7 ms·

Ask HN: How bad is freelancing?

• muzani 8y ago
  It's really bad at first. I compared it akin to prostitution. It gets much better as you get used to it and make lots and lots of mistakes. Learning curve is about 5 years for me. I've been tempted to write an ebook on the process, if anyone is interested, but somehow I feel like I don't know enough.
  • aframe 8y ago
    I'd be interested to read that, for sure.
    • neillyons 8y ago
      My friend wrote one https://leanpub.com/freelancedeveloperbook https://leanpub.com/freelancedeveloperbook. I used it a lot when I started freelancing.
• yesenadam 8y ago
  Freelancing doing what?
  • aframe 8y ago
    software engineering
• BjoernKW 8y ago
  You might find these results interesting: https://bjoernkw.com/2016/01/15/survey-for-it-freelancers-how-do-you-approach-marketing-and-sales-the-results/ https://bjoernkw.com/2016/01/15/survey-for-it-freelancers-ho... They're from a similar survey I conducted about 3 years ago.
  • aframe 8y ago
    Amazing! Thank you.
• ahje 8y ago
  Once you have a few regular customers that pay on time, things are usually nice. Until you reach that point, however, things are shaky at best.
• fecak 8y ago
  "Freelancing" is a bit of a catch-all term so it's tough to give you a simple answer, and your success working independently will probably rely on several factors. 1 - Is your skillset relatively rare or in demand in a freelance market? 2 - How easy or difficult will it be for employers to find you? This is related to how well you market yourself, how well networked you are within the market, whether an exchange (eg Upwork, Fiverr) of some kind exists for you to join, and whether or not you can use any "agents" or third-parties to broker deals and connect you with work. 3 - What is your 'end game' or primary criteria for the work that you want to do? Are you interested in work/life balance, money, control over what kind of work you do (and don't do), career progression, ability to take long breaks between work, remote work or digital nomad roles, etc.? There are even more factors than this, but this is a start. I know countless people who have freelanced successfully for many years, and others who didn't like it at all. Every story is different.
• omegote 8y ago
  After having been freelancing at upwork and the like for a couple of years in my spare time, I'd never do it as my single source of income. There are just too many ups and downs, I appreciate the consistency of a 9-5 job.
• smackay 8y ago
  Freelancing jobs, especially the better ones, like any relationship are fundamentally built on good communication and trust. It's pretty hard to replicate this with technology, except where it make the process of getting the necessary paperwork filled out and the day to day exchange of information easier. Your survey is mainly about invoicing. In my experience that's a solved problem at least when dealing with smaller companies. In the freelancing gigs I have had over the past 10 years I either sent a PDF by mail, or committed it to a repository (10/10 for geek cred for WebFaction) or used an online timesheet program. Payment was made via bank transfer within a few hours and rarely more than a couple of days. Even in relationships with very large companies based in abroad (i.e. USA, I'm in Portgual) once the necessary paperwork was sent to get the information into the billing system the process was smooth. Where I have experienced problems it was with slightly sketchy organisations and no amount of technology is going to solve that, other than an automated lawyer or strongman service. The unsolved "problems" with freelancing are getting companies to feel sufficiently confident to do more of it and getting some kind of community to keep freelancers fresh. The ability to allow groups of individuals to organize themselves so that they can competently deal with companies on a peer to peer basis would also be pretty useful.
  • aframe 8y ago
    Completely agree with your thoughts around building a community. Thanks for your input.
• ekidd 8y ago
  I've worked as a consultant several times in my career, focusing on helping startups build an MVP and find their market. I've also done one-off projects for larger businesses, mostly trying to fix a long-standing internal technical issue and open up new possibilities. A few tips: 1. Don't work for people unless you can help them make a lot of money. 2. Avoid freelancing marketplaces. These tend to have terrible rates, small projects and some of the worst clients. Most of these clients are beyond help, and you will never be able to help them earn a lot of money. 3. Do not charge an hourly rate. You do not want hourly jobs. Charge either a daily rate, a weekly rate, or a project rate. If you have a good client who regularly needs small tweaks, charge a monthly retainer instead of an hourly rate. I'm told that some really smart consultants charge a percentage of the of the improvement they make for the business. 4. Require half payment up front, or for longer projects, a milestone-sized payment up front. This will immediately eliminate all the clients who are allergic to writing checks, and I've never seen anybody serious reject this. 5. When setting your daily or weekly rates, plan on charging at least 2x what you would receive as salary, or up to 3x in some cases. This depends partly on the average size of your projects. If you charge less than this, your annual income will wind up much lower than you'd think. You will have lots of downtime and non-billable hours. EDIT: 6. This should be obvious, but always write down the project deliverables and agreed-upon payment, even if it's only in an email for smaller projects. Even if you totally trust the people you're doing business with, they will forget what they agreed to. (Ideally, you should have a standard contract where additional work items can be attached as an Exhibit A.) Aside from all that, one big challenge is balancing your pipeline. You'll have 2 months of no work, followed 3 simultaneous offers for highly-paid jobs. You need to find a way to manage this that's fair to the client and sustainable for you.
  • stevage 8y ago
    >Require half payment up front, or for longer projects, a milestone-sized payment up front. This will immediately eliminate all the clients who are allergic to writing checks, and I've never seen anybody serious reject this. The one time I did this that was a mistake was for a university. It was dumb, and just delayed the whole project by 6 weeks while finance processed it. There was never any risk of the university not paying, so I shouldn't have bothered.
• 4ndrewl 8y ago
  Which country, doing what?
  • aframe 8y ago
    UK, software engineering.
    • rorygibson 8y ago
      Don't call yourself a freelancer. You're a consultant who helps your clients to improve their businesses. Price accordingly, then over successive engagements, raise prices. As long as you can demonstrate the value, good clients are happy to pay. You don't want the not-good clients.
      • Jhndb 8y ago
        "A freelancer or freelance worker, is a term commonly used for a person who is self-employed and is not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance workers are sometimes represented by a company or a temporary agency that resells freelance labor to clients; others work independently or use professional associations or websites to get work." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freelancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freelancer Can you explain how this definition differs from yours?
        • shakestheclown 8y ago
          I think their point isn't that the terms are incorrect but that the word freelancer is undervalued by respective clients versus consultant/contractor. Similar to how if you say you are moonlighting, people will take you less seriously regardless of actual skill.
• Neil44 8y ago
  I've been freelance / self employed about 8 years now, I couldn't see myself being able to cope with a normal job any more to be honest. I'm too used to being master and commander of my own domain lol. I'm not somebody that stresses about things, I find it easy to let things go. Not everybody does. I'm not the best person in the world at freelancing, I could use some more self dicipline but it's been paying my bills so I can't be that bad at it. Not everybody is suited to being freelance and that's OK.
• _red 8y ago
  I did sysadmin freelancing for a number of years. The keys for me were: 1. Find small to mid-sized companies who can't afford (don't need) a full-time SysAdmin, but could use one for say 2 hrs per day. 2. Be nice and attentive to secretaries and office managers! 3. Push clients to engage in contracts. Offer discounts on hourly rate for bulk commitments (e.g. offer 10 hrs per month at a 35% discount or whatever). 4. You need to oversubscribe yourself about 1.5x to make it work financially...also invest in decent time & billing software. 5. Never pay for advertising. Asking existing clients politely for referrals is 10000% more effective. Further, the kind of jobs you get from "ads in the paper" are never the jobs you actually want to do.
  • rezahandzalah 8y ago
    Can you elaborate on point 4? Billing software?
    • erfgh 8y ago
      What you will use to create the invoices that you will send to clients.
• bsaul 8y ago
  I personally find the customer / supplier relationship much more sane than the employer / employee. There’s a contract, you negociate a fee according to a skill and the market, and it’s for a given duration. No emotion involved, no « my boss don’t like me », or « i feel i have to do this if i want that promotion ». No politics either. It’s just 100% focused on the job. Now i live in a country where work is both heavily regulated, and with a very high unemployment rate, so maybe it’s different elsewhere.
• lexda15 8y ago
  I have been working as a freelancer and a contractor. I enjoy this lifestyle. But I still have different issues. - A LOT of job boards and freelance marketplaces exist. I wasted plenty of hours to check them and find a relevant project. Approximately, I found a service that helps me to manage them. [1] - Clients want to spend less money from a job. That's why you face a big competition on the freelancers market. Indian and European freelancers charge less money. Their rates are from $5 per hour till $40. When an American freelancer has to charge from $50 till $150+. [2] Fixed price really solve this issue. - You can't anticipate how much money you can get for a month. That's why I suggest finding long-time clients or full-time remote jobs as a contractor. Make your life easier. [1] https://periodix.net/ https://periodix.net/ [2] https://periodix.net/blog/which-developers-earn-more-corporate-vs-freelance/ https://periodix.net/blog/which-developers-earn-more-corpora...
• scarface74 8y ago
  It’s not attractive at all to me. I like going to work every day and the same amount of money shows up in my account twice a month whether I’m sick or go on vacation. I’m not chasing after clients or money and if the company goes out of business or my job somehow disappears, I call my list of a dozen or so well curated local recruiting agencies I’ve kept in contact with over the years and find another job quickly. Now on the other hand, I have no issue with doing W2 contracting with an agency, I get paid for every hour I work. I just make sure I negotiate a high enough rate to take into account gaps in employment, unpaid time off, and lack of a 401K match. I can always get insurance through my wife.
• rietta 8y ago
  You should avoid being a "freelancer" at all costs. Do not let others use that term to label you and to downplay your worth and professional service rates. Create a services company, with a brand, and with a mission. Look at promoting your company like you would promote a business than had 10x the number of employees than you actually have. Learn how to budget time and money like you've never budgeted before. Most importantly do not try to be everything to everybody. Learn about positioning - horizontal and vertical markets. A good resource is https://philipmorganconsulting.com/the-positioning-manual-for-technical-firms/ https://philipmorganconsulting.com/the-positioning-manual-fo.... He also has a bunch of free video interviews that you can watch https://philipmorganconsulting.com/dev-shop-marketing-briefings/ https://philipmorganconsulting.com/dev-shop-marketing-briefi.... I was one of the guests, talking about long tail search engine marketing. And finally, remember that success in this space is a marathon and not a sprint. You do not have to start out as the fastest, you just have to run longer than everyone else who drops out. In a few years the fact that you are still in the market will be seen as social proof of your trustworthiness and success.
  • puranjay 8y ago
    Second this. Even if you don't incorporate and are uncomfortable presenting yourself as a brand, never call yourself a "freelancer". Call yourself a "consultant". I've seen that people take you far more seriously when you call yourself that as opposed to a "freelancer".
    • rietta 8y ago
      I have misgivings about "consultant." In the Metro Atlanta area that almost universally means a solo person with the possible unstated thought that he/she is living off his/her spouses income. It's harder to get placed than it is as a professional services firm. It's a bit different if you are actually doing high end management consulting. For developers I find clients are looking for "doers" not "talkers about doing" (which is what consultant implies). So it really depends on what business and the market that the business is going for if the "consultant" label is any better than the sub-optimal "freelancer" label.
• pmontra 8y ago
  I've been freelancing for the last 12 years, half of my work career. The freelancing part is definitely the happiest. Work from home, customers that pay reasonably on time, work only to meet deadlines, decide when to work and when doing something else... There are no reasons for me to go back working Monday to Friday 9:00 to 18:00 in somebody's else office.
• puranjay 8y ago
  I'm not a developer but I've basically been freelancing since I was 19 (I'm now turning 30). I never got a corporate job simply because where I live, I can take advantage of favorable exchange rates to make far more than any corporate job. The pros: 1. Once you get good at what you do, you can command a premium, and clients will happily pay for it. 2. Over time, you develop enough case studies to win clients easily. I now no longer have to worry about finding clients. 3. You develop a LOT of ancillary skills. Though my core expertise is marketing, I've learned everything from Photoshop to building basic websites simply because it was cheaper to do it myself than finding and hiring a sub-contractor. The cons: 1. Working alone isn't any fun, especially if you're slightly extroverted as I am. 2. I don't know by how much, but I'm sure it impacts your career negatively. I'm not sure how welcome I would be in a corporate role if I ever decided to move in that direction. I certainly don't have a traditional resume, and few hiring managers are equipped to evaluate it. 3. Taxes can be a pain. Most freelancers neglect to factor in the 30% that will end up going towards paying the government. My advice: 1. Figure out if this is for you, and if it is, go for it 100%. The only way to build a lucrative freelancing career is to build up a large portfolio of proven work, and a network of clients. Neither of these can be done overnight. 2. Add 30% to whatever rates you decide are good for you. That's tax and shouldn't be touched. 3. Work for results, not for work. If you're competent at whatever you do, you will enjoy showing results (or finished products) far more than just sending a report of XYZ tasks completed for the month. It also gives you way more control over how and when you work. 4. Incorporate. I did this way too late and as a result, my financial history has a few missing pieces. This can impact how willing banks are to lend to you. 5. If you can, get monthly retainers. That's the surest you can get to the comfort of a salary. 6. If you can work from anywhere, take advantage of lower cost of living in other cities/countries. You'll save way more.
• protomyth 8y ago
  It was great when I had a good, trustworthy agency to go through. When that fell apart, it was a true pain. Network and on-time payments are the two biggest problems I saw.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• flurdy 8y ago
  (A bit suspicious of the survey form, seems a bit recruiter bate to me) I love contracting. But that is my experience. Other roles, areas, personalities it may not work, and other types of contracting it may be very different. Good bits: - If you work normal amount you earn a lot more (remember to expense everything!) - Unlimited holidays. I take a normal amount of holidays during contracts, and then a few months off between contracts though depends on the length of the contract. - No illusion of job security and no guilt if you leave at the end of a contract. But don't burn bridges or leave a bad impression. You likely will work for them again, or at least the same people. - No need to work late/weekends, you are paid for the work you do, not to impress for a promotion. . Bad bits: - Pressure to find the next contract. It eases off as you build a bigger network of past clients and coworkers etc. I'm not concerned about that anymore but was the first few years. - Extra paperwork. I have a near automated online accountant, but I still got to click the odd approval, and export bank statements, find insurance, sign contracts etc. - Contract recruiters are the worst. It is their job to squeeze you not the client. - Less startup contracts, more enterprise. But in my experience contracting only works in a big market such as London. Or more accurate it works better in big markets with a big demand for skills that I/you have. I am not sure I could be a contractor in smaller markets where you would depend on remote contracts and an established wide network of clients already. Also, remember to build a few months war chest before you start. And able to cut expenses if you need some bench time. Ps. don't call it freelancing, unless you are a designer and then only if you really love the term.
  • aframe 8y ago
    Thanks for sharing your thoughts. To just quickly address your suspicion - I’m not a recruiter (or a designer). I’m a software engineer who’s just had a few ups and downs since December.
    • flurdy 8y ago
      Thanks, sorry about the suspicion. Contracting as a software engineer is usually worth it, though not always. But it certainly depends on location ie demand, unless you have a very good network already. And also depends on experience. Contracting without 5-10 years experience is a big gamble as your CV is a harder sell to people that expect you to be running from the start. Though no need to be a guru, imposter syndrome prevails for contractors as well :) Also from the survey questions remember contracting income is fluid. Payments to your ltd company often gets delayed a month or two due to missed accounts payable dates etc. Happens to me all the time but I have never had a non-payment, just delays. You got to have buffers (ie bank balance) enough so that you don't have to be paid every month, as a company and personally. Seems like you have already dabbled in contracting so may not be relevant anymore but I did once write up an intro to contracting in the UK: http://blog.flurdy.com/2015/10/contracting-101.html http://blog.flurdy.com/2015/10/contracting-101.html
• 213j123hd7dq 8y ago
  I love being a freelancer/contractor. I will probably not work full-time ever again, unless I have a direct interest in the company. Its important in life to be able to make your own decisions and not feel pressured by work. Lets face it, full-time work sucks, you cannot take a holiday when you want without approval, you feel bad when you are sick and you feel the hierarchical pressure and you yield less money because you get perks and a social safety net. But I dont want any of that. I'll pay my sick leave, my computer and my phone. Just give me the cash. I've been a contractor now for 3 years, essentially providing a service and issuing invoices to clients. Luckily for me, I've only had 2 clients in this period of time, because both contracts were ongoing on large scale projects. I have no rights, my contracts don't pay holiday, or sick leave, but I charge a very high fee per day, more than every developer I know who works as a standard full-time employee. The result is a much higher income, and I have saved more money in 3 years than most people I know. Additionally, I'm not actually managing these projects, they have in-house product designers and owners for this, so basically I'm just there to build and maintain the thing, have meeting with other developers, and give a demo of updates. My advice to you is: - To try to find ongoing work/projects rather than lots of smaller ones. It saves the headache of negotiating and finding clients. - Stay away from freelancing websites. You will be taken advantage of and get crumbs for jobs. - Under all circumstances, do not take upon any Wordpress websites, unless you are happy being at the bottom of the barrel for your services. - Don't work for friends, unless you both are very established in your professions. - If you are a web developer, specialize and only use the latest tech that you actually want to use. Don't take on legacy crap projects. - Unless you are given the task of managing the project, do not quote. Charge per day. - If they offer you a desk space to work on-site, be aware that you will be pulled into a standard working office culture, maybe you like this, maybe you don't. Enjoy the freedom!
• akskos 8y ago
  It's pretty great. My income rose about 600% when I started freelancing. Part of this is the effect that working as an employee in Finland is very tax inefficient.
• tiuPapa 8y ago
  So one thing I am not really sure is how I can build a network where I can find regular contracts? Especially just starting out?
  • rhodysurf 8y ago
    You have to start somewhere. Find a first client, wow them. More likely than not they will know someone else that needs work. At least that is my experience.
• jamestimmins 8y ago
  I've personally found DoubleYourFreelancing.com to be a great resource. So is the IndieHacker's podcast which interviews patio11 (it's one of the early ones). This should be essential reading/listening for new consultants.
• ykevinator 8y ago
  Sites like up work have made buyers of freelancing services think that your work is worth $200. It's really bad. I would instead, if I were you, find a middleman contracting agency and work there for a while until you can get their trust and then try to move to a remote contract.
• tomludus 8y ago
  This is just someone following Ryan Levesque's ask format for getting info on what business to build. Ask: The Counterintuitive Online Method to Discover Exactly What Your Customers Want to Buy...Create a Mass of Raving Fans...and Take Any Business to the Next Level https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1939447720/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_AgYyCbAMKJ2SW https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1939447720/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_...