Sharing our financials
It's the end of the tax year in the UK, so it's time to share how much money we have made with the world.
Yes, you read that right. It's the end of the tax year in the UK, so it's time to share how much money we have made with the world.
Helpful context before we dive in
Before we dive into our financials, there's some helpful context you'll need.
Cluster Consulting was incorporated on 19th January 2021 - We want to make it clear that it doesn't mean we started earning any money then, that's just the date we filed our paperwork with Companies House in the UK.
Our Accountant uses Free Agent, an online accounting tool which we find easy to use, even with our limited experiences with it. We are publishing a detailed piece on that in the coming weeks, so make sure you're following along to get the latest we're up to - just hit the blue Subscribe button on the bottom.
Finally, we don't believe there's a relationship between earning money and making a positive impact. We've been asked about this topic a lot, so we're responding to that.
Why share our business financials?
We believe it's possible to build a business whilst being completely transparent about everything you're legally allowed to share. We believe this so strongly that we've set Cluster Consulting up in this way, complete openness and transparency both inside the company and outside into the wider world.
We aren't sharing this as a humble brag or an ego boost. We will be sharing the good times and the bad in equal measure in an attempt to prove our hypothesis that it's possible to create a successful business whilst being radically open and transparent.
Time and time again we've seen companies attempting to get away with the shadiest of dealings through obfuscating their practices, negating the whole truth, and investing heavily in positive PR pieces to cover their tracks. We believe these behaviours to be abhorrent and have created Cluster Consulting to provide a blueprint of success for a truly modern company.
Being open and transparent takes courage, dedication, and a big leap of faith - Let's jump.
How much have we made?
Here it is, we are taking a leap of faith and sharing how much money Cluster Consulting has made by the end of this financial tax year. To reiterate, we are not sharing this as a humble brag or a 'we are better than you' situation. We are big believers in radical transparency and this is the first big step in proving that we are. Sharing our financials helps demystify it for others who might be interested in starting their own business too, which is awesome.
We reviewed a bunch of business accounts available to small and medium businesses in the UK and settled on Monzo's business account. There's a blog post and video coming soon on the breakdown of the accounts we reviewed so make sure you're subscribed for that by clicking the blue subscribe button on the bottom right side of this page.
The drop at the end of the graph is due to paying ourselves a yearly dividend, returning the setup expenses which were paid out of pocket, and paying back a small loan we gave the business back in March to tie us over before getting paid from the first client. If you're interested in hearing what our company start up expenses were, let us know and we'll happily spill the beans.
How do we make money today
We coined the three clusters approach. For those new to the three clusters approach, it's a mini-framework which outlines every possible programme of work (and it's pretty short and sweet too). The three clusters are:
- Understanding a problem
- Attempting to remedy a problem
- Getting people to adopt the solution
There's a fantastic breakdown of these three clusters with examples from SaaSy Sandra, Financial Fred, and Government Gary here.
Cluster Consulting has one active project at the moment with their first client, because maths is cool let's call this P1 for project one and C1 for client one - The distinction is necessary as there's the opportunity for multiple projects with the same client over time. C1 P1 is going really well and has a couple of weeks left on the contract.
We always on the lookout for the most interesting problems to solve across the three clusters, so give us a shout out if you'd like to talk.
How will this change over time?
We started Cluster Consulting because we wanted to solve hard and interesting problems across the three clusters. This is what motivates us and it's unlikely to change. However, the way in which we execute against this vision may change as we grow, learn and evolve as a company.
There's a number of reasons why some people or companies are unable to pay consulting rate cards, but we also live in a society where money is paid for time and every person only has 24 hours in a day. This may be a problem we will never be able to solve, however we think there's an opportunity to build a few online courses which can be served to an uncapped number of interested people at an affordable rate helping to open up the playing field. Given we're radically transparent, we'll be sharing our progress with subscribers.
We also still want to be helping folks solve their problems across the three clusters, so we'll continue to build our main business around that. If you're new to the three clusters concept, there's a whole blog post about that here where you'll learn about SaaSy Sandra, Financial Fred and Government Gary.
💡 What next?
If you enjoyed this content, you'll love what we're doing here at Cluster Consulting.
Follow along to get the latest we're up to - just hit the blue Subscribe button on the bottom right.
👋 Contact us
Use whichever method is best for you to get in touch and say hello:
- Email (Jessica[at]ClusterConsulting[dot]com - Sorry, it's written like this to stop the bots)
