The Pricing Problem: Pricing For The Business You Actually Want

About this episode

In this episode, Sheena discusses backward pricing as a method to set prices based on business goals rather than arbitrary numbers.

Most founders build pricing the wrong way around. They pick a number, find clients at that number, and let the business become whatever the math adds up to. Pricing ends up designing the business by accident — instead of pricing being a deliberate decision in service of a clear goal. In this episode, Sheena flips that pattern with a method she calls backward pricing. It starts with the destination — the business and the life you’re actually building — and works back through your real capacity, your true cost of delivery, and the margin you want. The result isn’t a guess based on what other people are charging. It’s a number that’s built to get you somewhere specific. The episode breaks down backward pricing in four layers — a fully loaded revenue target, a deliberate capacity guardrail so you don’t become the bottleneck again, your true cost of delivering each engagement, and the arithmetic that turns those into the price each engagement must carry. Sheena closes with a note on pricing models, because pricing by package or outcome — rather than by the hour — stops punishing you for getting faster and more skilled at your work. Done honestly, backward pricing tends to reveal that…

People in this episode

Guest: Sheena

Topics covered

• pricing strategy
• entrepreneurship
• business development
• backward pricing
• revenue targets

Keywords

• pricing problem
• business goals
• cost of delivery
• margin
• pricing models

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