Solo developer interview: Ryan Masuga

June 08, 2008 | Posted in Interviews by Geof Harries

This is the third in a series of five interviews - first was Matt Brett and second was Lea Alcantara - with individuals who have started and are managing successful businesses on their own. In this interview, I speak to Ryan Masuga of Masuga Design, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

When and how was your business started?

I started Masuga Design in April 2006. I was working as a designer/builder for a web development company and was doing a lot of freelance on the side. The company decided to institute a disclosure policy for all outside work, and that was the catalyst I needed.

I respectfully declined and decided to do my own thing. I think I had two or three clients of my own at the time and no business plan whatsoever. Looking back, that was sort of crazy.

Are the services you provided at the onset the same as you offer now?

At the start I leaned more towards design (the Photoshop user-interface supply-client-with-mockups part of things), and I would hack and modify WordPress to be a CMS. I knew CSS/HTML well, and had just got my feet wet with Ruby on Rails and that whole thing, but I had no focus. I hadn’t standardized anything.

That all changed when I found ExpressionEngine (EE) in mid-2006. I literally had the features page open in front of me and was promising the world to a prospective client, although I had never actually used the software. I won the job, and learned how to use EE as I built the site. Fortunately for me, I was able to deliver on all those promises.

Recently I arrived at using jQuery as my standard JavaScript library. Now 100% of my work is EE-related in some way, and I always use jQuery when I need JavaScript. These days I’m much more into development than design, and I love the problem solving involved in getting a site to work.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of running a company by yourself?

I’ve read The E-Myth Revisited and it describes my situation perfectly.

I now know that going into business to do what I like to do means I’m going to spend a lot less time doing what I like to do and more time doing everything else. That’s the definite disadvantage: you have to do everything yourself because there is no alternative. This is a problem I’m currently trying to solve.

The only real advantage I can think of, and it is significant, is that I have final say on everything, which satisfies my desire to control what’s going on.

Is your office based from home or do you work at another location?

I started out in the house, and was in the spare bedroom for a year. I then got an office outside the house, which sort of legitimized the business for me. I think I was able to focus more by having somewhere to go every day. I recently moved into a second, slightly bigger office in the anticipation of a little growth.

It’s hard for me to think of having an employee and having to put them at, say, the dining room table, so I think for me an office is a good thing to have.

My office is only two miles from my house, so some days I work from home, some days I ride my bike or drive to the office, and some days I go half and half.

Is the addition of other full-time, on-site employees in your future or do you plan to remain solo?

I think on-site employees are inevitable for me, and it’s just a matter of when. I do want to remain small, whatever that means. Whatever size you can be and still refer to yourself as a studio. I like the idea of being solo, but after two years in practice I’m finding it’s just too much.

Do you outsource any portion of your projects to contractors or handle everything yourself?

I’m a control freak who has serious trouble delegating; right now I’m handling almost everything I need to do on a project myself. I’ve outsourced in the past but have almost universally been disappointed in what I’ve gotten back.

I am very picky and incredibly anal when it comes to how I do certain things, so that makes it difficult to give out work to people who don’t necessarily have a vested interest in my company, but rather an interest in a check.

I’ve given out and paid for entire multi-template builds, which I then rebuilt from the ground up, all the while wondering what in the world that person was thinking. Then I had to wonder, is it their fault for not being knowledgeable enough or is it my fault for poor communication?

I don’t think those situations would happen if I was delegating work to someone on-site, as I’d be able to check work as things go on.

What are some important business lessons you’ve learned over the years?

- Say no often. If you don’t clearly define who you are and what you do, you’re probably not much of anything. I won’t design your logo. I won’t do any print material. I won’t work with Drupal or Joomla. I won’t do a church site or a poker site. Those are just some things I know about myself. These days I turn down almost everything and I’m still busy enough; there will always be work. There may be feast and famine periods, but there will always be work.

- Find balance. Do not let your job take over your life. I’m sure no one goes into business for themselves to work 80 hours a week, stop working out, eat poorly, get too little sleep or spend less time with their family. I know I didn’t sign up for that. Unfortunately, this has been the hardest lesson for me to learn. An office outside the house has helped this somewhat by separating work and home.

- Don’t sell yourself short. Your pool of knowledge is valuable. All those hours spent Googling things, making mistakes, trying different software, or voraciously reading forum posts to arrive at what you know is worth something. If you’re way too busy, you might be way too cheap. Unless you’re only in this for your health, you have got to make a profit!