18 ms·

Going Solo, Successfully

638 points by kevinburke 8y ago

ha470 8y ago
This is so helpful- thanks for sharing! Also your own website is such a great example of taking selling yourself as a consultant seriously. Congrats on all the success here!
faitswulff 8y ago
Didn't expect this note at the end, but what a good move: > Give back to the tools that make you successful - I give a percentage of my earnings every year to support software tools that help me do my job - iTerm2, Vim, Go, Postgres, Node.js, Python, nginx, various other open source projects.
- SomethingOrNot 8y ago
  Isn’t Go developed by Google? Or did they pawn the brunt of the work off on some voluntary organization? I somehow doubt it. Maybe he’s talking about projects that use go and aren’t backed by a company.
mcenedella 8y ago
This is all very good advice.
temp1928384 8y ago
I feel like going freelance/consulting is such as "figure it out on your own" ordeal even though there are so many people who do it. Seems like there's opportunity to help people who want to go freelance transition more easily. I think a good analogy is hair salons that sell a seat you can rent as a hairdresser...are there places where you can "pay" for leads/intros to clients as part of a larger remote software consultancy?
- Aeolun 8y ago
  I think that strategy only works if any given assignment costs $40. You need to spend a lot more time with the same developer.
- photoguy112 8y ago
  You really don't have to figure out anything, it's all been written about many times over and posted all over. The post is a good summary but lacks details. I am a UX consultant, not a developer, I figured it out on my own (although I'm sure there are things I am not aware of that perhaps I should research and figure out further) but I probably didn't have to if I did some googling around first. The biggest thing that makes you successful as a consultant is thinking like a business. You are not a person performing a service for the company (that makes you a hire / an employee figuratively speaking), you are a business, solving their business problem. When you think of yourself in this way and act accordingly, then everything becomes easier - saying no to bullshit, billing and collecting, charging way more. I nodded my head when I read the point about increasing your rate for every new client. People think charging more is being unfair, but this is just business practice. You don't need to charge "your worth" whatever it may be. There is a supply of a very particular thing, and a demand of a very particular thing and the rate does not matter whatsoever when the return far outweighs the costs. A million dollar product is worth exactly zero if it cannot be produced and if you are the one to help see it through then you can charge whatever you like, given the margins make sense. These days I find myself increasing my rates for every new client. Sometimes, just for the heck of it, when I have many leads, I'll double my already high rate to see what happens ;)
- aliswe 8y ago
  There is something called konsultnätverk in sweden, dunno what its called int'lly though
mickael-kerjean 8y ago
I'm in the same boat, with a pure technical background, I managed to tripled my salary in 2 years, the job has become much more interesting and without all the political noise. The hardest bit so far is the sales / pricing strategy. For example, my biggest problematic this month is to figured out how much is it realistic to charge a F500 to support & maintain a custom build solution we've created: 5k/month, 10k/month, 15k/month (was sounding totally crazy to me until some people told me their company charge that kind of money for support)
- mathattack 8y ago
  My experience has been to ask for a crazy amount (at least 50% more than you think you can possibly achieve). This anchors them high. Agree to “meet in the middle” and you will be better off than your starting point. Then deliver like crazy until they think you’re underpaid.
rl3 8y ago
This is great. Also interesting would be a similar guide on scaling from a one-person operation to a proper consultancy. Personally I'm jealous of those who manage to found their own creative consultancies. Especially ones that mix design/VFX/videography/software talent, that focus primarily on things like interactive experiences or commercials. For example, the Windows 10 default background.[0] There's numerous other equally neat examples, but the gist of it is that they get to think up cool stuff and then sell that to their clients, who are usually massive brands that can afford to pay big money. Getting one of those off the ground is probably exceedingly difficult barring deep industry experience and the connections to match, and even then I'm sure it's hard. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL8BBOwupcI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL8BBOwupcI
mariopt 8y ago
> Don't charge by the hour This is bad advice. Charging for a full week will make you lose a lot of clients. In the case of software development: The client never knows the full spec of the project and you'll have weeks were 10 hours is enough. Charging for those extra 30 hours is terrible deal for your client and he won't take it. What you should be careful about is how much you charge per hour. You may set different rates based on context like: for a full time project project you charge X, for future maintaining (which is on demand ) you charge 1.5 times X. Hourly also protects you agains scope creeping. Charging by the week/project/milestones requires a near full specification and it's done at an agency level where you've a team. I've been working hourly and I love it. You can try to spec out any project as much as you can, in the end you can't predict scope changes and/or unexpected problems: API is broken, missed an important email, build system is failing for no obvious reason, server went down, etc, etc. You have to figure out when charging by the hour/week/month/milestones is reasonable. Just because someone is making 120K a year in San Fran, doesn't mean you've to make the same amount while freelancing. It heavily swings from client to client.
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- WestCoastJustin 8y ago
  I would like to offer a different point of view here. Speaking as someone who has done consulting and owns a business. I would leave those hourly jobs for someone else. Focus on selling the result or business impact here. Frame and charge for it that way. You do not want to be some charge me by the hour consultant where they can just find someone cheaper, they will start to think of you like that, and will find someone else. Do not overcharge or be dishonest about it. But, what is this result worth to them? I'd think of it that way. I have seen people pay 250k for a months work. But, the impact was massive for the company. I am positive this is on the small side as you work up the food chain. There is some free work up front in scoping things out, but then I would sell time in blocks or packages, and do not really get into what you are charing by the hour. They must have some budget for this project, the timelines, a general scope, etc. Make your proposal around that in the context of the impact to the company. This depends on your field and clients too. But, I'd look to move as quickly as possible from hourly to package deal. There is risk but there is also big reward.
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sqs 8y ago
Sourcegraph CEO here. Kevin Burke (the author) worked with us at Sourcegraph for some important projects in late 2018 (including helping to prepare a big product release). It was a joy working with him. I’ve worked with a lot of contractors and would love it if more people followed these guidelines.
- vajrabum 8y ago
  This recommendation, solicited or not, is a very strong example of how to market a consulting business. Sales for consulting businesses can be more than half the trick to making it go and selling services requires credibility. Most consulting businesses that I'm aware of start with one or a small number of existing relationships with built-in credibility and usually the business is started with at least one sale in pocket. When it's time to try and go beyond your initial customers recommendations especially public ones from past happy customers go a long way to establishing credibility and shortening the sales cycle. So it pays double or more in the long run if you can establish relationships with and take care of the directors, VPs and CEOs that you're working for regardless of who the hiring manager is.
  - sqs 8y ago
    My recommendation was not solicited, for the record. I read HN, saw the domain, recognized it was Kevin, and posted entirely on my own. (I agree with your reply!)
- fxfan 8y ago
  You still need to stop squatting on langserver.org like you created the protocol. Your list of implementations is outdated and best belongs in a git repo.
  - sqs 8y ago
    It is in a repository: https://github.com/langserver/langserver.github.io https://github.com/langserver/langserver.github.io. We try to keep it up to date but rely on authors and PRs, too. We’ll do an audit (and if you see any outdated ones, please let us know). BTW, I emailed you but didn’t hear back after you posted a similar reply to my last HN comment. Can you let me know what wording you’d suggest to avoid confusion? My intent is for the wording to be clear.
HumanDrivenDev 8y ago
The biggest impediment for me would be finding clients. IME most programmers dont meet a lot plant potential clients when they are maintaining internal software. Even if they work for a consulting company, you can't use them due to restraint of trade clauses. So how would you get the first customers? I'm just some guy off the street, no one is going bet money on me performing a function for their business.
- kevinburke 8y ago
  Go to meetups, talk to colleagues who have quit your current company, try to attend or speak at conferences, start a blog and post at the bottom that you’re available for consulting... There’s no rule that says you can’t pitch projects to people, if you think you could help make a company better call them up and pitch them on it.
  - jamestimmins 8y ago
    If you don't mind sharing: 1. What kind of meetups? I'm guessing developers are inclined to go to developer meetups, but it seems unlikely that potential clients would be there. 2. How have you managed to get hired by technology companies as a consultant? My clients are mostly folks that are non-technical and need someone to build them custom software. I'd love to work with tech-focused companies but am not sure how to find/pitch those opportunities.
    - mickael-kerjean 8y ago
      Not the OP but in the same situation as him > What kind of meetups? Any meetup that could have you next potential customer. For me it's meetup about Marketing, Sales, pure networking, Developer conf, .... Force youself to 1 to 2 meetup a week, this is not a one off thing but a long term investment if you want to be on the call when someone you've met hear about a project within their company. > How have you managed to get hired by technology companies as a consultant? For me, it's not really technology companies but companies that sees IT as a cost center, the usual scenario being they need a solution for a problem and don't have the know how to make it all work because IT isn't part of their core skills and the IT guys are only there to manage the network and debug their window machines
ordinaryperson 8y ago
Get a lawyer, review contracts, hire an accountant, register as a company...is this really better than working a regular 9-5? Sounds like the OP spends just as much time (if not more) doing paperwork, meetings, phone calls and other assorted meta-work as programmers in Big Tech Co, if not more. Corporate America can be a drag, I get it. Annual reviews, backstabbing office politics, the wrong people get promoted, loud open offices full of clowns that prevent you from concentrating but from this write-up it doesn't sound like going solo is any hassle-free Shangrila, either. For a certain class of people they like the "freedom" and hey, more power to you. By all means, enjoy the IC life. But I'd just as soon move to a different company if I'm unhappy at my job and not deal with this Kafkaesque amount of paperwork of being an independent consultant.
- taneq 8y ago
  > Sounds like the OP spends just as much time (if not more) doing paperwork, meetings, phone calls and other assorted meta-work as programmers in Big Tech Co, if not more. That's business ownership for you. The one thing you're almost certainly NOT getting (at least at the start) is more coding time.
  - ordinaryperson 8y ago
    Exactly. And that's fine as long as you'r transparent about the tradeoff. But we tend not to frame solo dev as "mostly business-related work with a little bit of programming" instead we think of it as "Programming on your own! No boss! Wahoo!"
  - jakobegger 8y ago
    As a business owner, I wish there was a way to outsource all the boring stuff. Last year I've even tried hiring someone to do all the beaurocratic stuff for me, but that didn't work out -- finding good people who want to work just a few hours a week isn't easy. I guess at a certain size, you can hire a full time assistant to take care of that stuff, but at a small business you are going to do all the overhead work yourself.
- kevinburke 8y ago
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morpheuskafka 8y ago
One issue I see is that GitHub ToS prohibit a single natural person from owning multiple GitHub free accounts, so you would have to pay for each one which could get quite expensive. Of course, larger business will have their own GitHub Enterprise or self-hosted Bitbucket/GitLab/etc that they can make you an account on.
- dboreham 8y ago
  We just maintain our own corporate git hosting account for clients who don't have their own. Not a significant expense. Although we actually use bitbucket rather than github for this.
iceninenines 8y ago
After about the first $50k, get yourself some quality umbrella IT insurance that can protect you up to $4mil USD.
- system2 8y ago
  Any why anyone would need to do that?
  - dboreham 8y ago
    Perhaps they own a house and don't want to lose it in a lawsuit? Also many clients will require their vendors to have insurance. Insurance is a kind of virially marketed product.
winrid 8y ago
I worked with over 50 companies/clients before I was 20 doing software dev. Not sure I'd write an article but open to questions!
- aicioara 8y ago
  If you mean under 20 years old: how did you establish a reputation at such a young age and in particular how did you get your first client? Was 2nd client easier to get. How about the 50th?
  - winrid 8y ago
    1. Yes under 20. I started when I was 17, partially spending the time in my Compsi vocational class doing client work I had found on odesk(now upwork). 2. First couple jobs I probably worked below minimum wage. Lots of foreign competition on odesk that is hard to compete with no reputation. By the end I was making 35/hr in an area where you can mortgage a house for $350/mo (why did I move to the bay area again?? :)) 3. Yes they get easier to get. Part of my pitch was I get things done right which people liked. Edit - another fun fact about odesk. My first office job in the bay area was literally across the sidewalk from them. I spent three years getting work through there, moved 3000 miles, and ended up across the street from their office. Neat right?
  - Void_ 8y ago
    I started contracting around 20 too. Having had internships with big Silicon Valley names helped.
known 8y ago
Worth the https://archive.st/7fd6 https://archive.st/7fd6
drake01 8y ago
I totally agree with Kevin where he says: """ I started out charging a monthly rate that was close to my full time salary / 12. This is not a good idea because you have overhead that your employer is no longer covering - health care probably the biggest one, you don't have paid vacations, there may be unpaid downtime between contracts and also companies might not pay you. """ When I started working remote 5 years back, I was just out of college and didn't care about those things...
jdmg718 8y ago
Problem is, as a student I am trying to go freelance and start getting clients by doing small projects. And I read articles like this one and I have so many questions. I cannot pay for a lawyer or an accountant yet most of the people recommend it, am I not going to be able to go solo if I don't have those kind of securities?
- pasta 8y ago
  For small projects you might not need a lawyer or accountant. But when you feel the balance is right you should hire people who can help you with your problems. At the moment you might do small projects but when project get bigger and your rate higher you will see that an accountant will become affordable. And when you do multi million projects you will be able to afford a lawyer. But one thing that is very important even when you are still 'small': register everything! What money goes in and what goes out. What the contracts are and all your email conversations with clients. This will help you and future accounts and lawyers.
- uasm 8y ago
  > "Problem is, as a student I am trying to go freelance and start getting clients by doing small projects." Is this more-or-less your first job straight out of school?
  - jdmg718 8y ago
    Nope, had a couple of jobs at uni as an iOS dev. Problem is I don't know how to sell myself as a developer or look for jobs.
    - uasm 8y ago
      > "had a couple of jobs at uni as an iOS dev" That's a great start, but what kind of jobs are we talking about here? I'm asking because you might want to invest into building more experience before breaking off on your own. I'm talking about possibly larger projects, cooperating with other teams, driving products forward, working with PMs/customer requirements and so on. One way to get there is to work at a larger organization. People place value on experience.
alex_suzuki 8y ago
Great read, thanks Kevin. I blogged about this as well recently, might have one or two interesting points for you: https://blog.classycode.com/going-freelance-as-a-software-engineer-some-advice-13c4064c72ce https://blog.classycode.com/going-freelance-as-a-software-en...
nathan_f77 8y ago
This is really impressive! I'm especially impressed by the landing page for his consulting site: https://burke.services https://burke.services This is so much better than just listing some of the technologies you've worked with. It's really great to talk about the problems you've solved, and have some customer testimonials (especially from big names.) I've been doing almost the complete opposite for the last ~4 years. I always charge by the hour, and I use a time tracking tool that tracks every minute. I never ask anyone to pay up-front. I've used services like Toptal and Moonlight that handle all of the billing for me. I've never talked to a lawyer or an accountant. I haven't registered a company specifically for my freelancing, but I've started doing everything through my startup's company. (My startup now offers a SaaS product plus consulting services.) I live in Thailand and have a work permit through Iglu [1], so they handle all of my invoicing and taxes. I also don't have insurance. I don't set up separate GitHub accounts for everything, and I don't really see the need for that. But I do usually work for one client at a time, and I find context-switching very difficult. I think the main reason I haven't taken my consulting work super seriously is because I don't really want this to be my career. I've always treated it like a part-time thing to just pay the bills while I work on my own startups. No offense to people who take this seriously, but consulting has always felt like a bit of a dead end. You can make a great living, but I get really depressed when I enumerate all of the hours I would need to work. A salaried position is nice because it hides these details. You come to work in the morning, go home in the evening, and then your paycheck is transferred to your bank account. You don't have the option to stop working at any time, so you never really have to think about it. When you're a freelancer who wants to do this as a career, you suddenly have to convert your retirement goal into a fixed number of hours. Say you want to save and invest $2 million before you stop working, and you earn something like $200 per hour. You're able to save 50% of your income. You have to work at least: ($2000000 / 200) * 2 = 20,000 hours. That's 2,500 full days of work. Maybe you are able to book 80% of your time, and you only work 5 days a week, so each year you can work: (52 * 5) * 0.8 = 208 days. It will take you 2500 / 208 = ~12 years of almost full-time work before you can safely retire with $70k of investment income. Maybe more like ~9 years to account for investment returns. I think I'd rather join a few early-stage startups and get some significant stock options. It's much more fun to be part of a team member and have a vested interest. It will still take an average of 10 years before most startups have an exit. But you can leave after a few years and work for a few different startups to diversify (or start your own.) Having said all of that, I'm really impressed by https://burke.services https://burke.services and would love to hire him to work on my startup in the future. [1] https://iglu.net/ https://iglu.net/
carlsborg 8y ago
Is self employment on its own a worthy goal? I think it makes sense if it enable or finances entrepreneurship. Building an enterprise, disrupting existing business models, and adding value at scale is much more interesting problem.
m_b 8y ago
Funny reading here « going solo » but get a « lawyer », an « accountant », etc.
- mickael-kerjean 8y ago
  Nothing wrong to admit one can't know everything. Unless you have secret accounting skills (which isn't trivial to acquire) getting an accountant got me more money back than what I paid him while offsetting the risk of getting the books wrong, from where I sit, it's been a net win
- sudhirj 8y ago
  These are outsourcing jobs and it’s better than doing it yourself. And you spend less time with them than your gym instructor or even your grocer or building manager. They will save you a ton of time and money, though.
  - m_b 8y ago
    Oh, don't worry I'm convinced! I just find it strange calling this "going solo", because the guy telling us this isn't.
- kevinburke 8y ago
  I have no employees, so yes, “going solo” is an accurate description. I would have an accountant anyway and frankly even if I was full time I would want a lawyer to review the employment agreement so not really saving anything there. Just sort of an odd gotcha - all sorts of people from train drivers to baristas to shoe manufacturers make us all successful every day but we don’t tend to count those people as employees or insist on a definition of “solo” that involves making your own shoes.
rasikjain 8y ago
Great writeup Kevin. As a IC, I can relate some of these points with my experiences. You should charge more to compensate for Medical Insurance, Non billable hours (Gap time), Marketing cost etc. Setup a Company (LLC or S-Corp) for doing paper work and contract (buy a minimum liability insurance). This will protect individual from litigations or lawsuit. Payment - Can't stress enough. I try to negotiate Net-15 or Net-30 days payment. So far it worked with all the clients.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  Just to clarify, Net-15 or Net-30 is payment 15 or 30 days after the invoice date, correct?
  - rasikjain 8y ago
    That is correct. Payment term after you invoice date.
willart4food 8y ago
> Make Sure Contracts Are Signed With the Company - The contracts you sign should be between the client you are working with and your company NOT between the client and you personally. Discuss this with your lawyer. So simple, yet so many people fail to do so. They believe that since they are incorporated they are protected.
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- andrewflnr 8y ago
  What does this even mean from a mechanical standpoint? What do you look for? More importantly, where do you learn about all this low level mechanical stuff? Business books and HN comments always assume you know how to do that stuff. They don't teach it in school, at least for CS majors. (And yes, I took the "law for everyday life" class at my school. It was basically at the same theoretical level)
  - kevinburke 8y ago
    Usually the first sentence of the contract will describe the parties signing it. “This agreement is between Acme, Inc (the Company) and Kevin Burke (Consultant)” is bad. The agreement should be between Acme Inc and whatever the registered name of your company is. Similarly on the signature line you sign as an agent of the company (CEO, Sole Member etc) the same way your counterparty signs it.
  - willart4food 8y ago
    It's more about * critical thinking * actually listening If someone hires a lawyer to incorporate their business, they need to enter in any and all contract agreements under their corporate name and not their personal name. Ignorance and often EGO (me, me, me, me and.. this is minutiae) get on the way.
codazoda 8y ago
Author, if you read this, skip Ally for business accounts. They do not allow them and may freeze your account and hold your funds when they realize you're using it for business. Their great for personal accounts.
- enobrev 8y ago
  I didn't know this was an issue. After some research, I found that this is correct and not only do they not allow it but it seems they've shut accounts without contacting the account holders first. Appreciate the heads up.
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gesman 8y ago
Tip to save on lawyer: Read contract yourself then get back to company and request to either remove all one-sided clauses or make them equally two-sided. Also - add clause stating that unless you paid in full and on time - all IP belongs to you. Most contracts try to pull the blanket one way. Once done, then call your lawyer with resulted paper. Much less work for your lawyer to do.
- antoinevg 8y ago
  When company looks at you funny for doing this: Run the other way!
  - gesman 8y ago
    In my experience I never had a single case of objection to that (correcting one-sides clauses). Few iterations back and forth - yes, but it's clearly fair.
    - dboreham 8y ago
      Same experience. In fact I have never signed a contract that wasn't modified in some way. Actually there was one exception: a very large Pacific Northwest based company. Their standard consulting agreement was very fair, I imagined due to a desire to reduce "legal support costs" that would arise from prospective vendors constantly requesting the same set of edits. Probably also for fear of future litigation.
      - dctoedt 8y ago
        > Their standard consulting agreement was very fair, I imagined due to a desire to reduce "legal support costs" that would arise from prospective vendors constantly requesting the same set of edits. That was our motivation at BindView (now part of Symantec) for developing what many customers' lawyers said was the greatest vendor contract they'd ever seen: We didn't want to spend our time repeatedly negotiating the same T&C changes like gerbils in a wheel. This was especially true as the game clock was running down at the end of the fiscal-reporting quarter. [0] [0] https://www.oncontracts.com/balanced-contract-forms/ https://www.oncontracts.com/balanced-contract-forms/
Sapph 8y ago
Something else if you're a freelance developer: In order to command a higher rate and not just be hired as a code monkey to implement a predefined task, it helps to position yourself as a consultant who can help the client discover the best solutions to achieve their goals. Example: instead of just agreeing to develop a client's website per their initial specs, in your discovery call, find out what their goals for the website are. Let's say they want to use it to capture pre-orders for an upcoming product. Based on this, you can propose a few ROI-positive solutions like integrating payments with their email marketing platform to engage customers and bring back cart abandoners, hosting a viral share giveaway, etc.
171243 8y ago
bookmarked for later
pseudolus 8y ago
It's an additional expense but I would add obtaining business liability insurance to the list. It's not generally too expensive but can save you a bundle in legal fees that you can't recoup even if you prevail in lawsuit. Additionally, while a corporate structure should shield you from personal liability, there's no guarantee that whoever is suing won't try and pierce the corporate veil to get to the corporate principals - hence the benefit of insurance.
falsedan 8y ago
I feel like this is standard stuff, especially coming from the UK and the huge amount of contracting in that market. The real hard parts of independent contracting (how much exact are market rates/how do I find & land leads for contracts without an existing contact at the client) don’t seem to be addressed.
r3vo 8y ago
Sort of on the same path right now. Biggest obstacle I'm running into is that most of the work I'm finding is through recruiters, which of course means that a chunk of the money goes to the recruiter before I receive it. The rates are still decent, but I'm not working with enough of a financial buffer to compensate for the downtime I'm having. I'm brand new at this though and I expected this sort of difficulty curve to start out with. On a side note, if you've got an Angular or react project you are working on in the Atlanta area or remote and need some help, reach out to me :) All of my contact info is on my site elarbee.io
- kevinburke 8y ago
  Start contributing to Angular or React core, reach out to developers on the team or conference sponsors, let them know you’re available for consulting, put up a targeted “Angular.js consulting” page... Every company you reach thru the recruiters, if you make a good impression on the employees there tell them to reach out to you directly to hire you again if they move on.
  - r3vo 8y ago
    Thanks for the response Kevin, great advice. I really enjoyed your post! I hope to be as impressive a developer as you one day.
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dilyevsky 8y ago
> Try to get as much of the contract as you can paid up front - I generally ask for half or more up front. If a company offers Net 30 ask if you can shorten it to Net 5 or 10 or submit your invoices in advance. Anyone can suggest some good reading material on how to structure payment tranches? Do people charge a retainer? If so what percentage? when the work starts is it “pay as you go” or after completion? Does Net D apply to work start or completion?
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mancerayder 8y ago
Dear Author, thanks for the write-up. Regarding "Market yourself"... You mention websites and so forth. Is most of your marketing online or most of it in networking events? How do you deal with recruiters and LinkedIn recruiters - have you found a way around these?

638 points by kevinburke 8y ago

This is so helpful- thanks for sharing! Also your own website is such a great example of taking selling yourself as a consultant seriously. Congrats on all the success here!

faitswulff 8y ago

Didn't expect this note at the end, but what a good move: > Give back to the tools that make you successful - I give a percentage of my earnings every year to support software tools that help me do my job - iTerm2, Vim, Go, Postgres, Node.js, Python, nginx, various other open source projects.

SomethingOrNot 8y ago
Isn’t Go developed by Google? Or did they pawn the brunt of the work off on some voluntary organization? I somehow doubt it. Maybe he’s talking about projects that use go and aren’t backed by a company.

mcenedella 8y ago

This is all very good advice.

temp1928384 8y ago

I feel like going freelance/consulting is such as "figure it out on your own" ordeal even though there are so many people who do it. Seems like there's opportunity to help people who want to go freelance transition more easily. I think a good analogy is hair salons that sell a seat you can rent as a hairdresser...are there places where you can "pay" for leads/intros to clients as part of a larger remote software consultancy?

Aeolun 8y ago
I think that strategy only works if any given assignment costs $40. You need to spend a lot more time with the same developer.
photoguy112 8y ago
You really don't have to figure out anything, it's all been written about many times over and posted all over. The post is a good summary but lacks details. I am a UX consultant, not a developer, I figured it out on my own (although I'm sure there are things I am not aware of that perhaps I should research and figure out further) but I probably didn't have to if I did some googling around first. The biggest thing that makes you successful as a consultant is thinking like a business. You are not a person performing a service for the company (that makes you a hire / an employee figuratively speaking), you are a business, solving their business problem. When you think of yourself in this way and act accordingly, then everything becomes easier - saying no to bullshit, billing and collecting, charging way more. I nodded my head when I read the point about increasing your rate for every new client. People think charging more is being unfair, but this is just business practice. You don't need to charge "your worth" whatever it may be. There is a supply of a very particular thing, and a demand of a very particular thing and the rate does not matter whatsoever when the return far outweighs the costs. A million dollar product is worth exactly zero if it cannot be produced and if you are the one to help see it through then you can charge whatever you like, given the margins make sense. These days I find myself increasing my rates for every new client. Sometimes, just for the heck of it, when I have many leads, I'll double my already high rate to see what happens ;)
aliswe 8y ago
There is something called konsultnätverk in sweden, dunno what its called int'lly though

mickael-kerjean 8y ago

I'm in the same boat, with a pure technical background, I managed to tripled my salary in 2 years, the job has become much more interesting and without all the political noise. The hardest bit so far is the sales / pricing strategy. For example, my biggest problematic this month is to figured out how much is it realistic to charge a F500 to support & maintain a custom build solution we've created: 5k/month, 10k/month, 15k/month (was sounding totally crazy to me until some people told me their company charge that kind of money for support)

mathattack 8y ago
My experience has been to ask for a crazy amount (at least 50% more than you think you can possibly achieve). This anchors them high. Agree to “meet in the middle” and you will be better off than your starting point. Then deliver like crazy until they think you’re underpaid.

rl3 8y ago

This is great. Also interesting would be a similar guide on scaling from a one-person operation to a proper consultancy. Personally I'm jealous of those who manage to found their own creative consultancies. Especially ones that mix design/VFX/videography/software talent, that focus primarily on things like interactive experiences or commercials. For example, the Windows 10 default background.[0] There's numerous other equally neat examples, but the gist of it is that they get to think up cool stuff and then sell that to their clients, who are usually massive brands that can afford to pay big money. Getting one of those off the ground is probably exceedingly difficult barring deep industry experience and the connections to match, and even then I'm sure it's hard. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL8BBOwupcI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL8BBOwupcI

mariopt 8y ago

> Don't charge by the hour This is bad advice. Charging for a full week will make you lose a lot of clients. In the case of software development: The client never knows the full spec of the project and you'll have weeks were 10 hours is enough. Charging for those extra 30 hours is terrible deal for your client and he won't take it. What you should be careful about is how much you charge per hour. You may set different rates based on context like: for a full time project project you charge X, for future maintaining (which is on demand ) you charge 1.5 times X. Hourly also protects you agains scope creeping. Charging by the week/project/milestones requires a near full specification and it's done at an agency level where you've a team. I've been working hourly and I love it. You can try to spec out any project as much as you can, in the end you can't predict scope changes and/or unexpected problems: API is broken, missed an important email, build system is failing for no obvious reason, server went down, etc, etc. You have to figure out when charging by the hour/week/month/milestones is reasonable. Just because someone is making 120K a year in San Fran, doesn't mean you've to make the same amount while freelancing. It heavily swings from client to client.

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WestCoastJustin 8y ago
I would like to offer a different point of view here. Speaking as someone who has done consulting and owns a business. I would leave those hourly jobs for someone else. Focus on selling the result or business impact here. Frame and charge for it that way. You do not want to be some charge me by the hour consultant where they can just find someone cheaper, they will start to think of you like that, and will find someone else. Do not overcharge or be dishonest about it. But, what is this result worth to them? I'd think of it that way. I have seen people pay 250k for a months work. But, the impact was massive for the company. I am positive this is on the small side as you work up the food chain. There is some free work up front in scoping things out, but then I would sell time in blocks or packages, and do not really get into what you are charing by the hour. They must have some budget for this project, the timelines, a general scope, etc. Make your proposal around that in the context of the impact to the company. This depends on your field and clients too. But, I'd look to move as quickly as possible from hourly to package deal. There is risk but there is also big reward.

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sqs 8y ago

Sourcegraph CEO here. Kevin Burke (the author) worked with us at Sourcegraph for some important projects in late 2018 (including helping to prepare a big product release). It was a joy working with him. I’ve worked with a lot of contractors and would love it if more people followed these guidelines.

vajrabum 8y ago
This recommendation, solicited or not, is a very strong example of how to market a consulting business. Sales for consulting businesses can be more than half the trick to making it go and selling services requires credibility. Most consulting businesses that I'm aware of start with one or a small number of existing relationships with built-in credibility and usually the business is started with at least one sale in pocket. When it's time to try and go beyond your initial customers recommendations especially public ones from past happy customers go a long way to establishing credibility and shortening the sales cycle. So it pays double or more in the long run if you can establish relationships with and take care of the directors, VPs and CEOs that you're working for regardless of who the hiring manager is.
- sqs 8y ago
  My recommendation was not solicited, for the record. I read HN, saw the domain, recognized it was Kevin, and posted entirely on my own. (I agree with your reply!)
fxfan 8y ago
You still need to stop squatting on langserver.org like you created the protocol. Your list of implementations is outdated and best belongs in a git repo.
- sqs 8y ago
  It is in a repository: https://github.com/langserver/langserver.github.io https://github.com/langserver/langserver.github.io. We try to keep it up to date but rely on authors and PRs, too. We’ll do an audit (and if you see any outdated ones, please let us know). BTW, I emailed you but didn’t hear back after you posted a similar reply to my last HN comment. Can you let me know what wording you’d suggest to avoid confusion? My intent is for the wording to be clear.

HumanDrivenDev 8y ago

The biggest impediment for me would be finding clients. IME most programmers dont meet a lot plant potential clients when they are maintaining internal software. Even if they work for a consulting company, you can't use them due to restraint of trade clauses. So how would you get the first customers? I'm just some guy off the street, no one is going bet money on me performing a function for their business.

kevinburke 8y ago
Go to meetups, talk to colleagues who have quit your current company, try to attend or speak at conferences, start a blog and post at the bottom that you’re available for consulting... There’s no rule that says you can’t pitch projects to people, if you think you could help make a company better call them up and pitch them on it.
- jamestimmins 8y ago
  If you don't mind sharing: 1. What kind of meetups? I'm guessing developers are inclined to go to developer meetups, but it seems unlikely that potential clients would be there. 2. How have you managed to get hired by technology companies as a consultant? My clients are mostly folks that are non-technical and need someone to build them custom software. I'd love to work with tech-focused companies but am not sure how to find/pitch those opportunities.
  - mickael-kerjean 8y ago
    Not the OP but in the same situation as him > What kind of meetups? Any meetup that could have you next potential customer. For me it's meetup about Marketing, Sales, pure networking, Developer conf, .... Force youself to 1 to 2 meetup a week, this is not a one off thing but a long term investment if you want to be on the call when someone you've met hear about a project within their company. > How have you managed to get hired by technology companies as a consultant? For me, it's not really technology companies but companies that sees IT as a cost center, the usual scenario being they need a solution for a problem and don't have the know how to make it all work because IT isn't part of their core skills and the IT guys are only there to manage the network and debug their window machines

ordinaryperson 8y ago

Get a lawyer, review contracts, hire an accountant, register as a company...is this really better than working a regular 9-5? Sounds like the OP spends just as much time (if not more) doing paperwork, meetings, phone calls and other assorted meta-work as programmers in Big Tech Co, if not more. Corporate America can be a drag, I get it. Annual reviews, backstabbing office politics, the wrong people get promoted, loud open offices full of clowns that prevent you from concentrating but from this write-up it doesn't sound like going solo is any hassle-free Shangrila, either. For a certain class of people they like the "freedom" and hey, more power to you. By all means, enjoy the IC life. But I'd just as soon move to a different company if I'm unhappy at my job and not deal with this Kafkaesque amount of paperwork of being an independent consultant.

taneq 8y ago
> Sounds like the OP spends just as much time (if not more) doing paperwork, meetings, phone calls and other assorted meta-work as programmers in Big Tech Co, if not more. That's business ownership for you. The one thing you're almost certainly NOT getting (at least at the start) is more coding time.
- ordinaryperson 8y ago
  Exactly. And that's fine as long as you'r transparent about the tradeoff. But we tend not to frame solo dev as "mostly business-related work with a little bit of programming" instead we think of it as "Programming on your own! No boss! Wahoo!"
- jakobegger 8y ago
  As a business owner, I wish there was a way to outsource all the boring stuff. Last year I've even tried hiring someone to do all the beaurocratic stuff for me, but that didn't work out -- finding good people who want to work just a few hours a week isn't easy. I guess at a certain size, you can hire a full time assistant to take care of that stuff, but at a small business you are going to do all the overhead work yourself.
kevinburke 8y ago

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morpheuskafka 8y ago

One issue I see is that GitHub ToS prohibit a single natural person from owning multiple GitHub free accounts, so you would have to pay for each one which could get quite expensive. Of course, larger business will have their own GitHub Enterprise or self-hosted Bitbucket/GitLab/etc that they can make you an account on.

dboreham 8y ago
We just maintain our own corporate git hosting account for clients who don't have their own. Not a significant expense. Although we actually use bitbucket rather than github for this.

iceninenines 8y ago

After about the first $50k, get yourself some quality umbrella IT insurance that can protect you up to $4mil USD.

system2 8y ago
Any why anyone would need to do that?
- dboreham 8y ago
  Perhaps they own a house and don't want to lose it in a lawsuit? Also many clients will require their vendors to have insurance. Insurance is a kind of virially marketed product.

winrid 8y ago

I worked with over 50 companies/clients before I was 20 doing software dev. Not sure I'd write an article but open to questions!

aicioara 8y ago
If you mean under 20 years old: how did you establish a reputation at such a young age and in particular how did you get your first client? Was 2nd client easier to get. How about the 50th?
- winrid 8y ago
  1. Yes under 20. I started when I was 17, partially spending the time in my Compsi vocational class doing client work I had found on odesk(now upwork). 2. First couple jobs I probably worked below minimum wage. Lots of foreign competition on odesk that is hard to compete with no reputation. By the end I was making 35/hr in an area where you can mortgage a house for $350/mo (why did I move to the bay area again?? :)) 3. Yes they get easier to get. Part of my pitch was I get things done right which people liked. Edit - another fun fact about odesk. My first office job in the bay area was literally across the sidewalk from them. I spent three years getting work through there, moved 3000 miles, and ended up across the street from their office. Neat right?
- Void_ 8y ago
  I started contracting around 20 too. Having had internships with big Silicon Valley names helped.

known 8y ago

Worth the https://archive.st/7fd6 https://archive.st/7fd6

drake01 8y ago

I totally agree with Kevin where he says: """ I started out charging a monthly rate that was close to my full time salary / 12. This is not a good idea because you have overhead that your employer is no longer covering - health care probably the biggest one, you don't have paid vacations, there may be unpaid downtime between contracts and also companies might not pay you. """ When I started working remote 5 years back, I was just out of college and didn't care about those things...

jdmg718 8y ago

Problem is, as a student I am trying to go freelance and start getting clients by doing small projects. And I read articles like this one and I have so many questions. I cannot pay for a lawyer or an accountant yet most of the people recommend it, am I not going to be able to go solo if I don't have those kind of securities?

pasta 8y ago
For small projects you might not need a lawyer or accountant. But when you feel the balance is right you should hire people who can help you with your problems. At the moment you might do small projects but when project get bigger and your rate higher you will see that an accountant will become affordable. And when you do multi million projects you will be able to afford a lawyer. But one thing that is very important even when you are still 'small': register everything! What money goes in and what goes out. What the contracts are and all your email conversations with clients. This will help you and future accounts and lawyers.
uasm 8y ago
> "Problem is, as a student I am trying to go freelance and start getting clients by doing small projects." Is this more-or-less your first job straight out of school?
- jdmg718 8y ago
  Nope, had a couple of jobs at uni as an iOS dev. Problem is I don't know how to sell myself as a developer or look for jobs.
  - uasm 8y ago
    > "had a couple of jobs at uni as an iOS dev" That's a great start, but what kind of jobs are we talking about here? I'm asking because you might want to invest into building more experience before breaking off on your own. I'm talking about possibly larger projects, cooperating with other teams, driving products forward, working with PMs/customer requirements and so on. One way to get there is to work at a larger organization. People place value on experience.

alex_suzuki 8y ago

Great read, thanks Kevin. I blogged about this as well recently, might have one or two interesting points for you: https://blog.classycode.com/going-freelance-as-a-software-engineer-some-advice-13c4064c72ce https://blog.classycode.com/going-freelance-as-a-software-en...

nathan_f77 8y ago

This is really impressive! I'm especially impressed by the landing page for his consulting site: https://burke.services https://burke.services This is so much better than just listing some of the technologies you've worked with. It's really great to talk about the problems you've solved, and have some customer testimonials (especially from big names.) I've been doing almost the complete opposite for the last ~4 years. I always charge by the hour, and I use a time tracking tool that tracks every minute. I never ask anyone to pay up-front. I've used services like Toptal and Moonlight that handle all of the billing for me. I've never talked to a lawyer or an accountant. I haven't registered a company specifically for my freelancing, but I've started doing everything through my startup's company. (My startup now offers a SaaS product plus consulting services.) I live in Thailand and have a work permit through Iglu [1], so they handle all of my invoicing and taxes. I also don't have insurance. I don't set up separate GitHub accounts for everything, and I don't really see the need for that. But I do usually work for one client at a time, and I find context-switching very difficult. I think the main reason I haven't taken my consulting work super seriously is because I don't really want this to be my career. I've always treated it like a part-time thing to just pay the bills while I work on my own startups. No offense to people who take this seriously, but consulting has always felt like a bit of a dead end. You can make a great living, but I get really depressed when I enumerate all of the hours I would need to work. A salaried position is nice because it hides these details. You come to work in the morning, go home in the evening, and then your paycheck is transferred to your bank account. You don't have the option to stop working at any time, so you never really have to think about it. When you're a freelancer who wants to do this as a career, you suddenly have to convert your retirement goal into a fixed number of hours. Say you want to save and invest $2 million before you stop working, and you earn something like $200 per hour. You're able to save 50% of your income. You have to work at least: ($2000000 / 200) * 2 = 20,000 hours. That's 2,500 full days of work. Maybe you are able to book 80% of your time, and you only work 5 days a week, so each year you can work: (52 * 5) * 0.8 = 208 days. It will take you 2500 / 208 = ~12 years of almost full-time work before you can safely retire with $70k of investment income. Maybe more like ~9 years to account for investment returns. I think I'd rather join a few early-stage startups and get some significant stock options. It's much more fun to be part of a team member and have a vested interest. It will still take an average of 10 years before most startups have an exit. But you can leave after a few years and work for a few different startups to diversify (or start your own.) Having said all of that, I'm really impressed by https://burke.services https://burke.services and would love to hire him to work on my startup in the future. [1] https://iglu.net/ https://iglu.net/

carlsborg 8y ago

Is self employment on its own a worthy goal? I think it makes sense if it enable or finances entrepreneurship. Building an enterprise, disrupting existing business models, and adding value at scale is much more interesting problem.

m_b 8y ago

Funny reading here « going solo » but get a « lawyer », an « accountant », etc.

mickael-kerjean 8y ago
Nothing wrong to admit one can't know everything. Unless you have secret accounting skills (which isn't trivial to acquire) getting an accountant got me more money back than what I paid him while offsetting the risk of getting the books wrong, from where I sit, it's been a net win
sudhirj 8y ago
These are outsourcing jobs and it’s better than doing it yourself. And you spend less time with them than your gym instructor or even your grocer or building manager. They will save you a ton of time and money, though.
- m_b 8y ago
  Oh, don't worry I'm convinced! I just find it strange calling this "going solo", because the guy telling us this isn't.
kevinburke 8y ago
I have no employees, so yes, “going solo” is an accurate description. I would have an accountant anyway and frankly even if I was full time I would want a lawyer to review the employment agreement so not really saving anything there. Just sort of an odd gotcha - all sorts of people from train drivers to baristas to shoe manufacturers make us all successful every day but we don’t tend to count those people as employees or insist on a definition of “solo” that involves making your own shoes.

rasikjain 8y ago

Great writeup Kevin. As a IC, I can relate some of these points with my experiences. You should charge more to compensate for Medical Insurance, Non billable hours (Gap time), Marketing cost etc. Setup a Company (LLC or S-Corp) for doing paper work and contract (buy a minimum liability insurance). This will protect individual from litigations or lawsuit. Payment - Can't stress enough. I try to negotiate Net-15 or Net-30 days payment. So far it worked with all the clients.

raverbashing 8y ago
Just to clarify, Net-15 or Net-30 is payment 15 or 30 days after the invoice date, correct?
- rasikjain 8y ago
  That is correct. Payment term after you invoice date.

willart4food 8y ago

> Make Sure Contracts Are Signed With the Company - The contracts you sign should be between the client you are working with and your company NOT between the client and you personally. Discuss this with your lawyer. So simple, yet so many people fail to do so. They believe that since they are incorporated they are protected.

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andrewflnr 8y ago
What does this even mean from a mechanical standpoint? What do you look for? More importantly, where do you learn about all this low level mechanical stuff? Business books and HN comments always assume you know how to do that stuff. They don't teach it in school, at least for CS majors. (And yes, I took the "law for everyday life" class at my school. It was basically at the same theoretical level)
- kevinburke 8y ago
  Usually the first sentence of the contract will describe the parties signing it. “This agreement is between Acme, Inc (the Company) and Kevin Burke (Consultant)” is bad. The agreement should be between Acme Inc and whatever the registered name of your company is. Similarly on the signature line you sign as an agent of the company (CEO, Sole Member etc) the same way your counterparty signs it.
- willart4food 8y ago
  It's more about * critical thinking * actually listening If someone hires a lawyer to incorporate their business, they need to enter in any and all contract agreements under their corporate name and not their personal name. Ignorance and often EGO (me, me, me, me and.. this is minutiae) get on the way.

codazoda 8y ago

Author, if you read this, skip Ally for business accounts. They do not allow them and may freeze your account and hold your funds when they realize you're using it for business. Their great for personal accounts.

enobrev 8y ago
I didn't know this was an issue. After some research, I found that this is correct and not only do they not allow it but it seems they've shut accounts without contacting the account holders first. Appreciate the heads up.

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gesman 8y ago

Tip to save on lawyer: Read contract yourself then get back to company and request to either remove all one-sided clauses or make them equally two-sided. Also - add clause stating that unless you paid in full and on time - all IP belongs to you. Most contracts try to pull the blanket one way. Once done, then call your lawyer with resulted paper. Much less work for your lawyer to do.

antoinevg 8y ago
When company looks at you funny for doing this: Run the other way!
- gesman 8y ago
  In my experience I never had a single case of objection to that (correcting one-sides clauses). Few iterations back and forth - yes, but it's clearly fair.
  - dboreham 8y ago
    Same experience. In fact I have never signed a contract that wasn't modified in some way. Actually there was one exception: a very large Pacific Northwest based company. Their standard consulting agreement was very fair, I imagined due to a desire to reduce "legal support costs" that would arise from prospective vendors constantly requesting the same set of edits. Probably also for fear of future litigation.
    - dctoedt 8y ago
      > Their standard consulting agreement was very fair, I imagined due to a desire to reduce "legal support costs" that would arise from prospective vendors constantly requesting the same set of edits. That was our motivation at BindView (now part of Symantec) for developing what many customers' lawyers said was the greatest vendor contract they'd ever seen: We didn't want to spend our time repeatedly negotiating the same T&C changes like gerbils in a wheel. This was especially true as the game clock was running down at the end of the fiscal-reporting quarter. [0] [0] https://www.oncontracts.com/balanced-contract-forms/ https://www.oncontracts.com/balanced-contract-forms/

Sapph 8y ago

Something else if you're a freelance developer: In order to command a higher rate and not just be hired as a code monkey to implement a predefined task, it helps to position yourself as a consultant who can help the client discover the best solutions to achieve their goals. Example: instead of just agreeing to develop a client's website per their initial specs, in your discovery call, find out what their goals for the website are. Let's say they want to use it to capture pre-orders for an upcoming product. Based on this, you can propose a few ROI-positive solutions like integrating payments with their email marketing platform to engage customers and bring back cart abandoners, hosting a viral share giveaway, etc.

171243 8y ago

bookmarked for later

pseudolus 8y ago

It's an additional expense but I would add obtaining business liability insurance to the list. It's not generally too expensive but can save you a bundle in legal fees that you can't recoup even if you prevail in lawsuit. Additionally, while a corporate structure should shield you from personal liability, there's no guarantee that whoever is suing won't try and pierce the corporate veil to get to the corporate principals - hence the benefit of insurance.

falsedan 8y ago

I feel like this is standard stuff, especially coming from the UK and the huge amount of contracting in that market. The real hard parts of independent contracting (how much exact are market rates/how do I find & land leads for contracts without an existing contact at the client) don’t seem to be addressed.

r3vo 8y ago

Sort of on the same path right now. Biggest obstacle I'm running into is that most of the work I'm finding is through recruiters, which of course means that a chunk of the money goes to the recruiter before I receive it. The rates are still decent, but I'm not working with enough of a financial buffer to compensate for the downtime I'm having. I'm brand new at this though and I expected this sort of difficulty curve to start out with. On a side note, if you've got an Angular or react project you are working on in the Atlanta area or remote and need some help, reach out to me :) All of my contact info is on my site elarbee.io

kevinburke 8y ago
Start contributing to Angular or React core, reach out to developers on the team or conference sponsors, let them know you’re available for consulting, put up a targeted “Angular.js consulting” page... Every company you reach thru the recruiters, if you make a good impression on the employees there tell them to reach out to you directly to hire you again if they move on.
- r3vo 8y ago
  Thanks for the response Kevin, great advice. I really enjoyed your post! I hope to be as impressive a developer as you one day.

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dilyevsky 8y ago

> Try to get as much of the contract as you can paid up front - I generally ask for half or more up front. If a company offers Net 30 ask if you can shorten it to Net 5 or 10 or submit your invoices in advance. Anyone can suggest some good reading material on how to structure payment tranches? Do people charge a retainer? If so what percentage? when the work starts is it “pay as you go” or after completion? Does Net D apply to work start or completion?

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mancerayder 8y ago

Dear Author, thanks for the write-up. Regarding "Market yourself"... You mention websites and so forth. Is most of your marketing online or most of it in networking events? How do you deal with recruiters and LinkedIn recruiters - have you found a way around these?