensation (base salary + equity) is fairly common.

I started my 1-person web development agency back in 2017 as a way to make money as a scrappy startup founder.

Two years later, I was making twice as much as when I was a full-time software developer, and more than I ever did from my startups.

Four years later, I helped dozens of rising technology companies grow and build products, making 500k/year all while working no more than 40h/week on average.

But my story of landing one of my biggest client came rather unexpectedly - in fact after they ghosted me.

I’m active in various developer communities to build relationships, answer questions, help people build. I do this so I can ask them what project they’re working on - if they’re working at a company, I try to turn them into my internal champion when I’m selling my service to them.

I connected with a CTO of a startup on one of these communities and learned that they had a position to fill. I sent them my resume and applied to the relevant job. I went on a couple of video calls with the team and walked them through some source code I had from a previous project.

Everything seemd fine and received great feedback.

I followed up with an email with my availabilities - they promptly ghosted me.

I thought I did everything right:

I still got ghosted.

My experience so far told me to wait, before reaching out again.

I waited three and half month before reaching out with a simple summary of where we last left off, updated them on what new services I offered and told them that I’m available.

I ended up getting a response on the same day, and restarted the conversation.

That project became a two and half year long contract, I billed them about $400k in total - one of my best contracts to date. It became my anchor project and helped me take my agency to the next level. I took a few smaller project-based contracts on the side and easily took me to $300k/y range. I helped them build an app from the ground up in the first year and expanded another project during the second year. I’m still in touch with the CTO, still hang out with their employees in a shared Slack channel, and just learned that they went from 12 people when I joined to over 50 people currently.

Definitely one of my biggest successes so far.

So, to summarize if you want to make 500k/year as 1-person software development agency: