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"Then it sounds like everything else around what you deliver is worth at least $140-350/hr. If it's really so easy I'm sure you could offer your services for $1

"Then it sounds like everything else around what you deliver is worth at least $140-350/hr. If it's really so easy I'm sure you could offer your services for $100/hr, take a nice big raise and save your clients hundreds of thousands a year." Not everyone wants to, or is able to strike it out on their own.

logfromblammo 9y ago
Exactly. If I ran a lemonade stand, it could be the best lemonade within 100 miles, but it would also be bankrupt within an hour. I would need a non-technical co-founder that I could trust to not stab me in the back, and an investor willing to give us enough runway to take off without putting any land mines in it. So far, those conditions have never been met. Business around here is very often more about who you know than what you can do, and since I don't know the right people, those customers are simply unavailable, even at a deep discount to $100/hr. All that overhead is necessary to navigate the system that has been set up to favor those that support the system. The bureaucratic hoops are insurmountable barriers to entry to individuals, and very steep even for a hypothetical small company that is 51% owned by a disabled Indian veteran woman. It wouldn't be much of a military-industrial complex if it could be disrupted that easily. The "clients" are far less interested in saving money than with preserving their influence over the nature of the work, an end often pursued by spending every penny of the allocated budget, regardless of need. A union could change it. A U.S. attorney with a forensic accountant, TS/SCI security clearance, and a stack of subpoenas could change it. A political party could change it. A handful of generals and admirals could change it. One software pro, working alone? Not so much. This is really the best deal I can get right now, without dropping everything and moving again. It isn't great, but it is available to me, and I don't have to front capital, work owner-manager hours, or do types of work that I am not comparatively good at doing. Besides that, I have already failed at going it alone once, and once was all I could afford. I didn't make it, and lost everything. The work was good enough, but not enough people wanted to buy it, and not enough customers recommended it to their friends. So that runway is gone, and I'm stuck workin' for The Man until I can retire. In retrospect, I would have been far better off not trying. But that's all anecdotal. You might succeed on your own. Maybe I just didn't work hard enough.
- oceanplexian 9y ago
  I don't understand most of this post, but claiming you can't strike it on your own because of bureaucracy is baloney. I've done it, have friends who have done it, and it's not that hard. Put together an LLC for a few hundred bucks, reach out via your network for clients (Or conversely, start building a network), read up on sales and business administration, and just do it. You don't need to "front capital", or work special hours, or have a special clearance, jesus. Just don't live paycheck to paycheck and stash away a few months expenses while you do your thing. Thousands of professionals do this on a regular basis. IMHO employment is much more risky and cutthroat. You don't get to set your salary, end up with disadvantaged tax treatment, and half of your coworkers are focused on crawling up an artificial ladder instead of actually completing work on time.
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    I cannot do the work I am currently doing--the work that people are willing to pay $400/hr to a contractor business for--as an individual without clearance. The other work available locally, subtracting those opportunities, pays less on average than I am now making as an employee. I don't want to move again without some sure way of paying those moving expenses. Taking remote jobs puts me in competition with both India and Indiana. The math works out. I, specifically, am better off as an employee. I already took my shot at self-employment and blew it. I won't get another. I'm lucky that I even got one. If I still lived in an area with more potential customers, with more money, the story might be different. If I wasn't absolutely crap at sales and administration, the story might be different. If I were better able to build a network, such by being more attractive or having better social skills, the story might be different. If I weren't still paying off debts from the first time around, the story might be different. But it's not. I'm not blaming bureaucracy. It's me. I cannot run my own business. I tried it once already, in the Chicago market, which should be plenty big enough for anyone with an iota of business ability, and it didn't work out. It was a dismal failure. Nobody wanted to hire me. Nobody wanted to refer me. I couldn't get the customers. Therefore, I must have zero business ability--not an iota; zero. If a bunch of money magically dropped into my lap to start a business, I would still have to hire someone else to get me customers. But without already having a customer, I could not afford to hire that person. Easier all around to just find a person that does that already and be their employee. Do you understand this? Can you fathom how a person might have one valuable skill and be completely unable to exploit it alone? What would you say the difference would be between an aircraft designer that worked as an employee for Boeing or Airbus and one that sold mail-order kits to hobbyist pilots? The former has a whole bunch of people multiplying the value of their labor, and probably gets a smaller share of the gross revenue. The latter might get 75% of their sales, and still make less total. Besides that, people don't like me. You may underestimate how important that is in the realm of economics. People prefer to give money to other people that they know and like, rather than the people they don't. I know there are loads of resources out there on how to get other people to like you, but it seems like they all rely on some secret sauce that I just don't have.

logfromblammo 9y ago

Exactly. If I ran a lemonade stand, it could be the best lemonade within 100 miles, but it would also be bankrupt within an hour. I would need a non-technical co-founder that I could trust to not stab me in the back, and an investor willing to give us enough runway to take off without putting any land mines in it. So far, those conditions have never been met. Business around here is very often more about who you know than what you can do, and since I don't know the right people, those customers are simply unavailable, even at a deep discount to $100/hr. All that overhead is necessary to navigate the system that has been set up to favor those that support the system. The bureaucratic hoops are insurmountable barriers to entry to individuals, and very steep even for a hypothetical small company that is 51% owned by a disabled Indian veteran woman. It wouldn't be much of a military-industrial complex if it could be disrupted that easily. The "clients" are far less interested in saving money than with preserving their influence over the nature of the work, an end often pursued by spending every penny of the allocated budget, regardless of need. A union could change it. A U.S. attorney with a forensic accountant, TS/SCI security clearance, and a stack of subpoenas could change it. A political party could change it. A handful of generals and admirals could change it. One software pro, working alone? Not so much. This is really the best deal I can get right now, without dropping everything and moving again. It isn't great, but it is available to me, and I don't have to front capital, work owner-manager hours, or do types of work that I am not comparatively good at doing. Besides that, I have already failed at going it alone once, and once was all I could afford. I didn't make it, and lost everything. The work was good enough, but not enough people wanted to buy it, and not enough customers recommended it to their friends. So that runway is gone, and I'm stuck workin' for The Man until I can retire. In retrospect, I would have been far better off not trying. But that's all anecdotal. You might succeed on your own. Maybe I just didn't work hard enough.

oceanplexian 9y ago
I don't understand most of this post, but claiming you can't strike it on your own because of bureaucracy is baloney. I've done it, have friends who have done it, and it's not that hard. Put together an LLC for a few hundred bucks, reach out via your network for clients (Or conversely, start building a network), read up on sales and business administration, and just do it. You don't need to "front capital", or work special hours, or have a special clearance, jesus. Just don't live paycheck to paycheck and stash away a few months expenses while you do your thing. Thousands of professionals do this on a regular basis. IMHO employment is much more risky and cutthroat. You don't get to set your salary, end up with disadvantaged tax treatment, and half of your coworkers are focused on crawling up an artificial ladder instead of actually completing work on time.
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  I cannot do the work I am currently doing--the work that people are willing to pay $400/hr to a contractor business for--as an individual without clearance. The other work available locally, subtracting those opportunities, pays less on average than I am now making as an employee. I don't want to move again without some sure way of paying those moving expenses. Taking remote jobs puts me in competition with both India and Indiana. The math works out. I, specifically, am better off as an employee. I already took my shot at self-employment and blew it. I won't get another. I'm lucky that I even got one. If I still lived in an area with more potential customers, with more money, the story might be different. If I wasn't absolutely crap at sales and administration, the story might be different. If I were better able to build a network, such by being more attractive or having better social skills, the story might be different. If I weren't still paying off debts from the first time around, the story might be different. But it's not. I'm not blaming bureaucracy. It's me. I cannot run my own business. I tried it once already, in the Chicago market, which should be plenty big enough for anyone with an iota of business ability, and it didn't work out. It was a dismal failure. Nobody wanted to hire me. Nobody wanted to refer me. I couldn't get the customers. Therefore, I must have zero business ability--not an iota; zero. If a bunch of money magically dropped into my lap to start a business, I would still have to hire someone else to get me customers. But without already having a customer, I could not afford to hire that person. Easier all around to just find a person that does that already and be their employee. Do you understand this? Can you fathom how a person might have one valuable skill and be completely unable to exploit it alone? What would you say the difference would be between an aircraft designer that worked as an employee for Boeing or Airbus and one that sold mail-order kits to hobbyist pilots? The former has a whole bunch of people multiplying the value of their labor, and probably gets a smaller share of the gross revenue. The latter might get 75% of their sales, and still make less total. Besides that, people don't like me. You may underestimate how important that is in the realm of economics. People prefer to give money to other people that they know and like, rather than the people they don't. I know there are loads of resources out there on how to get other people to like you, but it seems like they all rely on some secret sauce that I just don't have.