[HN Gopher] How to start a successful freelance business as a so...
___________________________________________________________________
How to start a successful freelance business as a software
developer (2017)
Author : vincent_s
Score : 183 points
Date : 2022-01-10 09:06 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nickjanetakis.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nickjanetakis.com)
| [deleted]
| jackconsidine wrote:
| I started a freelancing business in 2017 that ultimately involved
| me freelancing and cutting my teeth. Stuck with it and after a
| long struggle finally broke through. Some things I've learned:
|
| - Passive marketing just won't work early on. That means spending
| time on your website, buying Google Ads etc will likely only be
| dead-ends until you've established yourself. (The exception might
| be writing niche content about some industry if you happen to
| know one well).
|
| - I've used all of the freelancing platforms- Toptal, Upwork etc.
| You can make good money but you probably won't grow your
| business. Your objective if you're trying to grow a business is
| to scale up, and these platforms mandate that you're the one who
| has to do the work. I know there are Upwork firms, but I think
| they're worthless. Oh and Thumbtack is a scam.
|
| - The Meetup angle didn't necessarily work for me, but I've
| learned that going to non-developer meetups are more fruitful, if
| you're willing to learn about an industry.
|
| - The low hanging fruit in 2022 for finding clients is probably
| investing 15 minutes a day into building a Linkedin network
| (trivial and you don't need to pick up a phone :)). That means
| growing your connections, and learning to search for people
| looking for a developer for X, Y, Z, filtering out full-time
| hires etc.
|
| - Actually the lowest hanging fruit is referral business, so when
| you get your first clients do a great job and send them emails
| every few months reminding them to put you in touch with anyone
| they know.
|
| - When a client asks you to do something extra always say no.
| Always. If they're a great client, do something extra that they
| didn't ask for. This sounds insane, but the second you do submit
| to doing an extra request, a client will subconsciously discount
| your work and time and take it for granted. It almost never wins
| kudos, almost always wins more requests. I've seen this happen
| 35+ times. When you do something they didn't ask for, they tend
| to be more appreciative and touched.
|
| - The following are essential business processes you should set
| up if you want to grow: task management (Github issues for me,
| make sure to adopt a task format with predictable attributes
| whatever you use), communication (Slack, invite my clients to a
| dedicated channel), CRM (I use Hubspot which is free for just
| CRM), and a project cycle.
|
| - By project cycle I mean a contract where you're _cash-flow
| positive_ , i.e. charge hourly deposits up front as much as
| possible, as well as defined expectations. What happens when the
| project finishes? How do you prevent scope creep?
|
| - PayPal invoices are nice but they were my biggest expense, 3%
| of my revenue! Do ACH if possible, or Wire Transfer if the fixed
| fee is less than the PayPal cost. I even set up a consulting
| business for invoicing just because this is such a big issue [1].
| But don't optimize this until it's worthwhile.
|
| Feel free to get in touch if anyone needs any help getting
| established. My email is my HN username +3@gmail.com
|
| [1] https://receivable.dev
| a_c wrote:
| Actually at what point does one become not freelance but a
| studio? I find people/company treat you at a spectrum of
| seriousness, payment dueness in particular, between "freelance"
| and studio. Is it a business registration, team size, or
| mentality? Otherwise I would suggest not to use the term
| freelance but to start your own studio house instead.
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| Part of this is in the way you present - do you have a business
| structure, do you use all the right terminology and language? I
| personally say I am a small business and rely on the funds
| coming in, and cannot afford to loan money to a large business
| then get into a position where a large amount of money is
| outstanding. The payment terms are part of my negotiation
| before I sign the contract, and go on the contract. This
| includes politely informing that I stop work if the owed
| balance gets to the size I specify, typically two weeks
| fulltime.
|
| Having got agreement at the executive level, it often gets
| tried on anyway, but the very first day it's late I start
| letting people know, and consuming their time, and reiterating
| reasons why its setup to pay. I follow the chain of people to
| get actual contact to the accounts paying person and build a
| personal relationship with them, as an individual they have a
| commitment to paying rather than just another bill on the
| stack. An individual who will ring them for a person plea, plus
| consume their time, if they don't pay as agreed.
|
| This reminds them it's an issue and that my work continuing
| relies on them paying, as they agreed. I do this politely, but
| clearly, and conscientiously. I find this significantly
| increases my chances of getting paid properly.
|
| The critical time for this is when the first, and perhaps
| second bills are paid. Once they are trained that yours is a
| bill to to pay without games, it tends to become smooth
| sailing.
|
| Also, in the case where it is delayed - stop working. This is
| critical. If you work when they are not paying as agreed you're
| undermining your main leverage and will possibly have big
| problems.
|
| Be polite, always, yet clear and firm about the agreements
| made, and be ready to walk away and find new work if necessary.
| Usually late payments will be resolved in days to a week and if
| it's taking longer then put your effort to finding new work.
| jcadam wrote:
| This seems like a good idea. Present yourself as a business,
| and don't make it obvious you're a one man show (I'm not saying
| lie, I'm just saying watch how you present yourself).
| pknerd wrote:
| I have done freelancing for many years but I prefer FT job over
| it. The reason is piece of mind. You don't have to worry about
| your financials. Running a business or SAAS business is also
| better
| jaggederest wrote:
| As the article alludes, but maybe doesn't state clearly enough,
| the most important and only thing that really matters when
| operating independently is the ability to get and retain clients.
| If you cannot do this, no amount of skill in other areas matters,
| and if you can do this, skill in other areas is probably helpful
| but not critical.
|
| Anything you do that does not directly lead to getting a new
| client, or getting an existing client to sign up for more work,
| is wasted effort. Obviously you need to fulfill your obligations
| to clients (falls under the latter).
|
| I always joke when I am freelancing that actually doing the job
| is 50% of my time, and the other 90% of my time is sales,
| marketing, and business development.
| andi999 wrote:
| While I agree to an extend, also the quality of the 50% (the
| work) helps (or hinders) to get more work.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Apologies for the threadjacking but I think I did a better job
| writing this up a decade ago.
|
| https://jacquesmattheij.com/be-consultant/
| MrJagil wrote:
| This is generally good advice, but there is a caveat to the point
| about networking: it dilutes you. _selling out_ is a real thing,
| I 've found, and the more you care about others and their whims
| the less of yourself will be left in the work. This is fine if
| you work in marketing, for example, where your job is to sell
| someone or something else, but if you're a product person, be
| careful.
|
| If you are a product person, i recommend slowing down, think
| about stuff and dedicate yourself to the parts of your work and
| the relationships you find meaningful. It pays less, at least in
| the short term, but it is quite nice to feel true to yourself.
| shubb wrote:
| To share a failure - back in 2015, I tried to set up as a
| freelancer and ended up going back to perm/employed work about a
| year later.
|
| Between subcontracting from established freelancer friends and
| reaching out to my network I was able to get a few projects, and
| things were progressing nicely but then my biggest single client
| had some internal issues and basically didn't pay me for 6
| months.
|
| My financial situation going into freelancing was not good - I
| had some debt going in, and then put some incidental expenses
| like visiting a customer's city and staying in a (cheap and
| amazingly nasty) hotel for a few weeks on a credit card. The gap
| between invoicing the work and getting paid was too much and I
| realised I needed reliable cash flow.
|
| They say the main reason businesses fail is lack of capital.
| Turns out starting a business with negative capital is hard. Too
| hard for me.
| wila wrote:
| The moment a customer does not pay a bill within the specified
| terms is the moment you must stop working for them.
|
| This also means that you must invoice regularly.
|
| Learned that the hard way.
| r_hoods_ghost wrote:
| Yep. Also late fees. I do net 30 with statutory interest (8%
| plus base rate) which is the maximum on UK B2B invoices. Acts
| as a nice encouragement and bumps you to the top of the
| payment pile.
| itisit wrote:
| I bill NET 15 to protect myself, and it's served me well. A
| fair number of potential clients balk, preferring their usual
| NET 30 (or even longer), and if they don't come around, I
| wish them well and walk away from the opportunity.
|
| If funds aren't in my account on the scheduled date (it's
| printed clearly on invoices), all work (even a tiny commit or
| Slack message) is suspended for the client. Thankfully this
| doesn't happen often, and when it does, the client almost
| always gets with the program thereafter. After two late
| payments (it's in my contract), I can terminate the
| engagement as-is, that's to say no wrap-up work of any kind.
|
| This all helps to keep me paid, and just as importantly,
| improves the quality of my clients.
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| This is effectively what I do too, and it seems to work for
| me as well.
| indymike wrote:
| >The moment a customer does not pay a bill within the
| specified terms is the moment you must stop working for them.
|
| Be reasonable and communicate. I've had clients tell me in
| advance they'd be late and had mega corps tell me they are
| holding all payments until next quarter. . This is really
| where you have to live with your client being slow pay. When
| things go sideways, sometimes the right call is to get your
| work in per the deadline so that when you do end up in court,
| the whole amount of the bill can be collected, not just the
| part you turned in.
|
| The big thing is communicate and be reasonable. I've also had
| clients where I've been able to ask for an advance (and got
| it) or ask for them to pay earlier. Being flexible set that
| up (i.e. you were slow last quarter... any chance we can
| speed up the next milestone payment?)
|
| >This also means that you must invoice regularly.
|
| #1 mistake that most freelancers make is not billing or
| waiting until "it's worth doing". Have a great system for
| tracking your hours and deliverables and billing them, as
| that is all you'll usually need to win any billing dispute.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| I abandoned freelancing/moonlighting over collection issues.
| Including one client that I was basically 40 hours a week who
| didn't pay for six months, just like OP.
|
| If I ever start again, I hope to be more diligent.
|
| Always worth watching: https://vimeo.com/22053820 featured on
| Reddit's /u/freelancing, poetic symbolic title F*ck You, Pay
| Me.
|
| If you are freelancing, watch it once a week.
| mgraupner wrote:
| Did you continue to work for this client during these 6 months
| not getting paid?
| shubb wrote:
| No, basically I delivered an app, but the engineer on their
| side got fired so the back end didn't get done. They didn't
| want to pay me until they rehired and finished the backend so
| they could see the app working.
| rvanlaar wrote:
| This won't help you, to other freelancers in the same
| situation, there is this amazing video by Mike Monteiro,
| titled F*ck You, Pay Me [1]
|
| He has an example where the same thing happened, an entire
| department got laid off.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U
| JJMcJ wrote:
| I mentioned this video also, the six month delay is due
| to one of the classic excuses he mentions.
| bbarnett wrote:
| This is what small claims court is for.
|
| In most places, no lawyers are allowed, and no discovery.
| Filing is cheap typically.
|
| Discovery is vital to keep nonsense costs down.
|
| If anyone is thinking of going into consulting:
|
| - simple, plainly worded contracts with pay schedules are
| important
|
| - check your local small claims court, focus on if lawyers
| are allowed, if discovery is allowed
|
| - find out what your local demand letter laws are like. A
| demand letter may be required prior to small claims court.
| lowercased wrote:
| Small claims court in most areas has a max cap of dollar
| amount. Someone owed me $8k. Small claims maxes out at
| $5k.
|
| IN RETROSPECT... I could possibly have taken them to
| small claims twice, over two unpaid invoices - each
| around $4k. That would have kept me under the limit, and
| possibly sped everything up a lot.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Even dragging them into court for part recovery, is a
| victory.
|
| Also, if it is a larger corp, even 50 people, small
| claims court means you are expending far less energy, and
| funds, than they do.
|
| A corp of even 50 will probably hire a lawyer for advice,
| and to prep the case, even though the lawyer cannot be in
| court. The lawyer may try to hound you, trying to pretend
| they can compel discovery (again check local small claims
| laws here!)
|
| Many small claims courts don't even allow recovery costs.
| Meaning, they just spent $20k, and pulled half a dozen
| employees into repeated discussions, you spent $100 on
| filing, and some of your time.
|
| I have so little sympathy for miscreants who have no
| valid reason to pay, other than the one cited above.
| Pfft. Need to test it, will take half a year.
|
| Come on! Their incompetence is not a valid reason to
| place an account in arrears.
|
| I work, you pay, that's that.
|
| (No anger here at all!)
|
| So drag them into small claims, and watch them waste
| multiples of what they would have originally paid.
| sdze wrote:
| Factoring companies could be a solution for that.
|
| They pre-approve the bill / contract and pay you (minus a fee)
| and deal with your client themselves.
| wrnr wrote:
| Sounds like you had terrible clients. Stuff like this seems to
| be very common, I had simular problems. The hardest part is to
| be relentless and judge bad people was wanting and move on to
| better things.
| mcv wrote:
| It helps to have a financial buffer. When I started freelancing
| in 2012, I could do so while keeping the unemployment benefits
| I got for getting fired in the bankruptcy of my last employer
| (they survived and actually had a healthy business, but they'd
| made some poor financial decisions driven by a bug in their
| home-made accounting system). I ended up not really going
| anywhere that first year, got a few minor gigs, but after a
| year I got approached by a recruiter for a bigger client, and
| that took off. I've been doing half-year to year-and-a-half
| projects for various large client, including a railway company
| and 4 banks.
|
| But I rely a lot on recruiters finding me on LinkedIn. I hate
| LinkedIn with its dark patterns, but it's where 90% of my work
| comes from, so I don't complain too hard.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| To quote Ray, this is through US colored glasses advice. How
| would a developer from, let's say, Middle East find good clients?
| If they only walk and take down notes of business in their area,
| they will only get jobs that pays according to local wages, none
| of them would be even $25/h let alone the dream of $150/h like US
| freelancers.
|
| Yeah, Upwork will "mandate that you keep an app running that
| randomly takes screenshots of your desktop" but for me, an East
| European freelancer, was the only way to find clients from
| US/Canada with which I developed long term relationship.
|
| Perhaps instead of fully vilifying platforms with "Beware of
| Freelance Platforms, They Are Evil", the author might want to
| walk a mile in our, less fortunate ones from shitty countries,
| shoes. My 2 cents.
| [deleted]
| KronisLV wrote:
| Eastern European dev here too, chiming in to confirm the
| validity of this argument in my experience.
|
| > Upwork will "mandate that you keep an app running that
| randomly takes screenshots of your desktop"
|
| Of course, this feels really intrusive and back in the day i
| negotiated fixed price contracts on Upwork with clients, though
| finding good projects on the platform (and not just ones that
| ask you to fix neglected WordPress installs) also took a lot of
| effort.
|
| Nonetheless, when studying in University and before having a
| proper long term job (in this case in a local company due to
| the stability of it and academic requirements to work in a
| credentialed company), it was a nice way to help me get some
| income!
| rl1987 wrote:
| I second that. "Don't go to freelancing platforms, reach out to
| your network and local companies" is only good advice if you
| happen to be in the social/geographical/economical environment
| that has plenty of opportunities. Local market in any of East
| European countries is far smaller than it is on Upwork, Fiverr
| et. al. and is highly unlikely to pay first world rates. One
| may say that freelancing platform encourage race to the bottom
| kind of dynamics. That is true to some degree, but for the most
| part that is a problem only if you are doing commodity work and
| primarily compete on price. There is a relatively obscure sub-
| economy in the world of freelancing platform with people doing
| professional services for professional rates even by the
| standards of the first world.
| alex_suzuki wrote:
| Shameless plug: if you found the article to be relevant for you,
| you might also enjoy my write-up on the same topic. 2019, but
| still relevant. https://blog.classycode.com/going-freelance-as-a-
| software-en...
| tortila wrote:
| I appreciate you sharing this article here, it's very helpful!
| saviomartin wrote:
| Fire writing!
| nickjj wrote:
| Author here, thanks for submitting this.
|
| If anyone has any questions about anything let me know. The post
| is meant to be a getting started guide. Beyond answering
| questions here I'd be happy to follow up with additional posts
| about specific topics if there's interest.
| notreallyserio wrote:
| What would you say your hit rate is on your cold calls, and/or
| what is a realistic hit rate?
| nickjj wrote:
| There's so many deciding factors that go into this. There's
| timing, you, them, the situation, etc.. It could be a
| specific percent today and a different percent 2 weeks from
| now.
|
| I never really payed attention to quantifying these types of
| stats because I think as an individual your sample size is
| going to be too small to get meaningful data out of it. In my
| mind it's always a numbers game where the only thing that
| matters is if I land a gig or not.
|
| I tweak things based on individual calls and kind of use my
| gut to guide me. It's not the most scientific thing but I
| don't think personal sales with a small'ish sample size is
| going to be purely scientific. So much of it is dependent on
| reading the other person in real-time and adjusting as you
| go.
|
| When in doubt honesty and less "hard sale" tactics have
| worked well.
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| You mention getting numbers as you walk around town, what
| kind of rates do you charge if this converts into a gig?
| nickjj wrote:
| It's dependent on the business and project / contract.
|
| Anywhere from $100 to $200 an hour generally but I don't
| always stick to that.
|
| There's a lot of things to think about. For example
| having a relationship with a high value trades person
| (plumber, doctor, lawyer, etc.) has an immense amount of
| long term value. That doesn't mean you need to
| drastically cut your rates, but it's something to think
| about when evaluating how much to charge.
|
| For smaller more common local businesses where it's
| mostly trading time for money (as opposed to raw
| materials), I don't mind cutting rates by a lot because
| it's mutually beneficial for both of us. For example, if
| a haircutter wants a basic site, instead of charging them
| $500 to throw up a WP site in a day I might offer to do
| the site for something substantially less (let's say
| $150).
|
| I won't bring it up directly that I'm cutting them a
| massive deal but if you word it around how you want to
| help a local business and you generally like the person
| they'll often offer you a deal on their end like free
| haircuts for life. To me that's more beneficial than a
| few hundred bucks up front. Not just from a greedy
| position of expecting something better later, but I've
| found having a wider network of friends or contacts
| proves to be useful time and time again.
| kraig911 wrote:
| So I take it your'e still freelancing?
| nickjj wrote:
| Yep.
| bluebit wrote:
| Honestly it couldn't be easier if you have some degree of skill -
| register on Toptal.com and the jobs literally flow in ($70p/h +
| depending on skills) and you don't have to worry about contracts,
| marketing, management, invoices etc - you literally just do the
| work.
| knuthsat wrote:
| This was my experience too. After the initial period where
| recruiters are a bit afraid to give you your first engagement
| everything starts flowing really smooth.
|
| I started at Upwork and was constantly writing proposals and
| struggling with the search to find relevant jobs.
|
| But on Toptal, even after an abrupt end of the contract I get
| something else in less than a week and it's zero effort from me
| and all effort from the Toptal team.
|
| Even if I get bored and want a change, announcing the end of
| contract turns on the avalanche of offers from the Toptal team.
|
| It's just insanely smooth and I had no idea I'd find something
| like that, initially.
| mgraupner wrote:
| Other comment mentions difficult onboarding process at Toptal
| with 3 interviews, is this also your impression?
| vultour wrote:
| It's their whole sales pitch - "hire the top 3% freelance
| talent". You're not getting in through a casual 30 minute
| conversation.
| mgraupner wrote:
| I understand, still would be interested in his
| experience.
| bckygldstn wrote:
| The interview process is onerous more than difficult:
| mostly leetcode style questions that need lots of practice
| for, plus a basic but time-consuming take-home task.
|
| And for me the scheduling was super difficult: the whole
| process took weeks, with the only times available at odd
| hours West Coast US time, and my recruiter flaking and
| rescheduling once.
|
| Beyond some basic level of coding, it's more a test of
| patience and time.
| knuthsat wrote:
| Automatically evaluated leet coding session (2 hours) +
| Live English language check interview (15 mins) + 2 week
| fake template project + Live coding session (30 mins).
|
| I was fortunate enough to pass everything without
| additional attempts and had no job at that time. Some of my
| friends got in after 1 year (after you fail at some step,
| 2nd attempt is delayed), some never managed to complete the
| whole process.
| distances wrote:
| Frankly, Toptal rates are not good enough if you know what
| you're doing / are a senior. They seem to take way too much.
| There are lots of agencies, in Europe at least, that specialize
| in freelancer staffing and take a much lower cut -- depends on
| an agency of course and how transparent they are, but you
| should be able to find one taking 10EUR/h and passing on the
| rest to you.
|
| Even better is to have direct clients but that's then a lot
| more time consuming.
| waylandsmithers wrote:
| Would you mind going into your experiences with Toptal more?
| I've been curious about them but it's hard to tell whether it's
| any different from the other freelance sites.
| bckygldstn wrote:
| Not OP, but I do about 50% of my freelancing though Toptal
| (the rest through my network). I see them as having 2
| advantages over other sites:
|
| 1. Unlike smaller sites and job boards, they have lots of
| work available. Every couple of days something is posted that
| aligns perfectly with my skills.
|
| 2. Unlike odesk/fiverr/elance they pay market rates. Not
| FAANG or CTO or IPO rates, but I charge more on Toptal than I
| ever earned working for Bay Area startups. Plus you get paid
| net 20; they're on the hook for getting paid from the client.
|
| Everything else about Toptal is frustrating: the byzantine
| interview process that's irrelevant to the actual work you
| perform, constant pressure to decrease your rates, the big
| cut they take, legal restrictions on forming relationships
| with clients outside Toptal, staff who won't leave you alone
| during the application process but vanish the second the
| contract is signed.
|
| I wouldn't want to rely solely on them for freelancing. But
| they're great when I have a gap in my schedule: I can fill
| out minimal online applications on Monday, start work by the
| end of the week, money in the bank by the end of the month.
| WolfOliver wrote:
| agree, it is easy if you are a good engineer. I usually work
| with headhunter, they take my CV and arrange interviews with
| customers. From there is just like applying for a normal job.
| Key is to have a good CV and perform in the interviews.
|
| Having a serious side project in your CV helps. For me its
| https://www.monsterwriter.app/
| WolfOliver wrote:
| Addion: I guess what I'm doing is called "contractor".
| Working for one client at a time but for multiple months. For
| me this is more profitable then working for 10 clients at the
| same time. Between the contracts, you also have time to rest
| a litte.
| matsemann wrote:
| Guess it depends on where in the world. But for many, $70 per
| hour wouldn't be that great when all costs are subtracted, down
| time without billing included etc.
| gbuk2013 wrote:
| Hmm, while that's a random number with no specific skills
| attacked, $70ph works out ~PS412pd which is not very high at
| least by London standards compared to getting a contract job as
| a developer.
| BoumTAC wrote:
| What's the things with Toptal ? You need to succeed 3 different
| technical interviews where one is a one week long project and
| if you pass all 3, you are not guarantee to have contracts.
|
| I've heard of people not having contracts after succeeding
| everything.
|
| To me there is no way I will work for one useless algorithm
| exam, one interview with a Toptal engineer and then one week
| long project.
| lfowles wrote:
| > You need to succeed 3 different technical interviews where
| one is a one week long project and if you pass all 3, you are
| not guarantee to have contracts.
|
| Sounds like I might as well be doing regular interviews....
| fer wrote:
| Toptal selection is flawed exactly in the same way many tech
| hiring processes are: they heavily bias against people who
| are busy enough not to be able to fit 1-3 weeks long unpaid
| projects into their schedule. Sure, it weeds out incompetent
| people, but that's not the same as selecting top people.
| legerdemain wrote:
| Has anyone had luck approaching strangers at Meetup.com meetups,
| as the TFA recommends? My experience has been that people mostly
| go to meetups with friends, to talk to their friends, and are
| generally averse to talking to complete strangers without some
| strong pre-existing connection (former classmate, colleague of
| spouse, etc.). I went to a few dozen tech meetups in South Bay
| with nothing really to show for it.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| > _Sure you have to pick up a phone, but if it lands you a $2,000
| deal that requires 10-20 hours of work, then why are you upset?_
|
| Because I have to pick up a phone. Phones are scary.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Why do you feel phones are scary?
| skinkestek wrote:
| Not OP but everything that is not written is scary.
|
| Suddenly you have someone telling you what you told them and
| starts wondering: did I really promise that?
|
| (Written doesn't prevent people from trying that trick, as
| one particulariy brilliant but not very pleasant guy tried to
| tell me: "yes, <my name> that is what you wrote [in the mail]
| but not what you meant." However, in these cases I have a
| written record and I am confindent with myselves and that
| nasty person can bugger off.)
|
| Not saying one should never talk to people on the phone but
| when one are stressed out and stretched out thin it is not
| high on my wishlist.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Depending on your local laws, it might be legal to record
| calls. Do so and then after the call listen to it again and
| take notes - that'll allow you to track what's been said.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| This prompted me to finally look at Australian law on the
| point. It varies by state: some allow you to record if
| you're a party to the conversation, others require
| consent or similar, but all of the latter have an
| exception for if you're protecting the lawful interests
| of one party, which sounds to me like blanket permission
| to record.
|
| Kinda like how snakes are protected in Australia and it's
| illegal to kill them unless you or your family or such
| are in immediate danger from a snake, which basically
| means if you see a snake you can kill it.
| tjbiddle wrote:
| This is pretty easily solved.
|
| "Hey XYZ, it was such a pleasure speaking with you today.
| I'm going to shoot ya an email in a bit just to follow-up
| with everything we discussed. Have a great day!"
|
| Or - if that scares you still - just shoot them an email
| anyway to follow-up and recap without preluding. It gives
| them the opportunity to change/add/whatever in-text, and
| they can't say you said something differently because you
| can point to the email and say - no, we said this (And you
| didn't correct me).
| drran wrote:
| Skip the conversation over phone/skype, and it will work
| even better. Worked fine for me for 20 years (since
| 1998), until Covid, when Zoom become the new norm.
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| What you do is write notes (or use the meeting
| transcription) and after the meeting send the important
| points around in an email as minutes of the meeting.
|
| That way you still have a written record to refer to.
| fsloth wrote:
| I hate phones as well but I've developed myself a ritual
| for alleviating th burden of anxiety-causing calls. Maybe
| this helps someone else as well:
|
| 1. Take pen and paper
|
| 2. Write a brief script how to start the call. Just
| sufficient amount of notes that you have a clear and
| concise agenda
|
| 3. During call take notes
|
| 4. If you don't understand something, repeat for the other
| party what they've said. Not in a way that it can be
| understood you agree with them as this can become a really
| problem with business dicussions, but using phrasing as
| "Can I repeat what you said so I am clear on this.
| According to you..."
|
| 5. At the end of the call, if there are topics that should
| be handled by you or the other party, review what was
| agreed topic by topic.
|
| I generally find people appreciate this structured approach
| in calls. At least it reduces most of the anxiety from my
| part to minimum.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| It's not easy to explain. I have to _talk_ to someone. Maybe
| it's someone I know, someone I talk to every week at church,
| but... this is by phone. It's different. I know I have to
| make a phone call today or tomorrow, but I know I can't ring
| _now_ because he'll be out on the farm, and if I ring _now_
| I'll probably interrupt their evening meal or their family
| Bible readings, and _now_ it's too late, and _now_ he might
| be at work, and... oh. I was supposed to call him the day
| before yesterday. Oops.
|
| I want to drop my car off for a service in Ballarat when I
| head down to Melbourne later this week, but that takes
| _ringing_ them to make a booking. I should have done this in
| the middle of last week, when I planned to go down. All it
| takes is ringing their number, saying "can I book my car in
| for a service, drop off on the 13k or 14k, collection on the
| 15k". For some reason that I can't express, I haven't made
| that phone call, and it's probably too late now. I guess that
| DPF light will just continue flashing for a while longer.
|
| I could go on and on. It's quite ridiculous how much trouble
| I have caused myself (and others, sometimes) just because I
| don't like making phone calls. I've delayed things that would
| benefit me for _years_ in a couple of cases. Receiving phone
| calls isn't my favourite, either. I'm not crash hot with
| email or letters either, but phones and text messages are
| significantly worse.
|
| Phone call quality used to be fairly terrible, and I think
| that helped make it more of an ordeal too. That excuse is
| mostly gone now.
|
| If you don't mind, or like, phones, you might be surprised
| just _how many_ people are quite averse to making phone
| calls, some to the point of hating it with the passion of
| perhaps not a thousand suns, but at least a brown dwarf or
| two. Five or six of my seven siblings are in much the same
| boat as me, and my parents don't _like_ phones either. A
| couple of my siblings, and multiple other people I've talked
| with, find they more or less forget what they were going to
| talk about as soon as the call connects, and so it becomes an
| ordeal where they have to write a detailed list of what they
| want to talk about before dialing, or else their mind is just
| blank.
|
| But there is yet hope for me: I'm setting myself up as the
| local IT guy in my rural area, in significant part to force
| myself to deal with people more. Computers are easy, they do
| what I tell them to do, and I'm even pretty good at telling
| them the right thing to do; but people are what actually
| matter in life. I'm waiting for the return of Jesus and the
| establishment of God's kingdom on earth, and I don't think
| we'll need software then. Well, a bloke rang me yesterday, I
| _answered_ , and today I did my first job, and even got paid
| straight away.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Thank you for the explanation! It makes more sense to me
| now.
| wnolens wrote:
| I was a freelance/contract developer for 2 years, went back to
| full time. And I had a golden ticket (a company had full time
| amount of work avail, I only did and billed for 20h/wk, paid
| every other week).
|
| Now that almost all dev work is going to be remote friendly, The
| only advantage to freelancing that I can see is the flexibility
| to work less than 40 hour weeks, or take more time off than
| vacation time you're allotted.
|
| That freedom is purchased with a lot of stress and uncertainty,
| and may not actually result in that much freedom if you're semi-
| actively always looking for leads.
|
| Ultimately I found the type of work companies go to freelancers
| for is terribly uninteresting most of the time.
| scottwick wrote:
| > The only advantage to freelancing that I can see is the
| flexibility to work less than 40 hour weeks, or take more time
| off than vacation time you're allotted.
|
| I've been doing contract work exclusively for the past 9 years
| now and this is exactly why I continue with contract
| arrangements. If I could find a "permanent" position with
| flexibility like this I would likely consider transitioning
| away from contract work.
| xwdv wrote:
| You can go further and say there is little to no advantage in
| freelancing. A lot of remote dev work isn't even 40/hrs a week
| of constant work. You can pick a low stress job working from
| home and still make six figures, more than most freelancers
| with far less stress.
|
| I've given up on ever pursuing freelancing because I realized I
| actually didn't want to be self-employed, I just wanted to work
| from home and be in control of my time.
| distances wrote:
| In Europe freelancing is still the main way for a proper
| paycheck. The salaries have been rising so we'll see if the
| situation changes, but for now the six-figure jobs are still
| somewhat elusive outside freelancing.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > I realized I actually didn't want to be self-employed
|
| Good for you. I spend a lot of time on /r/freelance and I've
| identified this as the main reason most freelancers have
| trouble and just flat out don't like it. They really just
| don't like running a small business. It's essentially
| impossible to thrive as a freelancer unless you accept
| (actually embrace!) this.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| > You can pick a low stress job working from home and still
| make six figures, more than most freelancers with far less
| stress.
|
| Where are these low stress remote jobs making six figures?
| Asking for a friend.
| wnolens wrote:
| Most US tech companies, except the trick is that you have
| to put up strong boundaries to overworking and be okay with
| level stagnation.
|
| Most folks I know in FAANG/equivalent are not that stressed
| once you give up the race for promotions and accolades.
| lostcolony wrote:
| Even then, I've found setting boundaries can actually
| help with promotions. Making it clear that your time is
| valuable to you can help force others to value your time.
| As long as you're spending the rest of your time on the
| right stuff (80/20 rule totally applies), you can have
| stellar performance AND a 40 (or effectively less) hour
| work week.
| Ostrogodsky wrote:
| Onlyfans
| xwdv wrote:
| There's plenty of jobs that are just heads down coding,
| cranking out tickets and attending a couple zoom meetings a
| week. Once you find such a job, just stick to it. Don't go
| getting promoted to some higher position where you have to
| endure more meetings or become responsible for more things
| and have a bunch of people depending on you.
|
| When you want more income, pick up a second job that is
| also similar. You should easily clear a quarter million
| dollars or more a year this way, and all you're doing is
| writing code and going to some meetings. Easy.
| indymike wrote:
| > Now that almost all dev work is going to be remote friendly,
| The only advantage to freelancing that I can see is the
| flexibility to work less than 40 hour weeks, or take more time
| off than vacation time you're allotted.
|
| Oh, there's a few more reasons: taxes (paid in arrears, after
| expenses), carry your own insurance/benefits (can work really
| well if you are young & healthy), business can own property,
| corporate veil, separate business finance from personal, have
| more than one client, etc...
|
| > Ultimately I found the type of work companies go to
| freelancers for is terribly uninteresting most of the time.
|
| Sometimes. Other times it can be better.
| wnolens wrote:
| Personally glad to be free of complex taxes and insane health
| care costs on individual market.
|
| Being a developer is too cushy a job full-time.
| sjf wrote:
| Health insurance is not pro. At a big four I am paying
| ~$50/month for great health insurance, freelancing it was 650
| from Covered California and involved repeated heated calls to
| every party involved.
| indymike wrote:
| > Health insurance is not pro. At a big four I am paying
| ~$50/month for great health insurance,
|
| Most employers aren't passing through the whole premium.
| With my current company, we're covering 85% of the premium
| for our employees, so they see some token amount out of
| their paychecks, but the actual premium is a lot bigger
| than $50/month.
|
| It's hard to beat HC insurance from a big employer. When
| you have to buy your own, it can work out as you usually
| can get a higher hourly rate than an employee by 25-30%.
| You also avoid double deductibles when your employer
| changes the plan changes mid-year. You also avoid COBRA if
| you quit or are fired.
| [deleted]
| jmconfuzeus wrote:
| cushychicken wrote:
| _deal with autistic colleagues_
|
| "Autistic" is not an acceptable term to use in a derogatory
| way, and not fair to the TONS of people on the autism spectrum
| who work hard to fit in at a predominantly neurotypical
| workplace.
|
| I don't know if you meant it in that way but your use of that
| word is _very_ unsavory in this context, and I urge you to be a
| little more considerate in your use of that word when you
| finish your search and join a company.
| j-krieger wrote:
| I am on the spectrum myself. I don't give a damn. People
| should grow some thicker skin
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| Yeah, I stopped reading and discredited the comment right
| there.
| toraway1234 wrote:
| I'm in the spectrum.
|
| I don't care.
|
| Grow an skin.
| cushychicken wrote:
| I care.
|
| People in my life who are on the spectrum, that I care
| about, care.
|
| I'm not standing up for you so much as I'm standing up for
| them.
| xwdv wrote:
| Results are the only thing that matters, everything else
| is just day to day pleasantries.
| zo1 wrote:
| Different take: Interpreting that comment as being somehow
| mean and against autistic people is dishonest, judgemental,
| and frankly evokes a sense of taking advantage of a situation
| to promote a personal goal.
|
| The discussion is effectively de-railed, the person's comment
| demeaned and substance distracted from, and here we all are,
| forced to discuss this topic whereas 100% likely that the
| person that used the term "autistic" is neither against
| autistic individuals, isn't going to discriminate against
| actual autistic individuals, and is a decent human being that
| hasn't hurt anyone. So what have we accomplished?
| jmconfuzeus wrote:
| The last phrase was sort of a joke and I'm not sure whether
| I should feel guilty or not.
|
| Anyway, what I've found is that people who speak out
| against "bad words" are quite toxic. It's obvious that
| autistic in this sense isn't the clinically diagnosed
| condition but in that of slang. If I say that you're like a
| pig, it doesn't mean that you go oink oink. And yet,
| educated people will take everything you say literally and
| turn into missionaries.
|
| Reminds me of the time when the church destroyed pretty
| much every text on Greek philosophy simply because they
| said that the soul doesn't exist.
| artemonster wrote:
| They like the feeling being on a moral high horse.
| Clubber wrote:
| Sanctimonious is the word I like to use. Someone tried to
| defend me once about something stupid and trivial. I told
| them not to (in so many words). It's definitely
| patronizing and people shouldn't do it, especially so
| reflexively. What, 6 people jumped on that bandwagon?
| goodpoint wrote:
| Spare the performative cynicism please. Expecting basic
| decency has little to do with high horses.
| solarmist wrote:
| This is sensible, except "pig" can't be taken literally
| when talking about a human.
|
| > educated people will take everything you say literally
| and turn into missionaries
|
| On the other hand, "Autistic" can and is taken literally
| regularly. So it feels pretty disingenuous for you to
| expect "educated people" to determine and keep track of
| how YOU specifically use the phrase compared to all the
| other people in their lives.
|
| And if one of the people reading/hearing what you say IS
| autistic, their experience of others using the phrase is
| probably not as light-hearted as yours. There are plenty
| of people out there who DO mean it literally. So it is
| entirely up to the person reading/hearing the comment to
| make that determination.
|
| You want to blast people in a professional setting who
| can't string together sentences, go for it. But
| describing them in a way that CAN be taken literally will
| cause problems.
|
| TL;DR: My suggestion is to stick to "bad words" that
| people can't be born with.
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| I think you missed the point, twice. The point is it's
| also literally true that all the bad managers and
| colleagues are not autistic. And this is obvious. It's
| given. Unless you have gone out of your way to
| deliberately misinterpret it. And op then finds you toxic
| and presumably doesn't care about your personal issues on
| the topic.
|
| Just paraphrasing OP as you seemed to miss the points he
| raised.
| bustedblade wrote:
| artemonster wrote:
| What is an acceptable derogatory term when you need one?
| cushychicken wrote:
| I'd offer "wow, you're being a real jmconfuzeus"
| solarmist wrote:
| One that doesn't apply to individuals only based on their
| birth.
|
| There are plenty of autistic people that do and don't have
| trouble communicating. Like there are plenty of
| neurotypical people who do and don't have trouble
| communicating.
|
| Sure, the percentages are skewed very differently, but it's
| nowhere near all or nothing.
| dang wrote:
| The GP shouldn't have included that flamebait, but focusing
| on it just makes the thread worse. That's one reason the site
| guidelines say:
|
| " _Please don 't pick the most provocative thing in an
| article or post to complain about in the thread. Find
| something interesting to respond to instead._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| solarmist wrote:
| Great moderation yet again, Dang!
|
| I'm curious what kind of tools do you have for moderating
| HN?
|
| Like do you have a tool that highlights threads that are
| racking up tons of posts/downvotes/etc. or something like
| that? Or is 80% of your day spent reading every thread
| posted?
| jmconfuzeus wrote:
| cushychicken wrote:
| _why should I have to deal with autistic people who can
| only give 1 word replies to every question?_
|
| Because tolerance is a valuable thing, and makes your
| workplace a better, stronger one by allowing safe harbor
| for alternate viewpoints. I suspect your future employer
| would not look fondly on your choice of words if you chose
| to use "autistic" in the same manner in a professional
| setting.
|
| _A big problem in this industry is sensitive people like
| you_
|
| I am proud to be problematic to the industry in general and
| to you in particular if taking a stand against unacceptable
| derogatory language is considered "problematic".
| antonvs wrote:
| > why should I have to deal with ...
|
| Why should anyone else have to deal with people like you?
| throwaway776677 wrote:
| > A big problem in this industry is sensitive people like
| you. ... I can't imagine what life would be like if I had
| you as a colleague.
|
| Jesus Christ. There's just no need for this level of bile,
| on Hacker News or anywhere else for that matter.
|
| The funny thing is, I have a lot of sympathy for your
| original comment. I have worked with the odd coworker or
| two (hence throwaway) who surely were autistic and were
| impossible to work with and the two things were certainly
| connected. It may not be PC but it's true. But stately
| things plainly doens't need to extend to personal insults,
| never mind this extreme.
| dang wrote:
| Personal attacks will get you banned here. So will taking
| HN threads further into flamewar. No more of this, please.
|
| Needless to say, using 'autistic' as a slur is also
| flamebait and therefore against the site guidelines. No
| more of that, please, either.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking
| the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be
| grateful. You've broken it badly in this thread.
| ac2022 wrote:
| artemonster wrote:
| Nice strawman you've made there
| mcv wrote:
| I'm afraid I can imagine what life would be like if I had
| you as a colleague, and I don't think I'd enjoy it. I'm not
| that sensitive, but I do think respect is important, and if
| you can't respect your co-workers, even after having it
| pointed out politely, I simply don't want you in my team.
|
| If you struggle finding good projects at companies that
| respect you and your work, maybe this is something you
| could work on.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I'm confused at this position that bothersome colleagues
| who don't communicate enough can be attributed to a
| specific diagnosis. People can be all sorts of non
| communicative just because they don't believe you're worth
| their time, or they're too busy to answer your questions.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > why should I have to deal with autistic people who can
| only give 1 word replies to every question?
|
| Well, sorry to burst your bubble but you're already dealing
| with autistic people in your daily life. Worse, you're
| being a dick about it. It's a spectrum (or more like an
| equalizer with many sliders); the ones you describe are low
| in communicativeness (or low in giving a shit about you),
| most manage all right. See also: masking.
|
| But yeah tl;dr IT has tons of people on the spectrum; just
| because you don't notice them means they're good at masking
| and/or you can't actually tell.
| ac2022 wrote:
| GP seems to exhibit lack of social and cultural
| awareness. Not all but many people on spectrum also lack
| social and cultural awareness. They have more in common
| with autistic people than they would like to.
| bena wrote:
| I wouldn't even call it "low in communicativeness".
|
| Because if you ask a question that can be answered in one
| word, but are expecting more for whatever reasons, that's
| your own damn fault.
|
| It's like greeting people with "How are you doing?" It's
| not a real question. No one wants a comprehensive answer
| to that. So if you actually answer that question, people
| are going to get annoyed with you.
|
| This style of communication is infuriating to some of
| those on the spectrum because it involves navigating a
| byzantine set of rules that are never defined and ever
| shifting.
|
| Communication should be clear, concise, and honest if you
| want it to be effective. Don't make the other side work
| to understand you. If you want to know something, ask for
| that information. Don't ask a vaguely related question
| and hope the other side volunteers the information.
| Because it's just like the "How are you doing?" greeting.
| Except, we're not supposed to volunteer information
| there. And sometimes we're not even supposed to volunteer
| information in those other situations. So when do you
| expound? You're stuck in a position of trying to read the
| other person's mind trying to figure out if they really
| want to know something. It's tiring and infuriating.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| To give parent the most charitable interpretation of
| their comment, they dislike dealing with antisocial
| and/or poorly communicating people at work.
|
| Whether that's because the individual is on the spectrum,
| or because they're a dick who just doesn't care... is a
| medical diagnosis question.
|
| But there's a reason "reasonable accommodation" exists in
| disability law. There's a balance to be struck between
| increasing workplace equality and doing so at the expense
| of coworkers.
|
| I think everyone who's worked in the industry 5+ years
| has been on a team or project with someone who
| "reasonable" probably _shouldn 't_ have covered, whatever
| the underlying diagnosis.
| cushychicken wrote:
| _To give parent the most charitable interpretation of
| their comment, they dislike dealing with antisocial and
| /or poorly communicating people at work_
|
| I understand this, but I also strongly oppose the fact
| that OP equated "autistic" and "antisocial and/or poorly
| communicating".
|
| That is an incorrect and harmful generalization towards
| people on the autism spectrum.
| amcoastal wrote:
| "Deal with autistic people"? What's the difference between
| you saying something like that and saying you just prefer
| working with able bodied adults not having to "Deal with
| parapalegics". Good luck in your future corporate job, I
| hope its not sitting next to me.
| diogenesjunior wrote:
| Oh please.
| cushychicken wrote:
| And thank you.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| ADHD here. I think we're probably the least likely to care.
| In fact everyone being so sensitive is much worse for me so I
| would prefer if we all just cared a lot less about feelings
| so I can go back to giving one word answers to stupid
| questions.
| [deleted]
| lowercased wrote:
| > without having to deal with autistic colleagues and managers
|
| Every client is a manager, but often they don't have those
| skills (and... they probably shouldn't have to). So, either you
| need to become a manager, convince them to, or bring someone
| else on to do it and ... you'll end up with a small team of
| folks. Bam - you now have to deal with a variety of
| communication styles.
|
| Try dealing with a client who wants integration with a third
| party system, then tells you the data is wrong based on data
| they see in their own internal tool that they won't give you
| access to ("you might screw it up"). "The customer is always
| right..." except when they're not.
|
| > they want you to work on their project, while on the other,
| they want to save as much money as possible.
|
| So... don't charge hourly? Or time-based? Flat rate
| problem/project estimation is another way to go, but ... I've
| found many clients don't actually want to think that way,
| because you end up having to say 'no' to almost any change in
| the scope of an engagement. And you end up spending almost as
| much time trying to scope out changes and agree to new terms as
| you would just working on the problem.
| mobilio wrote:
| Even with medium/large companies there is lot of issues with
| them.
| rahulrangaraj wrote:
| > Finding the best clients to work with is basically the
| hardest part IMO
|
| This is why recently I've started curating freelance jobs from
| many different sources - job boards + LinkedIn + Twitter etc,
| filtering them and sharing the best leads with freelancers.
| Started getting huge shoutouts from some web agencies/shops.
| This is totally free for now and planning to release it as a
| service [1]
|
| Most of these companies in this list are most likely to hire
| freelance developers/marketers/writers.
|
| It's still in beta, feel free to reach out/dm me if you would
| like to access the full document. [2]
|
| [1] ->
| https://twitter.com/RahulrangarajR/status/148021905157812224...
|
| [2] -> https://twitter.com/RahulrangarajR
| Nextgrid wrote:
| What I prefer in freelancing vs full-time employment is that
| you can time the market, especially if you have a skill that's
| in-demand.
|
| Companies that have an urgent need for a certain skill will be
| happy to take you on as a freelancer for higher money, either
| while they look for permanent staff or if it's just a one-off
| bet and they're not yet sure whether it's worth getting
| permanent resource for something that may be discontinued. Get
| a steady stream of these gigs for a year and you make twice the
| money you'd make as a permanent (outside FAANG maybe), and if
| you keep your burn rate low you can also leave the bulk of the
| money in the company for the next tax year and take advantage
| of the lower tax brackets which you can't do as a permanent
| employee.
|
| Regarding the $1/hour MVP, that's just down to where you find
| your gigs. I recommend getting your gigs either directly via
| your network, or failing that, via recruiters - yes they take a
| cut and they might be shit but there's also good ones (see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29392115) - in my
| experience good old "brick & mortar" (well, not so much during
| the pandemic but you see what I mean) recruiters have a barrier
| to entry that's very effective at keeping "$1/hour millionaire-
| maker SaaS" at bay, which also helps with regards to getting
| paid as what's left is typically established businesses within
| your own country and in reach of the legal system you have
| access to.
|
| Absolutely do not waste your time on Upwork or similar - that's
| the bottom of the barrel where $1/hour MVP is commonplace in a
| self-reinforcing feedback loop, as good talent leaves which
| means good projects also leave and the only thing remaining is
| crap - on both sides of the market that is.
| mrfusion wrote:
| What corporate structure let's you keep money in the company
| like that? Is it complicate to set up and manage?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Limited companies in most jurisdictions I believe.
|
| In the UK:
|
| Your company pays corporation tax based on profits during
| the tax year. Whatever money is left can be disbursed to
| employees, shareholders, etc.
|
| You as an individual pay tax based on your yearly income.
| There are several tax brackets depending on how much you
| make, as well as "free" brackets (you don't pay anything on
| the first ~12k of employment income, and there's an
| equivalent for dividends but much smaller).
|
| Anything you pay yourself from your company then incurs
| this individual-level taxation, but since you can choose
| how much you pay yourself you can only pay the minimum (to
| stay within "acceptable" tax brackets) and keep the rest in
| the company for next year or for company-level investments
| (new hardware, expanding the business, etc). For limited-
| company contractors, the usual strategy is to pay yourself
| ~12k/year of salary and the rest is in the form of
| dividends which you can vary depending on your situation &
| needs.
|
| Is it complex to manage? Depends on the jurisdiction; some
| are more evolved than others. In the UK I find it super
| easy and while I can bitch all day about the amount of tax
| I'm paying, at least the documentation is quite clear and
| they make it super easy to manage everything. I do have an
| accountant but at this point it's mostly for advice and
| "just in case" than anything else - day to day is handled
| by FreeAgent and I just have to make sure the data is
| entered properly and the software takes care of the rest.
| pc86 wrote:
| If you have a US LLC that's a pass-through (or an S Corp
| taxed similarly) it's not possible. In the US at least it's
| only really possible if you're paying corporate _and_
| personal income taxes, which for approximately 99% of
| freelancers will be much more expensive than just paying
| the taxes in the year you make the money.
| mcv wrote:
| There's a lot of chaff at the bottom of the market. I encourage
| everybody to avoid that segment.
|
| I've been freelancing for 9 years (with a 1-year interruption
| last year as a regular employee, but I managed to escape that),
| starting with small projects for small customers, but very
| quickly moving on to larger projects for larger customers that
| pay better. My second client (a 4-person company) stiffed me
| for about $600, which lead me to avoid such small companies,
| and I've never had any payment problems since moving on to
| bigger clients.
|
| There's usually a recruiter in between, which partly sucks,
| because they have their own margin, but I can imagine it may
| also have played a role in making my payment more reliable.
| Those recruiters also find my projects for me, so I barely do
| any acquisition of my own. I guess I could do more, but this
| works well enough for me.
|
| (I have no problem working with autistic people; I come from a
| family that's probably riddled with high-functioning autists
| (though only one was ever diagnosed), and at work I've noticed
| I'm pretty good at translating for people who struggle to
| express their technical ideas.)
| cm2012 wrote:
| Same here, I've been billing clients for consulting work for
| 7 years now, the only person who refused to pay was my 2nd or
| 3rd client for a $200 job lol.
| pc86 wrote:
| I'm very interested in how you've used recruiters to help
| source freelance work. The ones I've spoken to are either
| uninterested in doing it (90% or so?) or just have the same
| poorly run companies as your second client.
| prakis wrote:
| Autistic colleagues?
|
| Using autism as a negative word is as bad as being a racist.
| kstenerud wrote:
| > Many developers go freelance thinking that they will be able
| to do what they love without having to deal with autistic
| colleagues and managers
|
| Hang on... what is it that makes "having to deal with autistic
| colleagues and managers" so bad that it's the only example
| reason you give for going freelance?
| mcv wrote:
| My primary reason for going freelance is that I'm in control
| of my days off. Everytime I'm employed, I worry if I'll have
| enough vacation days to take two weeks off around Christmas.
| As a freelancer, I have as many days off as I want. That, and
| all my compensation being in money, adds up to a lot less
| bureaucracy for me. (And I have an accountant do my taxes for
| me.)
| solarmist wrote:
| > having to deal with autistic colleagues and managers
|
| The discussion around using "autistic" as slang for someone
| with communication problems is a problem because it can be
| taken literally or as slang. And without knowing you, I can't
| be sure which way you meant it, especially in an industry where
| there are MANY autistic people.
|
| So my suggestion is to avoid "bad words" that can be taken
| literally because without knowing you personally, I can't be
| SURE how you MEANT it. And my experiences with people throwing
| around "autistic" could be SIGNIFICANTLY less light-hearted
| than yours.
|
| TL;DR: My suggestion is to stick to "bad words" that people
| can't be born with.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| > My biggest gripe with freelancing is the conflict of interest
| between you and your client. On one hand, they want you to work
| on their project, while on the other, they want to save as much
| money as possible.
|
| But this is not limited to freelancing - it exists in normal
| work contracts, too.
| jmconfuzeus wrote:
| If you work full time for a company, you get your paycheck at
| a regular interval. If you don't get it, you can complain to
| your accounting department or to the government in severe
| cases.
|
| If a client decides he's not going to pay you for whatever
| reason, he can just block you on Slack, email, and everywhere
| else. Sometimes you can use a contract but good luck
| executing the clauses when you're on the other side of the
| planet. Even if you're able to sue, it takes months or years
| and a massive amount of energy. You might even lose if the
| other lawyer's able to find any loopholes in your contract.
|
| Personally, I think this is too much for a single person to
| handle. How are you going to have enough energy left to do
| actual creative work if you have to deal with all of that? If
| you decide to start an agency and have your own legal
| department, then it's another story. There are some agencies
| who derive the majority of their revenue from legal actions
| anyway.
| ivanhoe wrote:
| > You might even lose if the other lawyer's able to find
| any loopholes in your contract.
|
| Your experience seems very grim. I've been in freelancing
| for decades and never had such a situation. Even non-paying
| customers were rare to me, and I only once had to actually
| sue. You will still loose some money sometimes, mostly due
| to your own bad estimates and client's bad inputs, but
| that's a fact one needs to plan ahead when running their
| own business. Sometimes you'll screw over the client as
| well - a well paid gig will come over that you don't want
| to miss and client's project will be put on the back
| burner. Not nice, but hat's also the part of running a
| business, knowing your priorities and cutting where needed.
|
| But all in all, I don't think freelancing is in any way
| significantly different, nor harder than running an agency
| (or any business) - only that you have to accept that you
| need to play more than one roles until you can afford to
| hire people for that. Having 5 to 9 job is easier, but also
| has its many downsides, so I wouldn't dismiss freelancing
| without even trying it for a while. If nothing else it's a
| great way to learn both about technical and financial
| stuff, because it constantly forces you to figure out how
| to do and solve new problems, no 2 projects are exactly the
| same, unlike working in a companies where people spend
| entire careers maintaining the same piece of in-house code.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Well yeah, but the height of said paycheck, the hours
| you're expected to put in, other benefits, are all sliders
| that both the employee and employer will want to min/max.
| lowercased wrote:
| I've been in software for >25 years, and independent for
| ... 15+.
|
| "when you're on the other side of the planet." Don't take
| that work. It may sound easier said than done, and I
| remember days when I had no specific projects lined up and
| no sizeable network to reach out to for referrals/leads.
| It's not a great feeling, but if you can press through you
| can get to a point where you're not taking projects from
| around the planet.
|
| Even understanding that might be hyperbole - I took a
| project in a different state, and the guy ended up not
| paying. $8k. This was, to me at the time, a fortune, and
| _needed_. I tried to sue, and it took a long time, extra $,
| and... owing to some problems, was not resolved in my
| favor, even with facts on my side. I understand the
| headaches.
|
| I've had one other time where someone in my own town - who
| came through a personal referral - had a payment bounce,
| didn't pay on time, and I found out was underpaying others
| on the project. I was uneasy a week in, but pressed on to
| not upset the mutual friend we had. Lost out multiple
| thousands in the end, taking on some other subcontractors
| with the assurance of payment which didn't happen.
|
| These are hard lessons to learn, but you generally only
| need to learn them once (or twice...). If you spot a
| problem ahead of time, walk away, don't engage, or require
| some up front deposit. Again, easier said than done, but it
| weeds out a lot of projects ahead of time that. Projects
| can often be hard enough to be successful with - avoiding
| some known red flags up front saves a lot of headache.
|
| And... with FTE, you have all your eggs in one basket, and
| your choice of working relationships is limited. Your
| earlier comment about 'one word replies'... you get that
| often with colleagues in FTE situations. At least, I've
| seen it enough to know it's a potential problem. You have
| more choice about who you work with in freelance/contract
| situations than you do in FTE situations (you're moved to
| team X without any say so, assigned to new projects, etc).
| balfirevic wrote:
| > "when you're on the other side of the planet." Don't
| take that work.
|
| I have a suspicion that you live on a highly compensated
| side of the planet.
| anovikov wrote:
| I've been through it. Eventually you simply start seeing it as
| a game where you either win or lose. In 90% of cases, outcome
| for the client is inverse.
|
| Let's face it: custom software development is a systematic
| mistake, it shouldn't exist in the imaginary world where all
| actors are rational and well-informed. Hiring individual
| developer is fine, as long as you (customer) are technical and
| can manage him on "assign task in tracker and check and merge
| resulting PRs" level. If you are not, you get yourself a
| technical cofounder who will be willing to do it for stock
| _alone_ (otherwise he will be that party that scams you,
| passing whatever minimum money necessary down the value chain).
| In any other situation, you just get ripped.
|
| Contrary, once you figure the art of sales sufficiently (which
| will amount to weeding out the qualified clients), you will see
| that however honest and hardworking you are, your projects
| result in nothing.
| ivanhoe wrote:
| Well, of course that hiring a consultant to lead the project
| for you will cost you more than not paying anything to your
| co-founder who works for stock only. If you can find a co-
| founder with both the expertise and will to work just for
| some hypothetical money on the end of the rainbow, great for
| you, you should go with it.
|
| And if not, you can always hire a consultant and accept it as
| a realistic cost of running the business, instead of feeling
| being ripped off because you could have had it cheaper "only
| if".
| anovikov wrote:
| Thing is, anyone working for money and also acting as a
| gatekeeper at distributing more money will have a conflict
| of interest impossible to ignore. Especially when the
| person is from a low-trust society, as facilitated by
| freelance sites. And, these people are better skilled at
| negotiation/bullshitting AND can work "cheaper" (or so it
| seems) so they will always have an upper hand in
| negotiations vs good ones, unless the client is deeply
| technical - but in this case, read above, he'll manage devs
| himself and hire them individually => no potential for a
| custom software dev company there.
| danjac wrote:
| Tired of your shitty boss? Try freelancing, and deal with a
| dozen shitty bosses.
| mcv wrote:
| I'm my own shitty boss, thank you very much.
| jaywalk wrote:
| It gets annoying when I have to fire myself for
| insubordination, but then quickly rehire myself out of
| necessity.
| gexla wrote:
| You're selling a product (service.) You need to market the
| product.
|
| You also need to handle administration of the business or
| outsource those tasks.
|
| Regardless of who is putting in this effort, your business needs
| to pay for it (your time or the time someone else puts into it.)
|
| Add to that, self-employment taxes, insurance, sick leave,
| vacation leave, equipment, office, utilities, etc. Anything you
| aren't charging for, you're subsidizing.
|
| That's ABC stuff.
|
| I don't like the word freelancing, because people take the label
| with a bunch of assumptions, which may not be correct. The
| language "the most important thing" is also troublesome because
| it may put you in the wrong frame.
|
| The reality is that running a business is a common complex thing.
| It's like relationships, many people are in them, but being such
| a common part of life doesn't make them easier to figure out.
| Society gives you basic scaffolding, which you need to use or not
| use as basic building blocks. Come to the problem with an empty
| cup and start building from scratch. And then it still isn't
| easy, as many people get caught up in details which isn't
| necessarily giving back the same return on the end result. My
| heuristic is to start with the envisioned end-result, work
| backwards and then build a plan going forwards again. The entire
| time, you have an eye on that end-result and asking if what you
| are doing is serving that end-point. And then, as Tyson said,
| "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." But a
| plan is better than no plan.
|
| There's no "the most important thing." It's more complex than
| that. You have to approach a complex problem with agility to
| shift frames. Be creative. Be curious. Ask questions. Do
| research. Answer the questions. Every article about "this is how
| you do <insert complex thing> is missing massive amounts of
| detail.
|
| Also note, there is a goldmine of articles on making money on
| building software in HN. Do a search. If you stop at this thread,
| you're seriously missing out.
|
| And further reading on detail in life...
|
| http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-...
|
| ETA: This is more about the mindset than the nuts and bolts.
| There are tons of golden posts here on the nuts and bolts. Do a
| search and see what pops up with the most votes and comments.
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