jonnyrockit

The internet is a strange place. When we (3 of us) started out with our little service business, we had the idea of taking the service model and attempting to productize it by providing a fixed price and benefits. We wanted to make it completely transparent and do our best to provide a safe after sales process.

Our site: http://machinerepublic.com

Unfortunately, it has not worked out that way and we're really hoping to figure out a better, more unique angle to selling custom development services like this. We are not freelancers and don't want to take that approach, we do great work as a small team. Are our prices too high?

I know that search engines require us to be blogging and generating tons of content, but is that really where a small team like ours should be spending its time?

What has not worked for us:

- Social media advertising (Twitter, Facebook) - PPC - Submission to inspirational galleries

Our site gets about 1800 uniques a month, but clearly not from the right kind of people.

What's worked for you? Any help on this topic will be hugely appreciated.

Is it possible to create a version of one of the popular open source licenses that could prohibit use by government institutions?

I ask because I noticed that some of the devices created by the NSA in the catalog are built on Linux and some other open source tech.

http://leaksource.wordpress.com/2013/12/30/nsas-ant-division-catalog-of-exploits-for-nearly-every-major-software-hardware-firmware/