Hi. Here's what you can do:
- Start a company and build product for enterprise. The amount you get paid as a company vs. as an individual is not even comparable.
- Learn to sell more, or hire someone who can, and then learn to sell. Someone who can ask for a price you would never ask without blushing, blinking, sweating. Most engineers I've seen have a problem with sales and you don't know what's valuable for clients. I was in meetings where the client ignored features we spent weeks on, and was amazed by a feature we implemented in a day. One colleague engineer who tagged along was just amazed: "From all the features, they loved that?". Sometimes the amount of engineering you spend on something and the value it has to someone are two independent variables.
- Get an attorney who'll draw your contracts and make sure your company doesn't get abused. Clauses to protect you. To make sure you get compensated for the opportunity cost of an exclusivity contract, and to make it constrained in space, time, and limited to some entities. Obviously never sign something before they read it. The contracts you're handed were probably written by people from a legal department, so it's good to run it through someone cut from the same cloth.
- Amicable relations. Always deliver. Build a reputation. Repeat customers are a thing. Recommendations are definitely a thing. This can be very profitable.
- Network. The energy it takes is considerable. To be able to positively pitch your services, build relations, follow up on enquiries, spread good vibes... Build relations, build trust... And sometimes, sometimes, you might have to do a solid to a relation in a large enterprise to get in, but when you get in, you get in. Again, this can be profitable.
- For hiring, surround yourself with people you can learn from, who can complement you. Your objective is to grow the company.
- After servicing many customers, you'll learn patterns. You can sell a product many times over.
I'm excited for you. All the best!