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Author makes a valid point, but what about folks who actually like writing code (among other things)? Here's what worked for me as a remote consultant who live

Author makes a valid point, but what about folks who actually like writing code (among other things)? Here's what worked for me as a remote consultant who lives in a small central european country: My partner and I currently position ourselves as "A high-grade self-managing team of two, specialized in mapping out, designing, and delivering complex custom-built web applications on time". I suppose we might fall under the authors category of predictably positioned "opinionated developers". Our ideal customer is a non-technical entrepreneur who needs someone to help them polish their idea, turn that idea into a high-grade working product, bring that product into the market, and start making traction and revenue. I noticed that many entrepreneurs, especially non-technical folk, have a very difficult time building their first product — especially if it's a relatively complex piece of software. Most contractors are focused on using cool tech or writing clean code instead of helping people build successful businesses. Our selling points are pretty basic: Learn about your client's business, be reliable, communicate effectively, deliver a great product on time. If needed also help with additional hires, validating PM-fit, marketing. It's nothing revolutionary, but the fact that there are so many uninvolved developers on the market makes it very easy for us to find long-term engagements. The clients are happy and we're able to charge San Francisco-like rates. Just last year I put $1XX,XXX into my savings account. We're in our late 20's so there's a long road ahead of us. Who knows, perhaps we'll get bored with programming in a couple of years. But people should know that you CAN make very good money while still writing code most of the day.

honestlyidk 8y ago
I love writing code. Ive gone out of my way to study health of eyes and tendons so I can code as long as possible. I never want to be the manager.
remify 8y ago
I just look at your website and it's amazing ! Just clean UI and good pitch. I love that it's clear that you guys are doing great code just by looking at your website.
- xapata 8y ago
  Looks like they've read the old "useit" blog, which NN/g sadly "fixed".
maxxxxx 8y ago
I would argue that your main selling point is that you are good writers and communicators judging from your website. I bet you are getting hired because of these business skills and not because of your code. It's great that you can do both!
rorykoehler 8y ago
How do you find new customers?
- JangoSteve 8y ago
  Can't speak for the OP, but as we do the same thing, figured I'd contribute our answer. We're not great at "sales", so it's been completely organic growth and word-of-mouth. I went to a lot of events and meetups for startups, and talked to people about what they were doing and what we do. I've also done a lot of open source development, including working on the Rails core team and building our own projects like Dynatable.js. This took a lot of time to cultivate a sales pipeline. The company was just me for the first 4 years, occasionally sub-contracting as needed. Then over the next 6 years, we grew to 6 people, and are currently in the process of finding a developer-consultant to join as our 7th.
- oldboyFX 8y ago
  For the past couple of years our average engagement was full-time and 8+ months long, so we only needed to look for new customers once or maybe twice a year. We took some time to create our consultancy website and make sure we're communicating our value and principles at least somewhat effectively. It also helps having satisfied past clients who will speak well of you when someone calls them up. We don't really do any speaking, blogging, traveling to conferences to network, or anything like that. I just advertise on a couple of websites like HN who wants to be hired, for hire subreddit, angel list, startupers.com, etc to let people know we're on the market looking for a new project. We usually find someone who is a good fit within a couple of weeks. We are also involved in the local tech community and in the past we would get some projects through word-of-mouth, but those were at lower rates near the beginning of our careers. You could also try platforms like codementorX and moonlightwork until you manage to connect with someone yourself.
  - rorykoehler 8y ago
    Thanks for taking the time to reply. I have a lot of work through word of mouth at the moment. I was more curious how someone in central Europe (Croatia?) finds high paying customers in the US. You make it sound much simpler than I anticipated.
JangoSteve 8y ago
We've been doing the exact same thing for the past 10 years out of the midwest US, and I agree with everything you've said. We view technical startups as hybrid companies in terms of market and industry. They're half web and software, and half whatever it is that startup does. We team up with non-technical founders who are trying to solve a problem in an industry they know, and we bring the web and software [and startup] expertise. I usually tell founders that, as a best-case scenario, most developers and consultancies will build exactly what you ask for. The problem is how often you're going to ask for the wrong thing. One of the biggest values we provide is what we help you avoid building. Consistent with your experience, this has been working well for us. The other thing I kept thinking while reading the post, was that the clients who are likely to value non-coding software consulting enough to explicitly pay for it as a completely separate line item from the software development itself, are probably the same clients that do value and listen to the feedback from the opinion+coding consultants. So, it seems the author has found a way to identify those clients up-front, but at the cost of making the client find someone else to fulfill the coding role.
BerislavLopac 8y ago
It certainly helps when you live in a country with very low cost of living and, if you've properly set things up, you can avoid paying most of the taxes. Not to mention being young and without a family to support.

honestlyidk 8y ago

I love writing code. Ive gone out of my way to study health of eyes and tendons so I can code as long as possible. I never want to be the manager.

remify 8y ago

I just look at your website and it's amazing ! Just clean UI and good pitch. I love that it's clear that you guys are doing great code just by looking at your website.

xapata 8y ago
Looks like they've read the old "useit" blog, which NN/g sadly "fixed".

maxxxxx 8y ago

I would argue that your main selling point is that you are good writers and communicators judging from your website. I bet you are getting hired because of these business skills and not because of your code. It's great that you can do both!

rorykoehler 8y ago

How do you find new customers?

JangoSteve 8y ago
Can't speak for the OP, but as we do the same thing, figured I'd contribute our answer. We're not great at "sales", so it's been completely organic growth and word-of-mouth. I went to a lot of events and meetups for startups, and talked to people about what they were doing and what we do. I've also done a lot of open source development, including working on the Rails core team and building our own projects like Dynatable.js. This took a lot of time to cultivate a sales pipeline. The company was just me for the first 4 years, occasionally sub-contracting as needed. Then over the next 6 years, we grew to 6 people, and are currently in the process of finding a developer-consultant to join as our 7th.
oldboyFX 8y ago
For the past couple of years our average engagement was full-time and 8+ months long, so we only needed to look for new customers once or maybe twice a year. We took some time to create our consultancy website and make sure we're communicating our value and principles at least somewhat effectively. It also helps having satisfied past clients who will speak well of you when someone calls them up. We don't really do any speaking, blogging, traveling to conferences to network, or anything like that. I just advertise on a couple of websites like HN who wants to be hired, for hire subreddit, angel list, startupers.com, etc to let people know we're on the market looking for a new project. We usually find someone who is a good fit within a couple of weeks. We are also involved in the local tech community and in the past we would get some projects through word-of-mouth, but those were at lower rates near the beginning of our careers. You could also try platforms like codementorX and moonlightwork until you manage to connect with someone yourself.
- rorykoehler 8y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to reply. I have a lot of work through word of mouth at the moment. I was more curious how someone in central Europe (Croatia?) finds high paying customers in the US. You make it sound much simpler than I anticipated.

JangoSteve 8y ago

We've been doing the exact same thing for the past 10 years out of the midwest US, and I agree with everything you've said. We view technical startups as hybrid companies in terms of market and industry. They're half web and software, and half whatever it is that startup does. We team up with non-technical founders who are trying to solve a problem in an industry they know, and we bring the web and software [and startup] expertise. I usually tell founders that, as a best-case scenario, most developers and consultancies will build exactly what you ask for. The problem is how often you're going to ask for the wrong thing. One of the biggest values we provide is what we help you avoid building. Consistent with your experience, this has been working well for us. The other thing I kept thinking while reading the post, was that the clients who are likely to value non-coding software consulting enough to explicitly pay for it as a completely separate line item from the software development itself, are probably the same clients that do value and listen to the feedback from the opinion+coding consultants. So, it seems the author has found a way to identify those clients up-front, but at the cost of making the client find someone else to fulfill the coding role.

BerislavLopac 8y ago

It certainly helps when you live in a country with very low cost of living and, if you've properly set things up, you can avoid paying most of the taxes. Not to mention being young and without a family to support.