9 ms·

How to be a freelance web developer, part 2

284 points by ryanwaggoner 16y ago

ryanwaggoner 16y ago
People seemed to find part 1 of this topic helpful, so I decided to elaborate on a few points. You can find the original post and discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1763634 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1763634 If you found either of these posts useful, please email me at mail@ryanwaggoner.com. I have a couple questions about a related new venture and I'd love some feedback.
Cushman 16y ago
Finally, keep this in mind: freelancing might seem overwhelming, but your competition is terrible. Seriously, absolutely terrible. This doesn't just apply to developing, or other stuff you're particularly good at, either. In general, people suck at stuff. My experience tends to be that if, as a hacker, you think you've got an okay grasp of a subject, you're probably in the 90th percentile somewhere. If you think you're pretty good at it, probably 99th. The "keep raising your rates" advice is good for life in general. Never, never sell yourself short on anything.
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  A sidenote to 'keep raising your rates'. At some point, for some sort of work, you really will be pricing yourself out of that market. I've had people express that concern to me "I'll never get the job if I quote that much!", etc. My response years ago was to adjust the price down some (and I did it myself) and sometimes you'd get the job. My advice now, typically, is ... don't go for that type of work. Don't bid on that project. If what you're bidding on is commoditized to the point where anyone can do it for 5x less than you want to charge, find another type of skill to enhance and sell that. This approach isn't for everyone, obviously, but I'm finding it works. This might just be a variation of "go where the competition isn't"?
  - izak30 16y ago
    This is excellent advice. I found the exact same thing. I was getting underbid by less qualified workers for projects of X nature. I learned a little bit about Y, and now I have to raise my rates again to slow the work down.
  - edna_piranha 16y ago
    Also, rates depend on the work required by the client. If you are purely doing some frontend/interface work, it is reasonable to adjust that rate differently from backend work. Another note is that rates should fluctuate depending on timelines from the client, their budget and requirements. A healthy balance of determining all those factors and your ability to estimate your abilities to complete work can result in a wider range of price ranges - either fixed/hourly/weekly/monthly, etc. Most of this can only be figured out through lots of experience.
    - thibaut_barrere 16y ago
      I did this at first, but then realised that my brain and abilities didn't change when I did PM related work or back-end related work. So now I have only one rate for myself. One consequence is that billing is easier and less error-prone :)
- blacksmythe 16y ago
  >> you think you've got an okay grasp of a subject, you're probably in the 90th percentile somewhere. You may be in the 90th percentile if you have an okay grasp of the subject. However, way more than 10% think they have an okay grasp of any subject (probably more than 90%). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority "80% of participants had evaluated themselves as being above the average driver."
  - rcavezza 16y ago
    I'm usually the opposite. I highly doubt my abilities and usually forget that most other people don't have the same knowledge as I do. I first noticed this after graduating with a marketing degree, now I'm starting to notice this about software.
    - wlievens 16y ago
      Smart people typically underestimate their skill while dumb people overestimate theirs. However, by acknowledging and discussing this, we're probably both thinking we're smart, so maybe we're overestimating ourselves and are really dumb. Or something like that.
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        But how does knowing about this phenomenon change it?
- callmeed 16y ago
  Totally agree, but I think today "terrible" is now "good enough" for a lot of potential clients. I see this in both web design and pro photography. I'm all for raising rates and choosing discerning clients, but being able to explain your rates, your proposals, and the importance of investing in someone who isn't terrible is a skill that should not be overlooked.
felideon 16y ago
Typo; Sales cycle, second paragraph: [...] you'll find that only have one project [...] Thank you for the two posts. The key thing for me, personally was (first post): "If you don't have any sample work at all because you haven't built anything, you're not ready to freelance." Also, is there any reason "running a development agency" is not your goal? Do you simply rather doing the work yourself, than managing people?
random42 16y ago
Non american developer, working in full time job here. Can you explain a little how/why income tax is higher for freelancers?
- NathanKP 16y ago
  Normally the employer handles income tax. Employees receive a lower paycheck because taxes have already been taken out, but unless they made a bunch of money from other sources, their income tax should be very low or even non-existant, such that they get money back from the government. Freelancers on the other hand have to take taxes out of their income themselves, so what starts out looking like high pay is actually less than it looks. The danger in freelancing is forgetting about taxes and living right up to the extent of your means.
  - mgkimsal 16y ago
    It's not just that. If that was it, it would just be a case of paying now vs paying later. I'm simplifying here, but there's something called FICA, which is about 15.2% of your pay. Typically employees have 7.6% withheld, and employers chip in the other 7.6%. It's effectively never paid or counted to the employee in the first place. Someone earning 100k at an employer would see $7600 paid in FICA. A self-employed person has to pay $15200 on the same $100k income (but half of that tax is deductible for other tax calculations - it gets convoluted!) So... self-employed people are paying 'more' , but the net effect of what the gov't get is the same. You just don't see some of that money as a typically w2 employee.
- barrkel 16y ago
  I'm not an American, but in most countries, employers pay tax for employees that employees don't see on their paychecks. In effect, it's income tax whose value is hidden for political purposes: employees only see the headline salary and the headline income tax, but in reality, the cost to the employer is usually more than the headline rate, even without the value of benefits etc.
  - thierryd 16y ago
thierryd 16y ago
What skills to offer (and where to grow) I suck at UI design (for example making a good looking OK button in photoshop), but I'm a pretty good programmer. How would you approach that? Do you think subcontracting a UI designer would work? Or usually it's the other way around (UI designer subcontract the programmer to build the web site logic).
- chopsueyar 16y ago
  In the first article, the author mentioned how unfairly your technical skills will be evaluated, based on the UI of your portfolio apps/sites.
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  I've never actually tried subcontracting a design myself, but my understanding is that it's pretty typical. You still have the risk problem -- the designer might turn in terrible work, or might turn in great work that the customer thinks is terrible -- but I'm guessing that much of the risk is mitigated: image prototyping and UI sketching starts pretty early in the process and features lots of iterations, so you get early warning if something is going wrong; moreover, most web frameworks are designed around the assumption that design elements will change very frequently, because people have learned how much customers love to change the color of the bikeshed at the last minute. Oh, how they have learned. The scary part of subcontracting is when you subcontract something tricky and coding-intensive, like the entire event-planning module, or the video-sharing module. Then maybe you end up a week away from launch with two weeks of programming left to do. Or maybe your subcon delivers something that looks superficially correct, but which falls over dead during load testing when it sees more than one query at a time, and now you have to rearchitect it under deadline...
- access_denied 16y ago
  It's basically: who is the project manager? This is another job that comes with every project. WHo is really managing the thing? It could be the designer, it can be you. It's not hardwired into the backend nor the frontend skillset. It's just another area of responsibility. However, outsorcing design is simpler. In the end it is the backend "sys admin" person who has to deal with the suits about the last few stitches, who has to come into office physically and so on. OTOH at the beginning of projects it's easier if the designer can show visual approaches to the suits in person. I myself always opt in for the project management role, because sub-contracting to a backend guy is just one thing, but selling the suits additional SEO stuff and whatnot is a nice opportunity (onece the suits deal with me anyway).
johnarleyburns 16y ago
Learn to survive off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, boiled eggs, milk, and toast. Learn to live in a small apartment close to town. Sell your car, buy a bicycle and take the bus. In five years when you have enough connections to afford it, celebrate at Pizza Hut. Eventually, in say another ten years or so, upgrade to Taco Cabana when sales break your previous salary before you quit your job and became a freelance developer.
js2 16y ago
Ryan - thank you. This is very well written and provides a good picture of what it takes to freelance. It seems to me that you really want to have to work for yourself to do this. A decent programming job with benefits for someone of your experience is easily $120 - $150k. Assuming you can bill $100/hr and work 2000 hrs/yr, it beats that, but not by much, and frankly seems like a lot more work. So the motivation to freelance isn't a monetary one. Would you agree?
- ryanwaggoner 16y ago
  Completely agree. Benefit to me is freedom. Freedom to work where I want, when I want, on what I want, with the tools I want. I can't imagine going back to a job, but who knows. I'm always open to offers :)
  - mgkimsal 16y ago
    Similar boat here - second time round freelancing (3 years). I'll never say never, but haven't had a job offer yet close to the challenge/interest/financial level I'm after. So... I'm open too, but most companies don't seem open to offering what I want :)
  - brc 16y ago
    I haven't sat through a team meeting or buzzword filled death by powerpoint for 5 years. I haven't had to attend corporate vibe sessions or listened to compliance officers drone on about anything. I also, 5 years ago, looked at a map and said 'where do I really want to live', then moved there. My whole life philosophy was to create the lifestyle I wanted, and then work out how to pay for it. It's a powerful motivator. Because most people first find a job, which then locates them on the map, and they then try and fill in the rest of their lifestyle based around those two parameters. The thing that keeps me going is the thought : well, I can always go and grovel for a permanent job somewhere. But I think I'm pretty much unemployable now, in the traditional 9-5 sense. I get 2-3 requests for work per day at the moment, but pass on most because, like the blog post says, people aren't serious or are expecting low prices.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
hundredwatt 16y ago
Another comment about looking for work: never act like you NEED work/some specific contract. Once you start feeling desperate, you'll make irrational decisions such as quoting lower rates, accepting more difficult clients, and the worrying will drive you crazy.
- trustfundbaby 16y ago
  The truth, though, is that sometimes you might have to lower your rate to take work if you're going through a particularly dry spell and have bills to pay. Don't feel bad about it. In that instance, try and get a retainer, so that you're getting paid every 2 or 4 weeks for a set number of hours no matter what.
- thibaut_barrere 16y ago
  I second the advice with: put yourself in a situation where you really don't need work (or at least not before a few months or years). It's automatically a lot easier to get the rates you ask for.
- ryanwaggoner 16y ago
  Having several months of living expenses saved up is a life-saver here.
kls 16y ago
freelancing might seem overwhelming, but your competition is terrible. Seriously, absolutely terrible. I think almost all of my clients have gone through several programmers before me and their expectations are generally pretty low. This is sadly the case, I am worked on a project that was done by a developer and abandoned half way through. The code was atrocious and you could tell that this developer was in over their head. The worst part about it is that this developer speaks at industry conferences and blogs about the subject matter at hand. All of the developers on the team for this company had very low opinions of the freelancer and the project was put in significant jeopardy by this developers lack of real world qualifications on the subject matter. When the freelancer was questioned about their high ego-to-talent ratio they blamed it on the in-house development team and abandoned the contract. The worst part about it, is this person is friends with some of the best and brightest in a particular segment of the tech industry. I though to myself if this is the state of freelancing then no wonder I am beating away jobs. It goes to show some people talk a good game, but when the rubber hits the road they can't produce. The author hit this one spot on. If you are a consistent performer, you should consider freelancing.
- mattm 16y ago
  I've only done freelancing on and off yet I've been approached a number of times exactly like this. Client hired someone that would work for cheap and now the project is only half done, poking around for a few minutes reveals a handful of bugs, there was no thought to the design of the code and the code is extremely difficult to understand.
  - kls 16y ago
    The sad part about this one, is that it was for a huge tech firm, who hired this person based on reputation and the circle of friends that this person associates with, they paid top dollar for this person. The individuals pedigree looks outstanding and they are a great speaker and advocate for the industry. They just could not apply their trade to real world problems, and in turn blamed the client due to their inflated arrogance due to being so respected in the speaking and blogging industry, when in fact this client has their act together, it is one of the better development houses I have seen.
tocomment 16y ago
Do you typically get 1099's from your clients or do they just pay you like they would any other company? If you don't get paid with a 1099 does that affect your taxes in any way? Are you still responsible for payroll taxes if you don't get a 1099?
- ryanwaggoner 16y ago
  Your choices are usually 1099 or W2 for longer-term contract gigs. If on W-2, they pay you just like an employee, taking out taxes and all that. They also have to pay half the FICA taxes in the US, so the rate is a little lower than it would be on 1099.
  - kirktrue 16y ago
    There's a bit of caution to be given here. My tax person said that switching between W2 and 1099 work throws up a red flag with regard to the IRS willingness to consider you as truly independent.
tocomment 16y ago
Is there a way to form a certain kind of company and pay yourself a small salary like 60K/year and only pay payroll taxes on that part? Have you looked into anything like that?
- SkyMarshal 16y ago
  Second this question. I'm also interested in all the business infrastructure issues of freelancing - software stack for time tracking, invoicing, receiving payments, calculating and paying taxes, LLC or not?, Nevada or Delaware?, how to pay yourself, etc.
marknutter 16y ago
"Oh, I almost forgot: never work for equity. 99% of those projects will never go anywhere. I tell my clients that they’re welcome to throw in some free equity on top of my normal rates, but I get paid in cash for the work that I do. I have plenty of entrepreneurial projects of my own, so why would I work my ass off for 3% (or even 30%, though they never offer this much) of someone’s Facebook clone?" The most valuable paragraph in the whole article, IMO.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  That very much depends. If the equity is a part of the payment and you're a co-founder it is not rare to make out very well in the longer term. If a company is already established then equity (usually in the form of options) can be a substantial component of your compensation.
  - rwhitman 16y ago
    Has this ever worked for you in the longer term? I mean from experience have you ever been paid out for taking an equity trade as a consultant? I'd really like to hear from someone who's made this work to their benefit
    - marknutter 16y ago
      My money is on "no."
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        Well, you'd be wrong then. Funny how you should know more about me than I do. The company meanwhile has grown in to something very respectable, and even though I haven't been a shareholder for years (bought out many years ago) I never regretted my decision one bit. It was an established business in a different trade when I got there, they decided to pursue this crazy idea (putting photographs on membership cards and print them with laser printers).
  - willpower101 16y ago
rcavezza 16y ago
I never imagined how easy it would be to get started. After pitching a failed startup in New York City, I received a random email asking if I knew any software developers. I mentioned I was looking for freelance work, and that was my first gig. I'm currently working four and the offers keep coming. All you really need to do is go to startup events and tell them you're a developer. 95% won't want to pay you, but there's always a few that will. I keep track of hours using freshbooks, ask for 50% of estimated hourly fees up front, and use paypal for payments. It's pretty easy, and I never even built a website, lol.
simonista 16y ago
I'm curious which sections of craigslist you look through. Web / Info design? Software / qa / db? Internet engineers?
bballant 16y ago
Re: good vs. bad clients -- I commented on part 1, basically saying that being friendly helps me find work, but it also means my clients are friendly/casual which can lead to time wastage. It's like the opposite of the super-type-a micromanager client. When I feel a client is wasting my time, I try to gently remind them that, for a freelancer, time is money. Also, as Ryan suggested, having two clients/projects going on at once is the best scenario.
sgoranson 16y ago
re: health insurance and pre-existing conditions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-existing_condition#Pending_federal_pre-existing_condition_exclusion_regulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-existing_condition#Pending_...
dmoney 16y ago
What's the difference between freelancing and "consulting"?

284 points by ryanwaggoner 16y ago

People seemed to find part 1 of this topic helpful, so I decided to elaborate on a few points. You can find the original post and discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1763634 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1763634 If you found either of these posts useful, please email me at mail@ryanwaggoner.com. I have a couple questions about a related new venture and I'd love some feedback.

Cushman 16y ago

Finally, keep this in mind: freelancing might seem overwhelming, but your competition is terrible. Seriously, absolutely terrible. This doesn't just apply to developing, or other stuff you're particularly good at, either. In general, people suck at stuff. My experience tends to be that if, as a hacker, you think you've got an okay grasp of a subject, you're probably in the 90th percentile somewhere. If you think you're pretty good at it, probably 99th. The "keep raising your rates" advice is good for life in general. Never, never sell yourself short on anything.

mgkimsal 16y ago
A sidenote to 'keep raising your rates'. At some point, for some sort of work, you really will be pricing yourself out of that market. I've had people express that concern to me "I'll never get the job if I quote that much!", etc. My response years ago was to adjust the price down some (and I did it myself) and sometimes you'd get the job. My advice now, typically, is ... don't go for that type of work. Don't bid on that project. If what you're bidding on is commoditized to the point where anyone can do it for 5x less than you want to charge, find another type of skill to enhance and sell that. This approach isn't for everyone, obviously, but I'm finding it works. This might just be a variation of "go where the competition isn't"?
- izak30 16y ago
  This is excellent advice. I found the exact same thing. I was getting underbid by less qualified workers for projects of X nature. I learned a little bit about Y, and now I have to raise my rates again to slow the work down.
- edna_piranha 16y ago
  Also, rates depend on the work required by the client. If you are purely doing some frontend/interface work, it is reasonable to adjust that rate differently from backend work. Another note is that rates should fluctuate depending on timelines from the client, their budget and requirements. A healthy balance of determining all those factors and your ability to estimate your abilities to complete work can result in a wider range of price ranges - either fixed/hourly/weekly/monthly, etc. Most of this can only be figured out through lots of experience.
  - thibaut_barrere 16y ago
    I did this at first, but then realised that my brain and abilities didn't change when I did PM related work or back-end related work. So now I have only one rate for myself. One consequence is that billing is easier and less error-prone :)
blacksmythe 16y ago
>> you think you've got an okay grasp of a subject, you're probably in the 90th percentile somewhere. You may be in the 90th percentile if you have an okay grasp of the subject. However, way more than 10% think they have an okay grasp of any subject (probably more than 90%). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority "80% of participants had evaluated themselves as being above the average driver."
- rcavezza 16y ago
  I'm usually the opposite. I highly doubt my abilities and usually forget that most other people don't have the same knowledge as I do. I first noticed this after graduating with a marketing degree, now I'm starting to notice this about software.
  - wlievens 16y ago
    Smart people typically underestimate their skill while dumb people overestimate theirs. However, by acknowledging and discussing this, we're probably both thinking we're smart, so maybe we're overestimating ourselves and are really dumb. Or something like that.
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      But how does knowing about this phenomenon change it?
callmeed 16y ago
Totally agree, but I think today "terrible" is now "good enough" for a lot of potential clients. I see this in both web design and pro photography. I'm all for raising rates and choosing discerning clients, but being able to explain your rates, your proposals, and the importance of investing in someone who isn't terrible is a skill that should not be overlooked.

felideon 16y ago

Typo; Sales cycle, second paragraph: [...] you'll find that only have one project [...] Thank you for the two posts. The key thing for me, personally was (first post): "If you don't have any sample work at all because you haven't built anything, you're not ready to freelance." Also, is there any reason "running a development agency" is not your goal? Do you simply rather doing the work yourself, than managing people?

random42 16y ago

Non american developer, working in full time job here. Can you explain a little how/why income tax is higher for freelancers?

NathanKP 16y ago
Normally the employer handles income tax. Employees receive a lower paycheck because taxes have already been taken out, but unless they made a bunch of money from other sources, their income tax should be very low or even non-existant, such that they get money back from the government. Freelancers on the other hand have to take taxes out of their income themselves, so what starts out looking like high pay is actually less than it looks. The danger in freelancing is forgetting about taxes and living right up to the extent of your means.
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  It's not just that. If that was it, it would just be a case of paying now vs paying later. I'm simplifying here, but there's something called FICA, which is about 15.2% of your pay. Typically employees have 7.6% withheld, and employers chip in the other 7.6%. It's effectively never paid or counted to the employee in the first place. Someone earning 100k at an employer would see $7600 paid in FICA. A self-employed person has to pay $15200 on the same $100k income (but half of that tax is deductible for other tax calculations - it gets convoluted!) So... self-employed people are paying 'more' , but the net effect of what the gov't get is the same. You just don't see some of that money as a typically w2 employee.
barrkel 16y ago
I'm not an American, but in most countries, employers pay tax for employees that employees don't see on their paychecks. In effect, it's income tax whose value is hidden for political purposes: employees only see the headline salary and the headline income tax, but in reality, the cost to the employer is usually more than the headline rate, even without the value of benefits etc.
- thierryd 16y ago

thierryd 16y ago

What skills to offer (and where to grow) I suck at UI design (for example making a good looking OK button in photoshop), but I'm a pretty good programmer. How would you approach that? Do you think subcontracting a UI designer would work? Or usually it's the other way around (UI designer subcontract the programmer to build the web site logic).

chopsueyar 16y ago
In the first article, the author mentioned how unfairly your technical skills will be evaluated, based on the UI of your portfolio apps/sites.
mechanical_fish 16y ago
I've never actually tried subcontracting a design myself, but my understanding is that it's pretty typical. You still have the risk problem -- the designer might turn in terrible work, or might turn in great work that the customer thinks is terrible -- but I'm guessing that much of the risk is mitigated: image prototyping and UI sketching starts pretty early in the process and features lots of iterations, so you get early warning if something is going wrong; moreover, most web frameworks are designed around the assumption that design elements will change very frequently, because people have learned how much customers love to change the color of the bikeshed at the last minute. Oh, how they have learned. The scary part of subcontracting is when you subcontract something tricky and coding-intensive, like the entire event-planning module, or the video-sharing module. Then maybe you end up a week away from launch with two weeks of programming left to do. Or maybe your subcon delivers something that looks superficially correct, but which falls over dead during load testing when it sees more than one query at a time, and now you have to rearchitect it under deadline...
access_denied 16y ago
It's basically: who is the project manager? This is another job that comes with every project. WHo is really managing the thing? It could be the designer, it can be you. It's not hardwired into the backend nor the frontend skillset. It's just another area of responsibility. However, outsorcing design is simpler. In the end it is the backend "sys admin" person who has to deal with the suits about the last few stitches, who has to come into office physically and so on. OTOH at the beginning of projects it's easier if the designer can show visual approaches to the suits in person. I myself always opt in for the project management role, because sub-contracting to a backend guy is just one thing, but selling the suits additional SEO stuff and whatnot is a nice opportunity (onece the suits deal with me anyway).

johnarleyburns 16y ago

Learn to survive off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, boiled eggs, milk, and toast. Learn to live in a small apartment close to town. Sell your car, buy a bicycle and take the bus. In five years when you have enough connections to afford it, celebrate at Pizza Hut. Eventually, in say another ten years or so, upgrade to Taco Cabana when sales break your previous salary before you quit your job and became a freelance developer.

js2 16y ago

Ryan - thank you. This is very well written and provides a good picture of what it takes to freelance. It seems to me that you really want to have to work for yourself to do this. A decent programming job with benefits for someone of your experience is easily $120 - $150k. Assuming you can bill $100/hr and work 2000 hrs/yr, it beats that, but not by much, and frankly seems like a lot more work. So the motivation to freelance isn't a monetary one. Would you agree?

ryanwaggoner 16y ago
Completely agree. Benefit to me is freedom. Freedom to work where I want, when I want, on what I want, with the tools I want. I can't imagine going back to a job, but who knows. I'm always open to offers :)
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  Similar boat here - second time round freelancing (3 years). I'll never say never, but haven't had a job offer yet close to the challenge/interest/financial level I'm after. So... I'm open too, but most companies don't seem open to offering what I want :)
- brc 16y ago
  I haven't sat through a team meeting or buzzword filled death by powerpoint for 5 years. I haven't had to attend corporate vibe sessions or listened to compliance officers drone on about anything. I also, 5 years ago, looked at a map and said 'where do I really want to live', then moved there. My whole life philosophy was to create the lifestyle I wanted, and then work out how to pay for it. It's a powerful motivator. Because most people first find a job, which then locates them on the map, and they then try and fill in the rest of their lifestyle based around those two parameters. The thing that keeps me going is the thought : well, I can always go and grovel for a permanent job somewhere. But I think I'm pretty much unemployable now, in the traditional 9-5 sense. I get 2-3 requests for work per day at the moment, but pass on most because, like the blog post says, people aren't serious or are expecting low prices.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

hundredwatt 16y ago

Another comment about looking for work: never act like you NEED work/some specific contract. Once you start feeling desperate, you'll make irrational decisions such as quoting lower rates, accepting more difficult clients, and the worrying will drive you crazy.

trustfundbaby 16y ago
The truth, though, is that sometimes you might have to lower your rate to take work if you're going through a particularly dry spell and have bills to pay. Don't feel bad about it. In that instance, try and get a retainer, so that you're getting paid every 2 or 4 weeks for a set number of hours no matter what.
thibaut_barrere 16y ago
I second the advice with: put yourself in a situation where you really don't need work (or at least not before a few months or years). It's automatically a lot easier to get the rates you ask for.
ryanwaggoner 16y ago
Having several months of living expenses saved up is a life-saver here.

kls 16y ago

freelancing might seem overwhelming, but your competition is terrible. Seriously, absolutely terrible. I think almost all of my clients have gone through several programmers before me and their expectations are generally pretty low. This is sadly the case, I am worked on a project that was done by a developer and abandoned half way through. The code was atrocious and you could tell that this developer was in over their head. The worst part about it is that this developer speaks at industry conferences and blogs about the subject matter at hand. All of the developers on the team for this company had very low opinions of the freelancer and the project was put in significant jeopardy by this developers lack of real world qualifications on the subject matter. When the freelancer was questioned about their high ego-to-talent ratio they blamed it on the in-house development team and abandoned the contract. The worst part about it, is this person is friends with some of the best and brightest in a particular segment of the tech industry. I though to myself if this is the state of freelancing then no wonder I am beating away jobs. It goes to show some people talk a good game, but when the rubber hits the road they can't produce. The author hit this one spot on. If you are a consistent performer, you should consider freelancing.

mattm 16y ago
I've only done freelancing on and off yet I've been approached a number of times exactly like this. Client hired someone that would work for cheap and now the project is only half done, poking around for a few minutes reveals a handful of bugs, there was no thought to the design of the code and the code is extremely difficult to understand.
- kls 16y ago
  The sad part about this one, is that it was for a huge tech firm, who hired this person based on reputation and the circle of friends that this person associates with, they paid top dollar for this person. The individuals pedigree looks outstanding and they are a great speaker and advocate for the industry. They just could not apply their trade to real world problems, and in turn blamed the client due to their inflated arrogance due to being so respected in the speaking and blogging industry, when in fact this client has their act together, it is one of the better development houses I have seen.

tocomment 16y ago

Do you typically get 1099's from your clients or do they just pay you like they would any other company? If you don't get paid with a 1099 does that affect your taxes in any way? Are you still responsible for payroll taxes if you don't get a 1099?

ryanwaggoner 16y ago
Your choices are usually 1099 or W2 for longer-term contract gigs. If on W-2, they pay you just like an employee, taking out taxes and all that. They also have to pay half the FICA taxes in the US, so the rate is a little lower than it would be on 1099.
- kirktrue 16y ago
  There's a bit of caution to be given here. My tax person said that switching between W2 and 1099 work throws up a red flag with regard to the IRS willingness to consider you as truly independent.

tocomment 16y ago

Is there a way to form a certain kind of company and pay yourself a small salary like 60K/year and only pay payroll taxes on that part? Have you looked into anything like that?

SkyMarshal 16y ago
Second this question. I'm also interested in all the business infrastructure issues of freelancing - software stack for time tracking, invoicing, receiving payments, calculating and paying taxes, LLC or not?, Nevada or Delaware?, how to pay yourself, etc.

marknutter 16y ago

"Oh, I almost forgot: never work for equity. 99% of those projects will never go anywhere. I tell my clients that they’re welcome to throw in some free equity on top of my normal rates, but I get paid in cash for the work that I do. I have plenty of entrepreneurial projects of my own, so why would I work my ass off for 3% (or even 30%, though they never offer this much) of someone’s Facebook clone?" The most valuable paragraph in the whole article, IMO.

jacquesm 16y ago
That very much depends. If the equity is a part of the payment and you're a co-founder it is not rare to make out very well in the longer term. If a company is already established then equity (usually in the form of options) can be a substantial component of your compensation.
- rwhitman 16y ago
  Has this ever worked for you in the longer term? I mean from experience have you ever been paid out for taking an equity trade as a consultant? I'd really like to hear from someone who's made this work to their benefit
  - marknutter 16y ago
    My money is on "no."
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      Well, you'd be wrong then. Funny how you should know more about me than I do. The company meanwhile has grown in to something very respectable, and even though I haven't been a shareholder for years (bought out many years ago) I never regretted my decision one bit. It was an established business in a different trade when I got there, they decided to pursue this crazy idea (putting photographs on membership cards and print them with laser printers).
- willpower101 16y ago

rcavezza 16y ago

I never imagined how easy it would be to get started. After pitching a failed startup in New York City, I received a random email asking if I knew any software developers. I mentioned I was looking for freelance work, and that was my first gig. I'm currently working four and the offers keep coming. All you really need to do is go to startup events and tell them you're a developer. 95% won't want to pay you, but there's always a few that will. I keep track of hours using freshbooks, ask for 50% of estimated hourly fees up front, and use paypal for payments. It's pretty easy, and I never even built a website, lol.

simonista 16y ago

I'm curious which sections of craigslist you look through. Web / Info design? Software / qa / db? Internet engineers?

bballant 16y ago

Re: good vs. bad clients -- I commented on part 1, basically saying that being friendly helps me find work, but it also means my clients are friendly/casual which can lead to time wastage. It's like the opposite of the super-type-a micromanager client. When I feel a client is wasting my time, I try to gently remind them that, for a freelancer, time is money. Also, as Ryan suggested, having two clients/projects going on at once is the best scenario.

sgoranson 16y ago

re: health insurance and pre-existing conditions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-existing_condition#Pending_federal_pre-existing_condition_exclusion_regulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-existing_condition#Pending_...

dmoney 16y ago

What's the difference between freelancing and "consulting"?