4 ms·

As someone definitely in the intersection of "weird dude", "freelancer", and "successful alumnus of a startup", I'm on board with this, strangely enough. One o

As someone definitely in the intersection of "weird dude", "freelancer", and "successful alumnus of a startup", I'm on board with this, strangely enough. One of the advantages of freelancers is that you get a little bit more consultative relationship than with employees. For myself at least, I bring strategic perspective not just boots on the ground, and that can make a big difference in heading off pitfalls. I see a lot of startups running from three alarm fire to three alarm fire without the ability to tie things up over the longer term, and that often comes back to bite them. Automate and standardize all the non-core parts of your business or you will pay in distraction.

52-6F-62 9y ago
And when they don't fix that bad habit early either in their business or their implementing new tech, they become larger companies with the same problems.
rb808 9y ago
> running from three alarm fire to three alarm fire without the ability to tie things up over the longer term No offense but that is incredibly frustrating for employees. It really sucks being in a team that is continually chasing fires with no time to do something strategic -and the a manager will bring some highly paid freelancer who works 9-5 without stress telling you how it should be done. What I'd like is the managers to bring in people to do the shitty work while employees get some downtime to improve things for a change.
- lolsal 9y ago
  Doing the shitty work is hard and unpredictable. I wouldn't be very likely to want to hire per-hour contractors to fix bugs.
- jaggederest 9y ago
  Agreed, that's usually why I start a gig - they've hit a wall on technical scaling and need someone to help them dig out of it, so I can take over the firefights and provide the guidance on how to go about it, mentorship on whether a particular path is worth trying, that kind of thing.

52-6F-62 9y ago

And when they don't fix that bad habit early either in their business or their implementing new tech, they become larger companies with the same problems.

rb808 9y ago

> running from three alarm fire to three alarm fire without the ability to tie things up over the longer term No offense but that is incredibly frustrating for employees. It really sucks being in a team that is continually chasing fires with no time to do something strategic -and the a manager will bring some highly paid freelancer who works 9-5 without stress telling you how it should be done. What I'd like is the managers to bring in people to do the shitty work while employees get some downtime to improve things for a change.

lolsal 9y ago
Doing the shitty work is hard and unpredictable. I wouldn't be very likely to want to hire per-hour contractors to fix bugs.
jaggederest 9y ago
Agreed, that's usually why I start a gig - they've hit a wall on technical scaling and need someone to help them dig out of it, so I can take over the firefights and provide the guidance on how to go about it, mentorship on whether a particular path is worth trying, that kind of thing.