7 ms·

Downsides of Freelancing

51 points by wallflower 8y ago

paulpauper 8y ago
a lot of obvious stuff and it reads like an advertisement When I first moved to Amsterdam, I gave myself a 3-month "trial period" to figure out if I could find work and if I wanted to stay. This sounded then like a good amount of time, but it goes by much quicker than you think. I only started to contact people when I arrived and looking back now, I probably should’ve started much earlier. Building a network is a slow process, so you have to start before you quit your job. it's slow and hard? who knew. How does someone with no experience move in one of the most expensive cities and suddenly have a good living? Yeah a lot of stuff does not add up.
- save_ferris 8y ago
  I gave up here: > I must admit that I’ve also never worked with a contract and that I don’t have any other form of terms and conditions for clients to sign. I'm not a freelancer, but this sounds pretty unprofessional to me.
  - marpstar 8y ago
    I definitely got started without these things, though I was working for an agency. To do it full time without those things? Never.
  - mobilemidget 8y ago
    Yes and no, but there are still people that can be honest to each other without contracts and nasty clauses and so on. A job description though, that both parties know what to expect from each other. (When the work is done and payment is due) can be done in an email.
    - seanwilson 8y ago
      Ignoring other benefits like assigning liability, a contract isn't going to be able to force your client to pay under all circumstances anyway. Clients can always argue the work wasn't up to the standard they were expecting, they could later disagree with the interpretation of the requirements, clients can go bankrupt and be unable to pay you etc. In terms of getting paid, knowing which clients and projects to avoid, controlling scope creep, setting expectations and structuring work to get paid as you go are more important in my opinion. Once you're at the stage of pointing to contract terms the project is probably on rocky territory already where your client isn't going to be happy at the end of it. Get a contract as well but I keep reading people talking about getting "air tight contracts" as if they're the most important part of getting paid.
    - geezerjay 8y ago
      > Yes and no, but there are still people that can be honest to each other without contracts and nasty clauses and so on. Contracts are not about honesty. They are a way to avoid having to negotiate how to act when predictable problems occur by setting the conditions (i.e., what to do when something happens) on paper. If a project stays permanently on its happy path then you don't need safeguard clauses, but often it doesn't and having to decide how to proceed after problems occur is not easy or enjoyable for any part, because someone's ideal solution may not be aligned with someone else's best interests.
      - mobilemidget 8y ago
        I meant that some people will not be honest and fair if things aren’t 100% in writing with signatures, and that’s on both sides
  - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
    Consultant here. No contracts. Never had any issues.
  - skilled 8y ago
    Email has been my primary "contract" for a large proportion of my freelance gigs. Maybe it has to do with the type of services you provide?
AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
With working from home and unlimited vacations becoming more and more widespread, I wonder are there any upsides left in freelancing?
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  Not having to deal with the politics of the office or working with people you don’t like. Setting your own pay. I dunno, those seem like good ones to me.
- seanwilson 8y ago
  Quite a lot I think - setting your own hours, picking what you work on, picking who you work with, picking how you work (tools, meetings, 100% remote etc.), being able to work on side projects you can profit from without them being owned by your employer, potential to earn a lot more since you're working directly with clients, not having a boss to answer to (you have to answer to clients but not in the same way especially since you have multiple clients) and lots of freedom around vacations (which I'm guessing is closer to "unlimited vacations" than you'd get from an employer). Unstable income, having to market yourself and more means it isn't for everyone though.
  - seba_dos1 8y ago
    > being able to work on side projects you can profit from without them being owned by your employer Is not being able to even legal? I'm pretty sure employer can't put anything like that in the work contract where I live. My spare time is my time. Sure one can sign a non-competing clause, but employer owning your side projects sounds just insane.
    - xfitm3 8y ago
      Discussion on this from 2011: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056
- cm2012 8y ago
  I make 3x as much as freelancer for the same work.
rokhayakebe 8y ago
Be a gatherer & not a hunter. In other words, find clients you can put on a monthly retainer instead of big projects that pay you once and force you to look for work for 5 months when done.
- zikzak 8y ago
  I have done this by working for a single employer. I got tired of the uncertainty of contracting and like the steady pay and benefits. Some people might think I'm a sucker but a feel like I sleep better these days (for the last decade, I guess).
  - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
    Doing your own thing is not for everyone.
    - thisacctforreal 8y ago
      Are you saying parent is not doing his own thing, or that the people who think he's a sucker aren't doing their own thing? I agree with the latter :)
      - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
        There’s nothing wrong to work for an employer if it’s easier on your life. Some people prefer solo for whatever reason - whatever works for you ya know...
mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
It’s been said many times on HN, but if you freelance and in case you missed it: 1. Double or triple your rates (if you are fairly new to this you’re likely not charging enough. 2. You are now a consultant. You don’t provide a service, you provide solutions (if you are not sure what you are solving, figure it out). Forget the term freelance and anything associated with it. 3. Stop charging hourly. Try day rate, week rate, bi-weekly. Experiment. 4. Be picky. Fire clients if you have to. You are not a tool, you are a business, act the part.
- seanwilson 8y ago
  Can you explain what the work agreement is for a week rate? So if a client wants you to work for them they have to hire you for an entire week at a time?
  - gremlinsinc 8y ago
    Basically yeah, so you might charge 100/hour, and the client will get 40 hours @ 4,000 -- but your expectation is to put in 25-30 in dev work, 10 hours is spent in planning, meetings, consulting, give or take.
    - seanwilson 8y ago
      So the downside now is you have to be available for the whole week, which means you can't commit to other clients that week and you can't take time off? And you've got similar disadvantages with hourly billing where if you get through the work faster you'll have less work to charge for later and there's a cap on how much you can earn because there's only so many hours in the week? Not saying other approaches are perfect but I'm trying to understand alternatives.
      - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
        Sure, If you make it your own policy to work on one client at a time, you could have downtime that you still charge for. It doesn’t have to be this way though, retainer does not mean you have to be limited to one client. If you feel guilty that you don’t provide enough value for the work you do, go ahead and charge a half daily or a daily rate, and work on other projects on other days. Personally I will take on 1-2 clients max because that is all I can handle at a time without outsourcing parts of my process (have yet to try this). Essentially you can end up with 2 higher paying “jobs” and charge twice or 3 times what your colleagues are making in-house. It all depends on how you want to do things - you’re the boss.
payne92 8y ago
A big surprise many run into: the amount of time it takes to find and sign up new work (“sales”). It can be incredibly time-consuming, leads to a bunch of stress and uncertainty, and you can’t really bill for it.

51 points by wallflower 8y ago

a lot of obvious stuff and it reads like an advertisement When I first moved to Amsterdam, I gave myself a 3-month "trial period" to figure out if I could find work and if I wanted to stay. This sounded then like a good amount of time, but it goes by much quicker than you think. I only started to contact people when I arrived and looking back now, I probably should’ve started much earlier. Building a network is a slow process, so you have to start before you quit your job. it's slow and hard? who knew. How does someone with no experience move in one of the most expensive cities and suddenly have a good living? Yeah a lot of stuff does not add up.

save_ferris 8y ago
I gave up here: > I must admit that I’ve also never worked with a contract and that I don’t have any other form of terms and conditions for clients to sign. I'm not a freelancer, but this sounds pretty unprofessional to me.
- marpstar 8y ago
  I definitely got started without these things, though I was working for an agency. To do it full time without those things? Never.
- mobilemidget 8y ago
  Yes and no, but there are still people that can be honest to each other without contracts and nasty clauses and so on. A job description though, that both parties know what to expect from each other. (When the work is done and payment is due) can be done in an email.
  - seanwilson 8y ago
    Ignoring other benefits like assigning liability, a contract isn't going to be able to force your client to pay under all circumstances anyway. Clients can always argue the work wasn't up to the standard they were expecting, they could later disagree with the interpretation of the requirements, clients can go bankrupt and be unable to pay you etc. In terms of getting paid, knowing which clients and projects to avoid, controlling scope creep, setting expectations and structuring work to get paid as you go are more important in my opinion. Once you're at the stage of pointing to contract terms the project is probably on rocky territory already where your client isn't going to be happy at the end of it. Get a contract as well but I keep reading people talking about getting "air tight contracts" as if they're the most important part of getting paid.
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    > Yes and no, but there are still people that can be honest to each other without contracts and nasty clauses and so on. Contracts are not about honesty. They are a way to avoid having to negotiate how to act when predictable problems occur by setting the conditions (i.e., what to do when something happens) on paper. If a project stays permanently on its happy path then you don't need safeguard clauses, but often it doesn't and having to decide how to proceed after problems occur is not easy or enjoyable for any part, because someone's ideal solution may not be aligned with someone else's best interests.
    - mobilemidget 8y ago
      I meant that some people will not be honest and fair if things aren’t 100% in writing with signatures, and that’s on both sides
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  Consultant here. No contracts. Never had any issues.
- skilled 8y ago
  Email has been my primary "contract" for a large proportion of my freelance gigs. Maybe it has to do with the type of services you provide?

AlexTWithBeard 8y ago

With working from home and unlimited vacations becoming more and more widespread, I wonder are there any upsides left in freelancing?

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
Not having to deal with the politics of the office or working with people you don’t like. Setting your own pay. I dunno, those seem like good ones to me.
seanwilson 8y ago
Quite a lot I think - setting your own hours, picking what you work on, picking who you work with, picking how you work (tools, meetings, 100% remote etc.), being able to work on side projects you can profit from without them being owned by your employer, potential to earn a lot more since you're working directly with clients, not having a boss to answer to (you have to answer to clients but not in the same way especially since you have multiple clients) and lots of freedom around vacations (which I'm guessing is closer to "unlimited vacations" than you'd get from an employer). Unstable income, having to market yourself and more means it isn't for everyone though.
- seba_dos1 8y ago
  > being able to work on side projects you can profit from without them being owned by your employer Is not being able to even legal? I'm pretty sure employer can't put anything like that in the work contract where I live. My spare time is my time. Sure one can sign a non-competing clause, but employer owning your side projects sounds just insane.
  - xfitm3 8y ago
    Discussion on this from 2011: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056
cm2012 8y ago
I make 3x as much as freelancer for the same work.

rokhayakebe 8y ago

Be a gatherer & not a hunter. In other words, find clients you can put on a monthly retainer instead of big projects that pay you once and force you to look for work for 5 months when done.

zikzak 8y ago
I have done this by working for a single employer. I got tired of the uncertainty of contracting and like the steady pay and benefits. Some people might think I'm a sucker but a feel like I sleep better these days (for the last decade, I guess).
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  Doing your own thing is not for everyone.
  - thisacctforreal 8y ago
    Are you saying parent is not doing his own thing, or that the people who think he's a sucker aren't doing their own thing? I agree with the latter :)
    - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
      There’s nothing wrong to work for an employer if it’s easier on your life. Some people prefer solo for whatever reason - whatever works for you ya know...

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago

It’s been said many times on HN, but if you freelance and in case you missed it: 1. Double or triple your rates (if you are fairly new to this you’re likely not charging enough. 2. You are now a consultant. You don’t provide a service, you provide solutions (if you are not sure what you are solving, figure it out). Forget the term freelance and anything associated with it. 3. Stop charging hourly. Try day rate, week rate, bi-weekly. Experiment. 4. Be picky. Fire clients if you have to. You are not a tool, you are a business, act the part.

seanwilson 8y ago
Can you explain what the work agreement is for a week rate? So if a client wants you to work for them they have to hire you for an entire week at a time?
- gremlinsinc 8y ago
  Basically yeah, so you might charge 100/hour, and the client will get 40 hours @ 4,000 -- but your expectation is to put in 25-30 in dev work, 10 hours is spent in planning, meetings, consulting, give or take.
  - seanwilson 8y ago
    So the downside now is you have to be available for the whole week, which means you can't commit to other clients that week and you can't take time off? And you've got similar disadvantages with hourly billing where if you get through the work faster you'll have less work to charge for later and there's a cap on how much you can earn because there's only so many hours in the week? Not saying other approaches are perfect but I'm trying to understand alternatives.
    - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
      Sure, If you make it your own policy to work on one client at a time, you could have downtime that you still charge for. It doesn’t have to be this way though, retainer does not mean you have to be limited to one client. If you feel guilty that you don’t provide enough value for the work you do, go ahead and charge a half daily or a daily rate, and work on other projects on other days. Personally I will take on 1-2 clients max because that is all I can handle at a time without outsourcing parts of my process (have yet to try this). Essentially you can end up with 2 higher paying “jobs” and charge twice or 3 times what your colleagues are making in-house. It all depends on how you want to do things - you’re the boss.

payne92 8y ago

A big surprise many run into: the amount of time it takes to find and sign up new work (“sales”). It can be incredibly time-consuming, leads to a bunch of stress and uncertainty, and you can’t really bill for it.