Deciding how to structure your contracts is important. Time and materials is nice, but if you're making the same thing over and over, a fixed bid with accommoda

Deciding how to structure your contracts is important. Time and materials is nice, but if you're making the same thing over and over, a fixed bid with accommodations for additional changes is okay. Networking is important, so keeping clients happy is important, but also telling bad clients to go pound sand is a critical skill, as they'll ruin you if you let them. My company made most of its money by referrals from one client to another, and it was important to have someone who is good at maintaining relationships with not only current clients, but old clients, and prospective clients. If that's not you, find someone who will do it for you. They should be good at it, and ought to be second nature to them: it's not a one-time thing, it's an ongoing part of that business model. I meanm you might get lucky and have one client for years and years, but you should plan on having to constantly be hustling for new clients, since that's the most common scenario. I did consulting for 13 years. The upside is you get to work on a lot of different stuff, and become really good at a variety of technologies, as well as the general skill of becoming good at picking up new skills. You also get to look at a stupid product or application and think to yourself, "it's your money, pal," because you don't have to pretend you're saving the world at some dumb startup, you're a mercenary who parachutes in and then escapes on a hang glider just as the startup is about to explode. On the other hand, you don't get to focus on one thing and get really good at it, or focus on one market and learn every angle of it, or focus on one product and iterate on it until it's good.