14 ms·

I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

575 points by taubek 3y ago

iLoveOncall 3y ago
[flagged]
- Zetobal 3y ago
  I do basically the same sometimes I have days were I don't work at all. You don't have to hustle your whole life away if you don't want to.
- ncallaway 3y ago
  The company I run asks employees to work 20 hours per week. Just because something isn’t the norm doesn’t mean it’s fabricated.
- HtmlProgrammer 3y ago
  I do this as a remote 9 to 5 dev, you just need to be delivering and not tell people how much free time you have
- matkoniecz 3y ago
  That is not unusual for freelancing.
jimkleiber 3y ago
> Show other people that a different way of life is possible. Often I'll question the ab-normal ways I've been choosing to live my life and I loved how the author summarized one major benefit for doing so.
pictur 3y ago
[flagged]
- tekla 3y ago
  [flagged]
- SCUSKU 3y ago
  Respectfully, it is her livelihood, so it has a meaningful impact on her life. Also, you can just not read it if you dislike it.
  - pictur 3y ago
    I found it funny that the situation was romanticized.
    - system2 3y ago
      She might be a beginner and excited about proving herself to the world by writing and feeling serious about it. Who knows. Some people write, some people don't. She just discovered what 99% of the freelancers feel already but 99% didn't write about it. Just another blog post.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pxue 3y ago
  You'll be surprised by how many people want what she have.
- mattgreenrocks 3y ago
  I found it extremely refreshing to read about someone who defied the corporate-centric work model and came out ahead in both time and money. Is that not interesting to you?
xwdv 3y ago
Can someone explain what the appeal of solo freelancing is in the age of bountiful remote work? My typical day as a remote worker is not that different from the one described: a couple hours of work per day and mostly leisure the rest of the time. And I probably still make more money than a freelancer. Consistently too. Is chasing down new clients all the time and working on multiple projects really that desirable to people? I think this article is just cope.
- zerr 3y ago
  Nbr of digits in the hourly rate? Remote work is usually two digits number while freelancing on short term projects would be at least three digits.
- hattmall 3y ago
  You're more easily replaceable as a remote worker, you're also dependent on the whims of your employer. It's easier and more beneficial to develop the skill of chasing down clients vs chasing down jobs in a remote work environment. You also don't have any options for residuals and your working largely to pad someone else's pocket and not your own.
- capableweb 3y ago
  Biggest difference is that you get to 100% chose exactly what you want to work on, and all the profits generated by the work goes to you. You're not beholden to anyone but yourself. > Is chasing down new clients all the time and working on multiple projects really that desirable to people? Chasing down new clients is probably a thing mostly affecting new freelancers without much experience. When I've done freelancing in the past, I've never had to look for any clients besides posting "I'm available to help out people on a freelance-basis" on various social media, and then I get more work available to me than I could realistically do. I think most established freelancers "suffer" from the same. Once you're available for work, it fills up quickly.
- nickjj 3y ago
  > Can someone explain what the appeal of solo freelancing is in the age of bountiful remote work? Income multipliers, flexibility and being treated like an adult are a few reasons that come to mind. For example, with salaried work your income is mostly fixed (minus a pre-defined'ish bonus or options, etc.). With contract work you might land a $30,000 contract that takes 2 weeks to do because the focus is on providing value that allows your client to 5x that in a few months so it's a no brainer. This is different than salaried work where you're expected to be available for 40-45 hours a week. You may decide to spend a year traveling the world while maintaining existing work and working whenever you feel like it. As a salaried worker I don't think you'll be able to work a few hours a week for 6-12 months in a row and still be employed unless you had an exceptional situation. With a number of salaried positions, especially with companies that receive funding or are growing a bit past early startup stages you often lose all freedom to make decisions that you're qualified to make. Such as having to ask permission from multiple people to store $0.01 / month worth of files in an S3 bucket where the discussion to get this approval literally costs 10,000x to 20,000x more in engineering time.
bombcar 3y ago
Agencies charge like a very good contractor but use midrange to lousy contractors/employees to do most of the work, and bring the good ones in only in need. It’s selling the difference between the two.
- freitzkriesler2 3y ago
  One guy I worked with spent a lot of effort evaluating Ukrainian and south American talent who had fluent or at least business level English. It took him awhile but the devs he fed work to were solid engineers, almost FAANG tier but he paid them s*t or good for their locations. I've kept their names handy because poaching them would be dirt easy. Knowing this as well as what you said, I avoid agencies now and simply assemble teams of individuals for this reason alone. They're easier to evaluate and you can let them go easily as opposed to a full service agency. However, what annoys me the most about Upwork are agencies larping as solo guys. Anytime I evaluate a guy who has a solo freelancer account and then mentions he has guys he works with that bill through him, I cut them lose. This is easy to spot. I wish uowork would ban these guys.
  - pmontra 3y ago
    I'm a solo freelancer and I happened to get contracts that needed more than one person to work on. Sometimes the customer paid everybody separately, sometimes they paid me and I paid the others.
  - rcarr 3y ago
    > However, what annoys me the most about Upwork are agencies larping as solo guys. Anytime I evaluate a guy who has a solo freelancer account and then mentions he has guys he works with that bill through him, I cut them lose. In the UK, you need to collect evidence that you are a contractor and not an employee of a company. One of the ways you can do this is by hiring people to do some or all of the contracted work on your behalf. It might be unlikely given it is Upwork, but if those freelancers are repeatedly doing big or long jobs for the same client(s) then this may be a legitimate tactic to avoid falling foul of the taxman.
pxue 3y ago
As a solo dev contractor who got my business to $500k/year during the pandemic - I echo a lot of the sentiment in this post. An extension to the post I want to touch on is that VC funded startups are not the only way to break free from the dreadful corporate games. Working for yourself at your own pace is. As an industry we're surprisingly very behind in normalizing this.
- DeltaCoast 3y ago
  Can I ask how you find contracts? Are there that many contract roles posted in public or is it due to your network?
  - freitzkriesler2 3y ago
    Upwork. Solely up work.
    - delfinom 3y ago
      Wow, I tried upwork but it generally always seems to be entities in significantly cheaper countries underbidding everything. How did you get started to snap up your first jobs on it?
      - frankreyes 3y ago
        No idea on the specifics, but the theory goes like this : clients have been burned many times over cheap solutions. Cheaper is usually more expensive on the long run. For this to break the circle you need reputation of reliability.
      - freitzkriesler2 3y ago
        I didn't nor do I use Upwork. I'm just saying what the reality is.
      - bdcravens 3y ago
        If you're in the US, restricting yourself to jobs where they are limiting to the US results lessens that problem (doesn't eliminate it - I suspect there's a ton of fronting accounts)
tennisflyi 3y ago
I have a similar vision. I want to hire one person and pay them well. Culture will definitely be very easy to maintain. I only want to net like $20k/month.
j7ake 3y ago
I think the quantity to look for is the fraction of time you spend working on your own projects. You want it to be about 40 hours a week. Too little means you’re probably spending too much time on client or admin work. Too much could mean you’re in a hyper competitive field and you’re struggling to keep up, eg academics.
wslh 3y ago
I sympathize with the sentiment of working on your own way instead of following the growth, or others mantra. But I think Nela should also understand that she is an outlier deciding to work ALONE: what happens when someone decides to have children? Do a single person has the skills to manage the complexities of a business? Be ready all the time? I don't underestimate Nela skills, just saying, again, she is an outlier and should balance her own mantra.
- LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
  Her arrangement gives her the freedom to make all of these decisions, which is the way it should be.
- thecupisblue 3y ago
  Why wouldn't they? While sometimes it takes more time than a normal job would, it also offers a larger amount of freedom than a 9-5. And if you have a great reputation and a constant stream of clients, it is even better since you can pick projects and decide when to do them and in what manner. On another note, Nela is quite an outlier! I've been following her work for close to 20 years now I think, starting from her HTML&CSS tutorials long time ago. Her blog was basically CSS Zen Garden for my generation, teaching us how to achieve beautiful things with HTML&CSS back in the age of Dreamweaver, inspiring many future developers and designers. She gave so much to the community through the years with her knowledge sharing that it still inspires me and motivates me to this day to share more. Nela, if you're reading this, thanks for all the great work!
  - wslh 3y ago
    My criticism is about not taking this as general advice. > And if you have a great reputation and a constant stream of clients If you have a great reputation and a constant stream of clients that is sustainable for decades you are an outlier.
    - thecupisblue 3y ago
      It's not a prerequisite tho - I've arranged with multiple clients to work either 3 days a week or just a set amount of hours whenever I choose. And most of others I know who get into freelancing do the same - if you have offer for another project, and they can't wait until you're free, you can always recommend them to a friend/colleague.
mattgreenrocks 3y ago
Warning: bit of a rant ahead. I’m currently on the path to a principal-level role at my company. I really don’t know what I think about it. The jump from lead to principal is a big one in terms of workload and stress, and I’ve been told the pay difference isn’t huge. Older I get, the less I care to ascend the ladder. Even at this point I’m doing it out of a sense of amassing status in case I need it, rather than being motivated by it. And I feel that lack of intrinsic motivation. I’m mid-career, and mostly just tired of selling so much time and energy to someone else’s enterprise, especially because I watch myself trade away time that should be spent taking care of myself for a stupid title upgrade. I think I am a late bloomer bootstrapper.
- MattGaiser 3y ago
  In general, interest in career advancement is collapsing. https://www.wsj.com/articles/your-coworkers-are-less-ambitious-bosses-adjust-to-the-new-order-11672441067 https://www.wsj.com/articles/your-coworkers-are-less-ambitio...
  - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
    I have no interest at all in being some high ranking manager or director in any company. I want to clock in, do my work, and clock out so I can go do what I actually want to do. Don't get me wrong, I love my job and find my work interesting. I'm incredibly lucky to be where I'm at. But I'm also completely fine just doing my thing and being done for the day.
  - manicennui 3y ago
    Unfortunately promotion is the best way to get more money at most companies without leaving.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- plugin-baby 3y ago
  Good luck with the new role! I’m surprised you’ve shared this rant non-anonymously, I hope it doesn’t have negative effect on your progress.
swayvil 3y ago
Tight logos. Nice work. Yes, respect your process first. Clearly. All dreams of growth are insubstantial, comparatively.
k8sToGo 3y ago
I would love to try out being an independent contractor. But I feel overwhelmed. Where do I even start to find work?
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  A starting point could be to target contractor positions posted by companies and/or recruitment agencies. Those are sometimes really close to permanent employment (except the job security and employee-specific perks) but will at least get you started in the game. Be mindful of laws around disguised employment with those types of engagements. You need to make sure you are in the clear legally by paying the appropriate amount of tax for your given situation (in the UK the regulation is called "IR35" and tries to specify what falls under a legitimate B2B arrangement and what counts as "disguised employment" and incurs taxation equivalent to conventional employment).
- towawy 3y ago
  Reach out to other contractors who you’ve worked with directly (e.g. worked on the same project at a former employer) and valued/praised your work.
ilamont 3y ago
For years I’ve felt “weird” and “wrong” for working this way. I still feel guilty when telling people that I am only open for meetings from 11 am to 5 pm. The only exceptions are people in distant time zones. It can also feel wrong if your SO is on a regular 9 to 5 and you are getting up without an alarm clock, going shopping and making appointments in the middle of the day, and generally setting your own work habits according to your own preferences. Last night I was working at 1 am because I couldn't sleep and there was something I wanted to get done. OTOH, she never has to go food shopping and I have always been there for the kids in ways that are not possible for her - helped my adult child load and unload a moving truck last Wednesday afternoon, and over the years took both kids to school activities, driving lessons, and other events that my spouse couldn't attend.
- Kaibeezy 3y ago
  “Tiny unicorn” is what I call this kind of business. I’ve been working like that for 30+ years. Avoid failure to the left of you, greed to the right. It’s a strait, narrow, rocky and easy-to-lose path. A constant onslaught of people and chaos trying to push, pull, trick, trip, invest and otherwise knock you off it. Stay on target and you get to be… yourself.
  - chr15m 3y ago
    Love the tiny unicorn nomenclature!
- kirso 3y ago
  In that case this passage is for you: We don’t need to explain ourselves to them. We don’t need to prove our success through conventional means. We don’t need to measure against a scale that others have invented. We don’t need to feel guilty for refusing to take on unnecessary responsibilities.
raziel2701 3y ago
This is very refreshing to see. Not everything needs to grow grow grow fast fast fast. I think she has a very sustainable way of operating and living and it makes me very happy and I find it inspiring. I hope more people follow suit,I kinda am saying that to myself :)
louwrentius 3y ago
> I just have a low tolerance for capitalist pressure and workaholism, because I was born with a brain that can’t thrive in that environment. She’s far from alone and for no other reason than my seething hatred of capitalism, I believe it’s true for most people.
- xupybd 3y ago
  I suspect I have a different understanding of capitalism. To me it simply means free markets. Something the author is taking advantage of to build the life she wants. But she seems to dislike the hustle culture that has formed within our current economic system.
  - louwrentius 3y ago
    Capitalism is so much more (and worse) than that. And “you criticize society yet you participate in it” is never a noteworthy/ relevant observation.
    - xupybd 3y ago
      That was not my point. My point was that she has the freedom to hustle all she wants or to do it the way she is. That's great.
      - louwrentius 3y ago
        But you imply it’s because of free markets / capitalism that enables it and it makes her a hypocrite. That’s implied.
        xupybd 3y ago
        I'm trying to separate the ideas here. She uses the term "capitalist imperative of growth". I would say that is a culture that has formed withing our economic system not a required or desirable part of it. Free markets however are something different. They are simply the freedom to transact. That freedom is something good. An example of the beauty of that freedom is the Authors ability to live the life she wants while others get to live the lives they want working like crazy people. Once you separate the ideas there is no implication of hypocrisy.
mig4ng 3y ago
Regarding this topic, I know many people (myself included at the moment) that do not want the burden of freelance, starting their own business, etc. For these people, there are other alternatives. For me, I have been working 4 days work weeks for multiple years now, and love it. The experiment went so good that the rest of the engineers in the time have Friday's afternoon off now. You can do this, even if your company never had this type of working schedule or even if your team still works 5 days a week. You will not be left out nor called lazy. In my case I actually deliver more, and higher quality, since I started because previously I was developing physical pain in my hands/arms (because of work and sedentary life). I have started the process of working 4 days a week in 2 companies, a big (unicorn) one that is part of NYSE, and a small one of less than 20 employees. This works on all scales (not guaranteed it works with all companies). Shameless plug: If you want help on this, I actually have in my bucket list to write a medium/short guide or handbook on how to do this. With examples, email templates and how to approach your employer. If you are interested, fill this: https://forms.gle/8VkGnE6Rpq86BGQa6 https://forms.gle/8VkGnE6Rpq86BGQa6 *You'll only hear from me regarding this book.* I won't add you to any list, nor send you anything else not related to this.
- mkl95 3y ago
  > have started the process of working 4 days a week in 2 companies, a big (unicorn) one that is part of NYSE, and a small one of less than 20 employees. This works on all scales (not guaranteed it works with all companies). Don't take it as whataboutism, but many companies love adding clauses to engineers contracts that forbid them from working for other companies or starting their own business. In some cases they will also claim intellectual rights on all your creative output "while you are working for them". In my case even contributing to some Github repo could get me in trouble if my employer thinks a competitor is benefiting from it. On the other hand, as someone who suffers from similar physical pain, a 4 day week would boost my quality of life significantly. So it's something I am looking forward to at my next job.
  - mig4ng 3y ago
    > Don't take it as whataboutism, but many companies love adding clauses to engineers contracts that forbid them from working for other companies or starting their own business. That is true, and I actually have a friend that renegotiated that with their employer and removed that clause from his contract because he wanted to do consulting work outside his working hours. Sometimes it is as easy as asking, sometimes it is not possible. > On the other hand, as someone who suffers from similar physical pain, a 4 day week would boost my quality of life significantly. So it's something I am looking forward to at my next job. It is a major change in terms of life quality, even more if you use the extra free time to explore hobbies that add physical activity to your life. I tried climbing/bouldering and loved. Now I also go to the gym for lifting. Also you don't need to wait for moving to a next job to negotiate 4 days work week. Just a reminder :)
Aurornis 3y ago
Respectable move. My primary complaint with solo-turned-agency people is how grifty they get. As a solo, the job is to add value and make the customer happy so you build your reputation. There are definitely solo contractor grifters out there but they usually struggle with the reputation issue. Agencies develop a grifty dynamic where they realize that their job is to sell themselves and as many headcount and hours as they can squeeze into a contract. Now instead of hiring that solo dev, they’re forcing you to pay 20 hours/week to the project manager and to have two devs minimum on it, one or more of whom are complete juniors who will spend incredible amounts of hours solving simple problems, but that’s okay because that’s what they want. Agencies rely on their status and size to impress clients, which short circuits the reputation issue and opens the door to these shenanigans. They also target bigger companies where wasting time and moving slowly might be the norm, or at least something they can gloss over by sending the sales people out to schmooze the execs over dinner again. I knew some excellent devs and infosec people who turned into agency operators who just tried to milk companies for contracts and run a revolving door of junior hires who they can squeeze hours from until they quit. It’s sad to see. To be fair, I know a few good agencies as well. They tend to be in such high demand from reputation that they’re always booked without even trying. It takes a long, long time to get there though.
- grecy 3y ago
  This resonates 100% with my experience. Telco I worked at spent 6 months choosing an agency, end up spending 3 million for what turned out to be a new Color scheme on the public website. Mind blowing, but completely normal for them
- 93po 3y ago
  I’ve unfortunately done studio/agency work my entire career and they’ve all been pretty small (around four devs) until my last employer, which was closer to 70 people and exactly what you described. It’s like you were describing them specifically. I left that job because it ran the capable people ragged and also generally felt dishonest to our clients despite financial transparency being one of the biggest public selling points
- qudat 3y ago
jokethrowaway 3y ago
I think it's a perfectly valid choice but I don't think it's quite as binary as the author puts it. I've been in agencies, in bloated product companies and they were all terrible experiences. I did some freelancing and enjoyed it, but I could make significantly more money with less effort contracting. I liked my solo contracting days albeit they quickly resembled little employments. But when I run my own company or when I worked in some startups with enlightened leadership, it was great. I think you can absolutely create an agency (or a product company) where a work pattern like yours is acceptable and where people can work flexibly and be happy about it. I used to work in one of the few remote first company before COVID and everyone loved working there because of it. Async as much as possible is crucial. If you're worried about people not putting their 100% because they're employed and not making more money the more value gets created, you can setup a structure with low base pay + amazing bonus on success and you can get the same incentive (and risk) you have in your solo work - but with friends and scaling up your business into something that can make more money. It's easier to have large margin as an agency than as a solo grifter.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  > If you're worried about people not putting their 100% because they're employed and not making more money the more value gets created, you can setup a structure with low base pay + amazing bonus on success and you can get the same incentive (and risk) you have in your solo work - I think more jobs should be structured this way BUT it also needs strong checks to catch and _fire_ folks who upsell/ oversell/ overcharge against the customers' interests. This is a risk with any quota (minimum) system but there are a relative handful of folks who will abuse a reward structure to the maximum potential, raking in tons of money for the company (and themselves) while slowly damaging the reputation of the company. So, we need good incentives and rewards coupled with harsh penalties for dishonesty and abuse. IME, companies are often much better at the former than the latter.
dmje 3y ago
12 years into running a tiny digital consultancy with my wife. We've used an "associate" model for all that time - a posh way of saying "a network of trusted freelancers". We've deliberately chosen not to take on staff. We could have grown at many points along the way but haven't wanted to. Instead we've stayed small, focused and profitable. The benefits to growing would have been being able to take on bigger gigs, but we have always aimed for family first. The business has always been a means to a sustainable, balanced and loving family - and not an end. I have friends who have taken the growth route. Some are doing ok. Others are desperately stressed. One has split from his wife in part because of the financial burden of maintaining a 5-10 person team. We've never regretted taking the route we have. We have been here for our kids and we've been able to be flexible with our time in large part because we're able to scale our own work up and down in response to changing times without having to worry about paying salaries.
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  The biggest advantage to owning your business is that you can optimize it solely for what's best for you. If growth is all you care about, go nuts, but if you've got it humming along making decent money with just the right amount of work, there's zero pressure to change it. I think a lot of people forget that and think that they need to push to be more "successful" - kudos to you for doing in the right way for you.
  - beachy 3y ago
    > The biggest advantage to owning your business is that you can optimize it solely for what's best for you. Another great advantage is being able to fire bad clients. It's not something I've done more than once or twice but the freedom not to be brought down or stressed by someone else's insane demands is worth gold. Related is the ability to pick and choose your clients in the sales process. e.g. plenty of small consultancies have formal or informal policies not to bid for government work because of the effort and frustration involved in responding to public sector RFPs.
    - hnbad 3y ago
asimpleusecase 3y ago
Question: a friend is a great designer and has coding chops. He just got a project with a large company fixing their e-commerce site. The deeper he digs the more farcical the whole thing has become. Nothing works, no one seems able to do anything and the past “agency” appears to be someone who hires developers in a developing market but has no real idea what they are doing. My friend has fixed huge amounts of broken stuff and delivered on time and under budget stuff they just could not get done. But big boss will not give him the big project for coming year because “he is just one guy” . Any suggestions on how to address this? Big boss is looking for security more than performance. But my friend can’t afford to hire 10 people to be an “agency”. Any suggestions on how to crack this?
- setr 3y ago
  Assuming it can be done by a solo dev, then pull on 10 guys out of body shops in India/Pakistan, seek the cheapest possible credentials that they can be called developers, call yourself project lead/architect. Bill as a fixed price project with milestones — you want the work assignments to be ambiguous. Plan/budget by your own workload, consider using offshore resources as a bonus (keeping in mind you intentionally pulled them on as just bodies).
- tessierashpool 3y ago
  charge more money, and hire one or two other people; become more persuasive; or find a better client.
- danjac 3y ago
  Agencies do not exist to build great software. I mean sure, it helps if their output is good enough to guarantee more work, but that's not why they exist. Their purpose as a business is to generate billable hours. Customers do not hire agencies with the expectation they will build great software. They turn to agencies because they don't have the time or skills to do it themselves, and agencies are cheaper than hiring people and they are more dependable than freelancers. By that I don't mean that freelancers are collectively unreliable, but with an agency you have a dozen or more developers and if one falls sick, they can just replace them with another developer. If your product depends on that one freelancer, you are screwed. So "10x developers" aren't really suited for agencies, where every hour is billable and accounted for, and the output does not have to be great, it just needs to be more or less reliable and more or less on time and under budget (or at least cost overruns are accounted for).
atum47 3y ago
Back when I was a 3d artist I was making good money as a freelancer. I would also work with a archviz studio as an "employee". Time went by and I leaned towards the "secure" job with the studio (instead of opening my own), cause from time to time I would have a hard time with my clients as a freelancer (sometimes they did not pay, sometimes they would ask for changes that would be a entire new work...). Making a long story short: the studio went bankrupt and let me go without any compensation whatsoever. Maybe I've should kept a few clients and not rely entirely on the studio. Don't know if my experience adds to the discussion, but I thought about sharing it.
- Keirmot 3y ago
  I think any kind of career move, be it freelance, corporate or anything in between, has risks. You shouldn’t regret the decision you made if when you made them you used the best information available to you - no one can predict the future.
  - atum47 3y ago
    Thanks for the kind words
mettamage 3y ago
> Realizing that I don’t have to work 8 hours every day was pretty groundbreaking. I still get work done, and have lots of personal time. I do occasionally take on an ambitious project and work overtime for a few weeks, but then I try to balance it with more rest so I don’t burn out. Wait, how do you get to not working 8 hours per day?
- sph 3y ago
  By not getting paid by the hour, and being an actual freelance. I'm a software engineering consultant, and I work mornings 6 days a week.
causality0 3y ago
I don’t want my business to grow beyond me. Good. Business fetishism is a cancer on society. If you're doing something that pays your bills and makes you happy there's no reason to ruin it for the sake of extra money.
totallywrong 3y ago
For those who've done it, how did you go from solo contractor to an agency? Particularly how did you get and maintain clients, and what pricing model did you use? These and similar worries are preventing me for trying.
motohagiography 3y ago
> When I’m only focused on work and don’t dedicate enough time to personal projects, I become unwell. Creative self-expression is not “just a hobby” for me, it’s a necessity. As someone with the creative urge, I always found the word hobby itself was quite patronizing, as though your identity were just what you get paid for. But with some thought, I would say our identity becomes what we are appreciated for. Whether that's as a parent, a musician, an artist, a writer, a hacker, a promoter, performer, or another thing we do long and well enough that it's what people come to appreiciate about us. If you don't do the things you are appreciated for, you will absolutely become unwell, and if you want debilitating mental health problems, do a job where you aren't appreciated. It's like a recipe.
- prawn 3y ago
  "I would say our identity becomes what we are appreciated for." I think there's a lot of truth in this, and it's not something I've ever seen stated before. I guess it's a bit of a feedback loop. We want to feel good about our self, so our self becomes increasingly about the things people appreciate and respond positively to. There are a lot of aspects to my life, but the ones that are core to me aren't necessarily the ones I do most or get paid best for, but are things for which others are most complimentary.
- xsmasher 3y ago
  This is why I like to ask "what keeps you busy?" instead of "what do you do for work?" Someone might work in a fish cannery but their real passion is the classic auto they are restoring; I'd rather hear about that. Today I herd an interviewer ask "what does your joy look like?" I like that one too, as a question we should ask ourselves.
synergy20 3y ago
freelance is not scalable, not good to have any passive income, and, you stop working your income stops, there is not even any PTO to take a break. I have been doing freelance on and off over the years, and I believe using all the free time before next project to build some sellable products is the only way to become more financial independent.
- yipbub 3y ago
  Theoretically, you charge taking PTO into account.
- leros 3y ago
  It just requires different framing. Maybe taking a week off means making $10k less so your vacation feels really expensive. But in reality you've accepted a job paying $10k less per year with one more week of vacation.
- commonlisp94 3y ago
  I just mentioned this elsewhere. But everyone in freelancing and agency feels the same way. If only they could get that sweet passive income they could relax and have a stable buisness. Here are some things to consider: - have you ever built and maintained a large codebase/project over several years? - have you ever sold or marketed a product rather than a service? - are you ready to compete with the whole world, as opposed to locally? In my experience they are completely different skills, that agencies and freelancers do not have. One approach is to develop internal "products" that make you more efficient. The bar drops from being something a customer can buy and enjoy right off the shelf, to being a productivity multiplier. I persnally actually accepted the opposite. If everyone is obsessed with passive income and not doing work, to the extent that they are accepting tiny margins with artificially low discount rates, I want to maximize the value of the time I do concrete work.
vippy 3y ago
Then don't
deleted 3y ago
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mannyv 3y ago
The most important thing you do during/out of college us understanding how you work best. Once you know that you can start adjusting the world to yourself.
johndhi 3y ago
I'm thinking about going solo / freelance in my profession soon. Are there good places to read general tips on this? But short and to the point, like this thread.
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
Can totally relate. Good, clear explanation.
nirui 3y ago
> My non-commercial creative self-expression is equally important to me as my career. I recently read a Tweet says that, some people dreamed of owning a storefront of the trade that they love, but not just for the money. They also wanting to use it as a place to allow them to express their interests, tastes and qualities in an externalized way (while making money doing it). I think this is what the author was trying to say there. And in the context of design, I'd totally agreed :)
sandGorgon 3y ago
there is a middle ground now. There are multiple agency-as-a-service companies (like lifeandhalf.com, etc) which basically give you an agency infrastructure without running it yourself. where infrastructure means - account managers, talented (but junior) design/copy staff, invoicing, etc Its an interesting model - where really talented people & studio can still achieve scale up without the uninteresting parts of the scale up.
happytiger 3y ago
If you grow you need to have an end game in mind. There is always a price for growth. Always. Sometimes it’s worth paying. Sometimes it’s not. It’s ok to have a lifestyle business. Not every company needs to make millions a year or be worthy of investment. It all depends on what you want.
shzwith 3y ago
wow. awesome
charlieyu1 3y ago
On the other side, I just want to work and get paid. I’m never the type who advertises well so I’d rather work for someone and don’t mind an agency taking a cut.
danniescott 3y ago
[dead]
fhd2 3y ago
This lady seems more successful than me, but I managed to build a respectable one man consulting business, and I have zero intention to grow that. My job already feels like 50% sales, I'm not looking to make that 100% and add the anxiety of having to pay people to the anxiety of having to earn enough for myself, or limit the freedoms I got out of this move. Not having to work was my goal for a long time, but lately I realised that it's not a very achievable one, without some major luck at least. Working on my own terms is the next best thing, and quite enjoyable so far. If that's the goal, why scale the business?
cambaceres 3y ago
Has anyone here had any positive experiences of growing their freelance business to an agency with employees? I'm currently considering to do it myself but I'm getting a bit hesitant after reading this thread.
- heyjamesknight 3y ago
  I've had success. Started as a freelancer. Moved to a me + contractor model. Now have 30 employees in 6 countries. On target to hit ~$2M in revenue this year. I love it. I started my career as a super nerdy systems programmer. Now I get to jump between client work, sales & marketing, finance & strategy, and—my absolute favorite part—coaching and supporting the amazing technical professionals we have on our team, helping them become the best version of themselves as they can. My email is in my bio if you want to chat.
hnbad 3y ago
It's worth mentioning that the next growth step doesn't have to be an agency. It could also be a co-operative or (an informal) collective. This avoids the overhead of having to manage employees while still allowing the distribution of work loads across multiple people and the outsourcing of non-core tasks to dedicated specialists (e.g. accounting, legal and invoicing).
leros 3y ago
I'm feeling something similar now. I'm doing freelance work about 20 hours a week making my previous income level. So far each project has ended because the company wants me to go full time with them. The challenge hasn't been finding work, it's been keeping it part-time free lance or quitting.
- datavirtue 3y ago
  They want that sweet sweet FTE discount and unlimited hours.
  - leros 3y ago
    Yeah. They want me to work for twice hours at half the pay. Lol.
dalore 3y ago
Anyone know of any good books on how to grow a software company?
MattMalcolm 3y ago
Oh my... finally a topic I'm well acquainted with. Source: Solo digital agency owner (6yrs here in Australia) who's been up, down, up, and recently made the decision to roll back to a single person consulting firm that's now WFH (gone from WFH - Office - WFH & 10 FTE to 0 ) I've found the last 3 years hugely difficult as an agency owner, when people are your business it cannot be underestimated how challenging (read: stressful) it can be. I got to the point where I was so anxious about opening my inbox in the morning. However, there are ABSOULTELY some types of agencies that do work well and can scale effectively. Interestingly, these seem to be mostly accounting firms. Who in recent times have been able to easily add capacity through off-shore labour, who's client expectations are comparatively low and who's business is largely unaffected by the macro - You still need to do your bookkeeping at the end of the day! This makes for half decent retention rates and your customers don't expect a bookkeeper to solve every problem in their business. The WORST type of agency to build is the mid-tier marketing agency or even bespoke dev firm - You get clients who are highly demanding and staff who are relatively expensive (agency owners will be nodding their heads here)... And it leads to a stuck-in-the-middle feeling where its hard to get out of the 5-10 person range and build any scale, and you'd honestly be more profitable and less stressed as a single person consultancy. We used to work with large enterprise, and this is probably when we were most profitable. However, these types of customers have differing challenges and remote-style firms are at a disadvantage unless their sales teams are located where the big fish are. The idea that agencies are 'booked without trying' is laughable. You get this by doing great work consistently over a long period of time, exceeding customer expectations and staying in constant contact with prospects. And this comes from great people... But you first need the work to be able to hire great people, which comes from the grind of agency sales. It doesn't change, no matter if your WPP or a local agency. Your pipeline is your lifeblood and what enables you to choose the right type of work. If I did it again, I'd be looking at segments of the market where you can build easier client expectations and have more cost effective/simpler delivery, as ultimately this is where the game is won. I'd also be doing it with another 1-2 founders so that we could better achieve more freedom for each founder (as ultimately, this is a large drawcard alongside financial rewards to start). Id then leverage the cashflow better in productising... But in all honestly, I do think a large portion of you needs to like the 'work'. On exit (if you're lucky), you're also stuck with more lengthy exit conditions. Meaning even when you want out, you're going to be tied up with the business in order to support the transition of clients. On the flipside, I have found it to be pretty lonely just working away on client work. For some this is OK and I guess it seems novel, or maybe fits your lifestyle? But for me it's difficult because I always found it rewarding to be building things together with a team. That feeling of alignment when everyone is building the same thing is cool. In some ways, its never been easier to start a serviced-based firm. However, in others, it feels like it has never been harder.

575 points by taubek 3y ago

iLoveOncall 3y ago

[flagged]

Zetobal 3y ago
I do basically the same sometimes I have days were I don't work at all. You don't have to hustle your whole life away if you don't want to.
ncallaway 3y ago
The company I run asks employees to work 20 hours per week. Just because something isn’t the norm doesn’t mean it’s fabricated.
HtmlProgrammer 3y ago
I do this as a remote 9 to 5 dev, you just need to be delivering and not tell people how much free time you have
matkoniecz 3y ago
That is not unusual for freelancing.

jimkleiber 3y ago

> Show other people that a different way of life is possible. Often I'll question the ab-normal ways I've been choosing to live my life and I loved how the author summarized one major benefit for doing so.

pictur 3y ago

[flagged]

tekla 3y ago
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SCUSKU 3y ago
Respectfully, it is her livelihood, so it has a meaningful impact on her life. Also, you can just not read it if you dislike it.
- pictur 3y ago
  I found it funny that the situation was romanticized.
  - system2 3y ago
    She might be a beginner and excited about proving herself to the world by writing and feeling serious about it. Who knows. Some people write, some people don't. She just discovered what 99% of the freelancers feel already but 99% didn't write about it. Just another blog post.
deleted 3y ago
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pxue 3y ago
You'll be surprised by how many people want what she have.
mattgreenrocks 3y ago
I found it extremely refreshing to read about someone who defied the corporate-centric work model and came out ahead in both time and money. Is that not interesting to you?

xwdv 3y ago

Can someone explain what the appeal of solo freelancing is in the age of bountiful remote work? My typical day as a remote worker is not that different from the one described: a couple hours of work per day and mostly leisure the rest of the time. And I probably still make more money than a freelancer. Consistently too. Is chasing down new clients all the time and working on multiple projects really that desirable to people? I think this article is just cope.

zerr 3y ago
Nbr of digits in the hourly rate? Remote work is usually two digits number while freelancing on short term projects would be at least three digits.
hattmall 3y ago
You're more easily replaceable as a remote worker, you're also dependent on the whims of your employer. It's easier and more beneficial to develop the skill of chasing down clients vs chasing down jobs in a remote work environment. You also don't have any options for residuals and your working largely to pad someone else's pocket and not your own.
capableweb 3y ago
Biggest difference is that you get to 100% chose exactly what you want to work on, and all the profits generated by the work goes to you. You're not beholden to anyone but yourself. > Is chasing down new clients all the time and working on multiple projects really that desirable to people? Chasing down new clients is probably a thing mostly affecting new freelancers without much experience. When I've done freelancing in the past, I've never had to look for any clients besides posting "I'm available to help out people on a freelance-basis" on various social media, and then I get more work available to me than I could realistically do. I think most established freelancers "suffer" from the same. Once you're available for work, it fills up quickly.
nickjj 3y ago
> Can someone explain what the appeal of solo freelancing is in the age of bountiful remote work? Income multipliers, flexibility and being treated like an adult are a few reasons that come to mind. For example, with salaried work your income is mostly fixed (minus a pre-defined'ish bonus or options, etc.). With contract work you might land a $30,000 contract that takes 2 weeks to do because the focus is on providing value that allows your client to 5x that in a few months so it's a no brainer. This is different than salaried work where you're expected to be available for 40-45 hours a week. You may decide to spend a year traveling the world while maintaining existing work and working whenever you feel like it. As a salaried worker I don't think you'll be able to work a few hours a week for 6-12 months in a row and still be employed unless you had an exceptional situation. With a number of salaried positions, especially with companies that receive funding or are growing a bit past early startup stages you often lose all freedom to make decisions that you're qualified to make. Such as having to ask permission from multiple people to store $0.01 / month worth of files in an S3 bucket where the discussion to get this approval literally costs 10,000x to 20,000x more in engineering time.

bombcar 3y ago

Agencies charge like a very good contractor but use midrange to lousy contractors/employees to do most of the work, and bring the good ones in only in need. It’s selling the difference between the two.

freitzkriesler2 3y ago
One guy I worked with spent a lot of effort evaluating Ukrainian and south American talent who had fluent or at least business level English. It took him awhile but the devs he fed work to were solid engineers, almost FAANG tier but he paid them s*t or good for their locations. I've kept their names handy because poaching them would be dirt easy. Knowing this as well as what you said, I avoid agencies now and simply assemble teams of individuals for this reason alone. They're easier to evaluate and you can let them go easily as opposed to a full service agency. However, what annoys me the most about Upwork are agencies larping as solo guys. Anytime I evaluate a guy who has a solo freelancer account and then mentions he has guys he works with that bill through him, I cut them lose. This is easy to spot. I wish uowork would ban these guys.
- pmontra 3y ago
  I'm a solo freelancer and I happened to get contracts that needed more than one person to work on. Sometimes the customer paid everybody separately, sometimes they paid me and I paid the others.
- rcarr 3y ago
  > However, what annoys me the most about Upwork are agencies larping as solo guys. Anytime I evaluate a guy who has a solo freelancer account and then mentions he has guys he works with that bill through him, I cut them lose. In the UK, you need to collect evidence that you are a contractor and not an employee of a company. One of the ways you can do this is by hiring people to do some or all of the contracted work on your behalf. It might be unlikely given it is Upwork, but if those freelancers are repeatedly doing big or long jobs for the same client(s) then this may be a legitimate tactic to avoid falling foul of the taxman.

pxue 3y ago

As a solo dev contractor who got my business to $500k/year during the pandemic - I echo a lot of the sentiment in this post. An extension to the post I want to touch on is that VC funded startups are not the only way to break free from the dreadful corporate games. Working for yourself at your own pace is. As an industry we're surprisingly very behind in normalizing this.

DeltaCoast 3y ago
Can I ask how you find contracts? Are there that many contract roles posted in public or is it due to your network?
- freitzkriesler2 3y ago
  Upwork. Solely up work.
  - delfinom 3y ago
    Wow, I tried upwork but it generally always seems to be entities in significantly cheaper countries underbidding everything. How did you get started to snap up your first jobs on it?
    - frankreyes 3y ago
      No idea on the specifics, but the theory goes like this : clients have been burned many times over cheap solutions. Cheaper is usually more expensive on the long run. For this to break the circle you need reputation of reliability.
    - freitzkriesler2 3y ago
      I didn't nor do I use Upwork. I'm just saying what the reality is.
    - bdcravens 3y ago
      If you're in the US, restricting yourself to jobs where they are limiting to the US results lessens that problem (doesn't eliminate it - I suspect there's a ton of fronting accounts)

tennisflyi 3y ago

I have a similar vision. I want to hire one person and pay them well. Culture will definitely be very easy to maintain. I only want to net like $20k/month.

j7ake 3y ago

I think the quantity to look for is the fraction of time you spend working on your own projects. You want it to be about 40 hours a week. Too little means you’re probably spending too much time on client or admin work. Too much could mean you’re in a hyper competitive field and you’re struggling to keep up, eg academics.

wslh 3y ago

I sympathize with the sentiment of working on your own way instead of following the growth, or others mantra. But I think Nela should also understand that she is an outlier deciding to work ALONE: what happens when someone decides to have children? Do a single person has the skills to manage the complexities of a business? Be ready all the time? I don't underestimate Nela skills, just saying, again, she is an outlier and should balance her own mantra.

LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
Her arrangement gives her the freedom to make all of these decisions, which is the way it should be.
thecupisblue 3y ago
Why wouldn't they? While sometimes it takes more time than a normal job would, it also offers a larger amount of freedom than a 9-5. And if you have a great reputation and a constant stream of clients, it is even better since you can pick projects and decide when to do them and in what manner. On another note, Nela is quite an outlier! I've been following her work for close to 20 years now I think, starting from her HTML&CSS tutorials long time ago. Her blog was basically CSS Zen Garden for my generation, teaching us how to achieve beautiful things with HTML&CSS back in the age of Dreamweaver, inspiring many future developers and designers. She gave so much to the community through the years with her knowledge sharing that it still inspires me and motivates me to this day to share more. Nela, if you're reading this, thanks for all the great work!
- wslh 3y ago
  My criticism is about not taking this as general advice. > And if you have a great reputation and a constant stream of clients If you have a great reputation and a constant stream of clients that is sustainable for decades you are an outlier.
  - thecupisblue 3y ago
    It's not a prerequisite tho - I've arranged with multiple clients to work either 3 days a week or just a set amount of hours whenever I choose. And most of others I know who get into freelancing do the same - if you have offer for another project, and they can't wait until you're free, you can always recommend them to a friend/colleague.

mattgreenrocks 3y ago

Warning: bit of a rant ahead. I’m currently on the path to a principal-level role at my company. I really don’t know what I think about it. The jump from lead to principal is a big one in terms of workload and stress, and I’ve been told the pay difference isn’t huge. Older I get, the less I care to ascend the ladder. Even at this point I’m doing it out of a sense of amassing status in case I need it, rather than being motivated by it. And I feel that lack of intrinsic motivation. I’m mid-career, and mostly just tired of selling so much time and energy to someone else’s enterprise, especially because I watch myself trade away time that should be spent taking care of myself for a stupid title upgrade. I think I am a late bloomer bootstrapper.

MattGaiser 3y ago
In general, interest in career advancement is collapsing. https://www.wsj.com/articles/your-coworkers-are-less-ambitious-bosses-adjust-to-the-new-order-11672441067 https://www.wsj.com/articles/your-coworkers-are-less-ambitio...
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  I have no interest at all in being some high ranking manager or director in any company. I want to clock in, do my work, and clock out so I can go do what I actually want to do. Don't get me wrong, I love my job and find my work interesting. I'm incredibly lucky to be where I'm at. But I'm also completely fine just doing my thing and being done for the day.
- manicennui 3y ago
  Unfortunately promotion is the best way to get more money at most companies without leaving.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
plugin-baby 3y ago
Good luck with the new role! I’m surprised you’ve shared this rant non-anonymously, I hope it doesn’t have negative effect on your progress.

swayvil 3y ago

Tight logos. Nice work. Yes, respect your process first. Clearly. All dreams of growth are insubstantial, comparatively.

k8sToGo 3y ago

I would love to try out being an independent contractor. But I feel overwhelmed. Where do I even start to find work?

Nextgrid 3y ago
A starting point could be to target contractor positions posted by companies and/or recruitment agencies. Those are sometimes really close to permanent employment (except the job security and employee-specific perks) but will at least get you started in the game. Be mindful of laws around disguised employment with those types of engagements. You need to make sure you are in the clear legally by paying the appropriate amount of tax for your given situation (in the UK the regulation is called "IR35" and tries to specify what falls under a legitimate B2B arrangement and what counts as "disguised employment" and incurs taxation equivalent to conventional employment).
towawy 3y ago
Reach out to other contractors who you’ve worked with directly (e.g. worked on the same project at a former employer) and valued/praised your work.

ilamont 3y ago

For years I’ve felt “weird” and “wrong” for working this way. I still feel guilty when telling people that I am only open for meetings from 11 am to 5 pm. The only exceptions are people in distant time zones. It can also feel wrong if your SO is on a regular 9 to 5 and you are getting up without an alarm clock, going shopping and making appointments in the middle of the day, and generally setting your own work habits according to your own preferences. Last night I was working at 1 am because I couldn't sleep and there was something I wanted to get done. OTOH, she never has to go food shopping and I have always been there for the kids in ways that are not possible for her - helped my adult child load and unload a moving truck last Wednesday afternoon, and over the years took both kids to school activities, driving lessons, and other events that my spouse couldn't attend.

Kaibeezy 3y ago
“Tiny unicorn” is what I call this kind of business. I’ve been working like that for 30+ years. Avoid failure to the left of you, greed to the right. It’s a strait, narrow, rocky and easy-to-lose path. A constant onslaught of people and chaos trying to push, pull, trick, trip, invest and otherwise knock you off it. Stay on target and you get to be… yourself.
- chr15m 3y ago
  Love the tiny unicorn nomenclature!
kirso 3y ago
In that case this passage is for you: We don’t need to explain ourselves to them. We don’t need to prove our success through conventional means. We don’t need to measure against a scale that others have invented. We don’t need to feel guilty for refusing to take on unnecessary responsibilities.

raziel2701 3y ago

This is very refreshing to see. Not everything needs to grow grow grow fast fast fast. I think she has a very sustainable way of operating and living and it makes me very happy and I find it inspiring. I hope more people follow suit,I kinda am saying that to myself :)

louwrentius 3y ago

> I just have a low tolerance for capitalist pressure and workaholism, because I was born with a brain that can’t thrive in that environment. She’s far from alone and for no other reason than my seething hatred of capitalism, I believe it’s true for most people.

xupybd 3y ago
I suspect I have a different understanding of capitalism. To me it simply means free markets. Something the author is taking advantage of to build the life she wants. But she seems to dislike the hustle culture that has formed within our current economic system.
- louwrentius 3y ago
  Capitalism is so much more (and worse) than that. And “you criticize society yet you participate in it” is never a noteworthy/ relevant observation.
  - xupybd 3y ago
    That was not my point. My point was that she has the freedom to hustle all she wants or to do it the way she is. That's great.
    - louwrentius 3y ago
      But you imply it’s because of free markets / capitalism that enables it and it makes her a hypocrite. That’s implied.
      - xupybd 3y ago
        I'm trying to separate the ideas here. She uses the term "capitalist imperative of growth". I would say that is a culture that has formed withing our economic system not a required or desirable part of it. Free markets however are something different. They are simply the freedom to transact. That freedom is something good. An example of the beauty of that freedom is the Authors ability to live the life she wants while others get to live the lives they want working like crazy people. Once you separate the ideas there is no implication of hypocrisy.

mig4ng 3y ago

Regarding this topic, I know many people (myself included at the moment) that do not want the burden of freelance, starting their own business, etc. For these people, there are other alternatives. For me, I have been working 4 days work weeks for multiple years now, and love it. The experiment went so good that the rest of the engineers in the time have Friday's afternoon off now. You can do this, even if your company never had this type of working schedule or even if your team still works 5 days a week. You will not be left out nor called lazy. In my case I actually deliver more, and higher quality, since I started because previously I was developing physical pain in my hands/arms (because of work and sedentary life). I have started the process of working 4 days a week in 2 companies, a big (unicorn) one that is part of NYSE, and a small one of less than 20 employees. This works on all scales (not guaranteed it works with all companies). Shameless plug: If you want help on this, I actually have in my bucket list to write a medium/short guide or handbook on how to do this. With examples, email templates and how to approach your employer. If you are interested, fill this: https://forms.gle/8VkGnE6Rpq86BGQa6 https://forms.gle/8VkGnE6Rpq86BGQa6 *You'll only hear from me regarding this book.* I won't add you to any list, nor send you anything else not related to this.

mkl95 3y ago
> have started the process of working 4 days a week in 2 companies, a big (unicorn) one that is part of NYSE, and a small one of less than 20 employees. This works on all scales (not guaranteed it works with all companies). Don't take it as whataboutism, but many companies love adding clauses to engineers contracts that forbid them from working for other companies or starting their own business. In some cases they will also claim intellectual rights on all your creative output "while you are working for them". In my case even contributing to some Github repo could get me in trouble if my employer thinks a competitor is benefiting from it. On the other hand, as someone who suffers from similar physical pain, a 4 day week would boost my quality of life significantly. So it's something I am looking forward to at my next job.
- mig4ng 3y ago
  > Don't take it as whataboutism, but many companies love adding clauses to engineers contracts that forbid them from working for other companies or starting their own business. That is true, and I actually have a friend that renegotiated that with their employer and removed that clause from his contract because he wanted to do consulting work outside his working hours. Sometimes it is as easy as asking, sometimes it is not possible. > On the other hand, as someone who suffers from similar physical pain, a 4 day week would boost my quality of life significantly. So it's something I am looking forward to at my next job. It is a major change in terms of life quality, even more if you use the extra free time to explore hobbies that add physical activity to your life. I tried climbing/bouldering and loved. Now I also go to the gym for lifting. Also you don't need to wait for moving to a next job to negotiate 4 days work week. Just a reminder :)

Aurornis 3y ago

Respectable move. My primary complaint with solo-turned-agency people is how grifty they get. As a solo, the job is to add value and make the customer happy so you build your reputation. There are definitely solo contractor grifters out there but they usually struggle with the reputation issue. Agencies develop a grifty dynamic where they realize that their job is to sell themselves and as many headcount and hours as they can squeeze into a contract. Now instead of hiring that solo dev, they’re forcing you to pay 20 hours/week to the project manager and to have two devs minimum on it, one or more of whom are complete juniors who will spend incredible amounts of hours solving simple problems, but that’s okay because that’s what they want. Agencies rely on their status and size to impress clients, which short circuits the reputation issue and opens the door to these shenanigans. They also target bigger companies where wasting time and moving slowly might be the norm, or at least something they can gloss over by sending the sales people out to schmooze the execs over dinner again. I knew some excellent devs and infosec people who turned into agency operators who just tried to milk companies for contracts and run a revolving door of junior hires who they can squeeze hours from until they quit. It’s sad to see. To be fair, I know a few good agencies as well. They tend to be in such high demand from reputation that they’re always booked without even trying. It takes a long, long time to get there though.

grecy 3y ago
This resonates 100% with my experience. Telco I worked at spent 6 months choosing an agency, end up spending 3 million for what turned out to be a new Color scheme on the public website. Mind blowing, but completely normal for them
93po 3y ago
I’ve unfortunately done studio/agency work my entire career and they’ve all been pretty small (around four devs) until my last employer, which was closer to 70 people and exactly what you described. It’s like you were describing them specifically. I left that job because it ran the capable people ragged and also generally felt dishonest to our clients despite financial transparency being one of the biggest public selling points
qudat 3y ago

jokethrowaway 3y ago

I think it's a perfectly valid choice but I don't think it's quite as binary as the author puts it. I've been in agencies, in bloated product companies and they were all terrible experiences. I did some freelancing and enjoyed it, but I could make significantly more money with less effort contracting. I liked my solo contracting days albeit they quickly resembled little employments. But when I run my own company or when I worked in some startups with enlightened leadership, it was great. I think you can absolutely create an agency (or a product company) where a work pattern like yours is acceptable and where people can work flexibly and be happy about it. I used to work in one of the few remote first company before COVID and everyone loved working there because of it. Async as much as possible is crucial. If you're worried about people not putting their 100% because they're employed and not making more money the more value gets created, you can setup a structure with low base pay + amazing bonus on success and you can get the same incentive (and risk) you have in your solo work - but with friends and scaling up your business into something that can make more money. It's easier to have large margin as an agency than as a solo grifter.

brightlancer 3y ago
> If you're worried about people not putting their 100% because they're employed and not making more money the more value gets created, you can setup a structure with low base pay + amazing bonus on success and you can get the same incentive (and risk) you have in your solo work - I think more jobs should be structured this way BUT it also needs strong checks to catch and _fire_ folks who upsell/ oversell/ overcharge against the customers' interests. This is a risk with any quota (minimum) system but there are a relative handful of folks who will abuse a reward structure to the maximum potential, raking in tons of money for the company (and themselves) while slowly damaging the reputation of the company. So, we need good incentives and rewards coupled with harsh penalties for dishonesty and abuse. IME, companies are often much better at the former than the latter.

dmje 3y ago

12 years into running a tiny digital consultancy with my wife. We've used an "associate" model for all that time - a posh way of saying "a network of trusted freelancers". We've deliberately chosen not to take on staff. We could have grown at many points along the way but haven't wanted to. Instead we've stayed small, focused and profitable. The benefits to growing would have been being able to take on bigger gigs, but we have always aimed for family first. The business has always been a means to a sustainable, balanced and loving family - and not an end. I have friends who have taken the growth route. Some are doing ok. Others are desperately stressed. One has split from his wife in part because of the financial burden of maintaining a 5-10 person team. We've never regretted taking the route we have. We have been here for our kids and we've been able to be flexible with our time in large part because we're able to scale our own work up and down in response to changing times without having to worry about paying salaries.

idopmstuff 3y ago
The biggest advantage to owning your business is that you can optimize it solely for what's best for you. If growth is all you care about, go nuts, but if you've got it humming along making decent money with just the right amount of work, there's zero pressure to change it. I think a lot of people forget that and think that they need to push to be more "successful" - kudos to you for doing in the right way for you.
- beachy 3y ago
  > The biggest advantage to owning your business is that you can optimize it solely for what's best for you. Another great advantage is being able to fire bad clients. It's not something I've done more than once or twice but the freedom not to be brought down or stressed by someone else's insane demands is worth gold. Related is the ability to pick and choose your clients in the sales process. e.g. plenty of small consultancies have formal or informal policies not to bid for government work because of the effort and frustration involved in responding to public sector RFPs.
  - hnbad 3y ago

asimpleusecase 3y ago

Question: a friend is a great designer and has coding chops. He just got a project with a large company fixing their e-commerce site. The deeper he digs the more farcical the whole thing has become. Nothing works, no one seems able to do anything and the past “agency” appears to be someone who hires developers in a developing market but has no real idea what they are doing. My friend has fixed huge amounts of broken stuff and delivered on time and under budget stuff they just could not get done. But big boss will not give him the big project for coming year because “he is just one guy” . Any suggestions on how to address this? Big boss is looking for security more than performance. But my friend can’t afford to hire 10 people to be an “agency”. Any suggestions on how to crack this?

setr 3y ago
Assuming it can be done by a solo dev, then pull on 10 guys out of body shops in India/Pakistan, seek the cheapest possible credentials that they can be called developers, call yourself project lead/architect. Bill as a fixed price project with milestones — you want the work assignments to be ambiguous. Plan/budget by your own workload, consider using offshore resources as a bonus (keeping in mind you intentionally pulled them on as just bodies).
tessierashpool 3y ago
charge more money, and hire one or two other people; become more persuasive; or find a better client.
danjac 3y ago
Agencies do not exist to build great software. I mean sure, it helps if their output is good enough to guarantee more work, but that's not why they exist. Their purpose as a business is to generate billable hours. Customers do not hire agencies with the expectation they will build great software. They turn to agencies because they don't have the time or skills to do it themselves, and agencies are cheaper than hiring people and they are more dependable than freelancers. By that I don't mean that freelancers are collectively unreliable, but with an agency you have a dozen or more developers and if one falls sick, they can just replace them with another developer. If your product depends on that one freelancer, you are screwed. So "10x developers" aren't really suited for agencies, where every hour is billable and accounted for, and the output does not have to be great, it just needs to be more or less reliable and more or less on time and under budget (or at least cost overruns are accounted for).

atum47 3y ago

Back when I was a 3d artist I was making good money as a freelancer. I would also work with a archviz studio as an "employee". Time went by and I leaned towards the "secure" job with the studio (instead of opening my own), cause from time to time I would have a hard time with my clients as a freelancer (sometimes they did not pay, sometimes they would ask for changes that would be a entire new work...). Making a long story short: the studio went bankrupt and let me go without any compensation whatsoever. Maybe I've should kept a few clients and not rely entirely on the studio. Don't know if my experience adds to the discussion, but I thought about sharing it.

Keirmot 3y ago
I think any kind of career move, be it freelance, corporate or anything in between, has risks. You shouldn’t regret the decision you made if when you made them you used the best information available to you - no one can predict the future.
- atum47 3y ago
  Thanks for the kind words

mettamage 3y ago

> Realizing that I don’t have to work 8 hours every day was pretty groundbreaking. I still get work done, and have lots of personal time. I do occasionally take on an ambitious project and work overtime for a few weeks, but then I try to balance it with more rest so I don’t burn out. Wait, how do you get to not working 8 hours per day?

sph 3y ago
By not getting paid by the hour, and being an actual freelance. I'm a software engineering consultant, and I work mornings 6 days a week.

causality0 3y ago

I don’t want my business to grow beyond me. Good. Business fetishism is a cancer on society. If you're doing something that pays your bills and makes you happy there's no reason to ruin it for the sake of extra money.

totallywrong 3y ago

For those who've done it, how did you go from solo contractor to an agency? Particularly how did you get and maintain clients, and what pricing model did you use? These and similar worries are preventing me for trying.

motohagiography 3y ago

> When I’m only focused on work and don’t dedicate enough time to personal projects, I become unwell. Creative self-expression is not “just a hobby” for me, it’s a necessity. As someone with the creative urge, I always found the word hobby itself was quite patronizing, as though your identity were just what you get paid for. But with some thought, I would say our identity becomes what we are appreciated for. Whether that's as a parent, a musician, an artist, a writer, a hacker, a promoter, performer, or another thing we do long and well enough that it's what people come to appreiciate about us. If you don't do the things you are appreciated for, you will absolutely become unwell, and if you want debilitating mental health problems, do a job where you aren't appreciated. It's like a recipe.

prawn 3y ago
"I would say our identity becomes what we are appreciated for." I think there's a lot of truth in this, and it's not something I've ever seen stated before. I guess it's a bit of a feedback loop. We want to feel good about our self, so our self becomes increasingly about the things people appreciate and respond positively to. There are a lot of aspects to my life, but the ones that are core to me aren't necessarily the ones I do most or get paid best for, but are things for which others are most complimentary.
xsmasher 3y ago
This is why I like to ask "what keeps you busy?" instead of "what do you do for work?" Someone might work in a fish cannery but their real passion is the classic auto they are restoring; I'd rather hear about that. Today I herd an interviewer ask "what does your joy look like?" I like that one too, as a question we should ask ourselves.

synergy20 3y ago

freelance is not scalable, not good to have any passive income, and, you stop working your income stops, there is not even any PTO to take a break. I have been doing freelance on and off over the years, and I believe using all the free time before next project to build some sellable products is the only way to become more financial independent.

yipbub 3y ago
Theoretically, you charge taking PTO into account.
leros 3y ago
It just requires different framing. Maybe taking a week off means making $10k less so your vacation feels really expensive. But in reality you've accepted a job paying $10k less per year with one more week of vacation.
commonlisp94 3y ago
I just mentioned this elsewhere. But everyone in freelancing and agency feels the same way. If only they could get that sweet passive income they could relax and have a stable buisness. Here are some things to consider: - have you ever built and maintained a large codebase/project over several years? - have you ever sold or marketed a product rather than a service? - are you ready to compete with the whole world, as opposed to locally? In my experience they are completely different skills, that agencies and freelancers do not have. One approach is to develop internal "products" that make you more efficient. The bar drops from being something a customer can buy and enjoy right off the shelf, to being a productivity multiplier. I persnally actually accepted the opposite. If everyone is obsessed with passive income and not doing work, to the extent that they are accepting tiny margins with artificially low discount rates, I want to maximize the value of the time I do concrete work.

vippy 3y ago

Then don't

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mannyv 3y ago

The most important thing you do during/out of college us understanding how you work best. Once you know that you can start adjusting the world to yourself.

johndhi 3y ago

I'm thinking about going solo / freelance in my profession soon. Are there good places to read general tips on this? But short and to the point, like this thread.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

Can totally relate. Good, clear explanation.

nirui 3y ago

> My non-commercial creative self-expression is equally important to me as my career. I recently read a Tweet says that, some people dreamed of owning a storefront of the trade that they love, but not just for the money. They also wanting to use it as a place to allow them to express their interests, tastes and qualities in an externalized way (while making money doing it). I think this is what the author was trying to say there. And in the context of design, I'd totally agreed :)

sandGorgon 3y ago

there is a middle ground now. There are multiple agency-as-a-service companies (like lifeandhalf.com, etc) which basically give you an agency infrastructure without running it yourself. where infrastructure means - account managers, talented (but junior) design/copy staff, invoicing, etc Its an interesting model - where really talented people & studio can still achieve scale up without the uninteresting parts of the scale up.

happytiger 3y ago

If you grow you need to have an end game in mind. There is always a price for growth. Always. Sometimes it’s worth paying. Sometimes it’s not. It’s ok to have a lifestyle business. Not every company needs to make millions a year or be worthy of investment. It all depends on what you want.

shzwith 3y ago

wow. awesome

charlieyu1 3y ago

On the other side, I just want to work and get paid. I’m never the type who advertises well so I’d rather work for someone and don’t mind an agency taking a cut.

danniescott 3y ago

[dead]

fhd2 3y ago

This lady seems more successful than me, but I managed to build a respectable one man consulting business, and I have zero intention to grow that. My job already feels like 50% sales, I'm not looking to make that 100% and add the anxiety of having to pay people to the anxiety of having to earn enough for myself, or limit the freedoms I got out of this move. Not having to work was my goal for a long time, but lately I realised that it's not a very achievable one, without some major luck at least. Working on my own terms is the next best thing, and quite enjoyable so far. If that's the goal, why scale the business?

cambaceres 3y ago

Has anyone here had any positive experiences of growing their freelance business to an agency with employees? I'm currently considering to do it myself but I'm getting a bit hesitant after reading this thread.

heyjamesknight 3y ago
I've had success. Started as a freelancer. Moved to a me + contractor model. Now have 30 employees in 6 countries. On target to hit ~$2M in revenue this year. I love it. I started my career as a super nerdy systems programmer. Now I get to jump between client work, sales & marketing, finance & strategy, and—my absolute favorite part—coaching and supporting the amazing technical professionals we have on our team, helping them become the best version of themselves as they can. My email is in my bio if you want to chat.

hnbad 3y ago

It's worth mentioning that the next growth step doesn't have to be an agency. It could also be a co-operative or (an informal) collective. This avoids the overhead of having to manage employees while still allowing the distribution of work loads across multiple people and the outsourcing of non-core tasks to dedicated specialists (e.g. accounting, legal and invoicing).

leros 3y ago

I'm feeling something similar now. I'm doing freelance work about 20 hours a week making my previous income level. So far each project has ended because the company wants me to go full time with them. The challenge hasn't been finding work, it's been keeping it part-time free lance or quitting.

datavirtue 3y ago
They want that sweet sweet FTE discount and unlimited hours.
- leros 3y ago
  Yeah. They want me to work for twice hours at half the pay. Lol.

dalore 3y ago

Anyone know of any good books on how to grow a software company?

MattMalcolm 3y ago

Oh my... finally a topic I'm well acquainted with. Source: Solo digital agency owner (6yrs here in Australia) who's been up, down, up, and recently made the decision to roll back to a single person consulting firm that's now WFH (gone from WFH - Office - WFH & 10 FTE to 0 ) I've found the last 3 years hugely difficult as an agency owner, when people are your business it cannot be underestimated how challenging (read: stressful) it can be. I got to the point where I was so anxious about opening my inbox in the morning. However, there are ABSOULTELY some types of agencies that do work well and can scale effectively. Interestingly, these seem to be mostly accounting firms. Who in recent times have been able to easily add capacity through off-shore labour, who's client expectations are comparatively low and who's business is largely unaffected by the macro - You still need to do your bookkeeping at the end of the day! This makes for half decent retention rates and your customers don't expect a bookkeeper to solve every problem in their business. The WORST type of agency to build is the mid-tier marketing agency or even bespoke dev firm - You get clients who are highly demanding and staff who are relatively expensive (agency owners will be nodding their heads here)... And it leads to a stuck-in-the-middle feeling where its hard to get out of the 5-10 person range and build any scale, and you'd honestly be more profitable and less stressed as a single person consultancy. We used to work with large enterprise, and this is probably when we were most profitable. However, these types of customers have differing challenges and remote-style firms are at a disadvantage unless their sales teams are located where the big fish are. The idea that agencies are 'booked without trying' is laughable. You get this by doing great work consistently over a long period of time, exceeding customer expectations and staying in constant contact with prospects. And this comes from great people... But you first need the work to be able to hire great people, which comes from the grind of agency sales. It doesn't change, no matter if your WPP or a local agency. Your pipeline is your lifeblood and what enables you to choose the right type of work. If I did it again, I'd be looking at segments of the market where you can build easier client expectations and have more cost effective/simpler delivery, as ultimately this is where the game is won. I'd also be doing it with another 1-2 founders so that we could better achieve more freedom for each founder (as ultimately, this is a large drawcard alongside financial rewards to start). Id then leverage the cashflow better in productising... But in all honestly, I do think a large portion of you needs to like the 'work'. On exit (if you're lucky), you're also stuck with more lengthy exit conditions. Meaning even when you want out, you're going to be tied up with the business in order to support the transition of clients. On the flipside, I have found it to be pretty lonely just working away on client work. For some this is OK and I guess it seems novel, or maybe fits your lifestyle? But for me it's difficult because I always found it rewarding to be building things together with a team. That feeling of alignment when everyone is building the same thing is cool. In some ways, its never been easier to start a serviced-based firm. However, in others, it feels like it has never been harder.