4 ms·
You can really shoot yourself in the foot when freelancing with this caveat. The faster you are the less you make. I try to charge more because I do move prett
by ehnto 6y ago
You can really shoot yourself in the foot when freelancing with this caveat. The faster you are the less you make.
I try to charge more because I do move pretty quickly, but I have been replaced by someone "A third of my cost" more than once. If you took the triangle for "Fast, good, cheap" and graphed the market demand for each, my gut feeling is that "Fast, cheap" is the leading demand by a long margin. To someone hiring a freelancer, "Fast, cheap" looks close enough to "Fast, Good"
- rorykoehler 6y agoI've done some contracts where they thought it was a good idea to hire 20 interns before they hired any senior devs....
- chrisweekly 6y agoYep. This is why experienced consultants tend to aim for value-based pricing / project-billing, and avoid hourly when possible. Otherwise the incentives are all kinds of screwed up, even adversarial.
- agumonkey 6y agoAt the society scale it's really hurting it seems.. every body is trying to get a chunk of the blanket and we all spend more time fighting each others than improving our lives.
- swader999 6y agoGetting burned on fixed bid work is a higher risk from what I've experience over the decades with all types of clients.
- chrisweekly 6y agoYes, this is a very real risk! Hence the advice "charge more". Never try to compete on price, it's a race to the bottom that commodifies your work, and you're competing against people able and willing to work for a pittance. Be strategic, be viewed as strategic, and price accordingly. Also, consider a hybrid with a fixed-price base (esp. w an initial "discovery" phase, priced on its own), and explicit provision for time and materials overages. Mostly, figure out what works for you, and do everything in your power to deliver value for your clients. I say all this having used a few different models over the years but also presently engaged in a long-term (well-paying) hourly contract that's honestly been a welcome break from the sales/marketing/bizdev aspects of consulting.
- agumonkey 6y agoThe relativism of economy/work really gets to me.
- ballenf 6y agoThe hardest part of contracting is finding good customers whose priorities in that triangle align with yours. Sometimes fast and cheap is the right answer. And there are devs who enjoy that role (although they often don't have the self-awareness to realize this, in my experience working with them).