So…I did this and pretty much made every mistake possible. I: - underestimated how much cash I’d have to pour in to get going. - hate sales. hate, hate, hate

So…I did this and pretty much made every mistake possible. I: - underestimated how much cash I’d have to pour in to get going. - hate sales. hate, hate, hate with a passion of a thousand ESC keys trying to get out of vi, hate sales. - didn’t have a shtick or model of what I would do or wouldn't do, I ended up taking a scattershot approach of what I’d work on. - underestimated how many clients would slow walk payments or outright refuse to pay once work was completed. - quickly went sidewise with my local city/state regulations and while not fatal ended up being a drag on my attention - underpriced myself. In an effort to get business I kept either cutting deals or allowed clients to effectively con me into doing more work than they could pay for. My advice, in light of those mistakes is: - if you really want to do this, start by finding a consultancy to work for to learn that side of the business. Learn sales. Learn accounting. Learn how to build a backlog of prospective clients. - Try to figure out what your pitch would be to a client and then try selling that over, and over, and over again. If you detest sales, then you should learn before you make the leap. - set aside more than enough cash to tide you through the startup phase. Even if everything worked perfectly and your clients pay you on time you may have 60-90 day gaps before payments. - figure out what your rate would be, and then double it. No, seriously, if only to account for the overhead you don't yet know you need to account for. - If you are in the US the chances of you working on contract for your current employer are near zero. The IRS will look at that situation and deem you to be an employee. About the only way to make it work is to work through a third party agency, who's now taking 10-20% of your rate to provide a smiling face for the IRS and shuffle invoices around. The other problem I had was I utterly failed to convince companies to hire me for the work I specialized in (this was early 00's so web site development / web application development). They would prefer to spend $1250/hr on an agency where there was also only one developer working behind the scenes than the rates I was charging.