3 ms·

I'm a cynical sort with a lot of experience in the industry consulting, and I can't help but view a lot of these pieces as heavily...embellished. Akin to "fake

I'm a cynical sort with a lot of experience in the industry consulting, and I can't help but view a lot of these pieces as heavily...embellished. Akin to "fake it to make it". Ala "I'm so overwhelmed with business at 30K per week....but would you like to buy some tupperware?" I understand the author is here, and hopefully people don't embarrassingly downvote this purely to try to act civil -- I think the embellishment is doing a massive disservice to the entire industry. It is often complete fantasy. I will also say that I found the claims the other day about the 30K+ per week consulting engagements, apparently chosen at whim, completely ludicrous (again, having worked with countless organizations). It has zero verification or believability, but is a nice draw for someone's new initiative.

pauljarvis 11y ago
i can't speak for anyone else - but by the same token, i'm not embellishing anything. verifiable? no, because i'm not sharing my bank account statements. believable? definitely - most of my friends make about what i make a year freelancing, so it's not totally out of scope or outside the norm (i also never said i make $30k/week freelancing - some weeks i do, but others, i definitely don't). i've built a career and an audience by being very honest, even about my epic failures and shortcomings. i know you don't know me from adam - but luckily my audience and client-base does, and really they're the ones i cater to. my pricing is listed publicly on my website, and i wouldn't do that if clients weren't willing to pay for it (i don't have a sugar daddy or sugar mama to support me). i also appreciate that you voiced your opinion in an actually civil way! i hope it doesn't get down voted.
- irrigation 11y ago
  The 30K thing was related to a post on here a few days back where an author claimed that they had their pick of "30K / week" engagements. As an interesting contrast with your policy, they claimed that they kept their rates hidden, thus allowing them to magically and endlessly ramp it up. In any case, I've long come to learn in the freelance industry that the more people talk about their success (which can be "so many clients I turn them away", or "I am now charging 50K+"), the more unlikely that success actually is. e.g. the guy who puts "published author" at the top of his blog likely has an Amazon Digital Delivery PDF book. The guy who talks about "top clients" had someone from Apple visit their blog once. And so on. The more bombastic about success someone is, the more incredible the claims, the more likely they're struggling for relevance, using the escalating accomplishments to create it. Again, this has been my experience in the industry, where when you look behind the curtain you find Lenny asking you not to tell anyone how he lives. In no way am I saying that about you, but just in general HN has been awash in "so much success I have to wear shades....now would you like to buy some tupperware?" type posts (I'm not being facetious with the tupperware thing -- it's people claiming boundless success, and then pitching something so petty that it puts it all in stark contrast), and I have to think it does a massive disservice to most of the readership, putting in their notice on this notion that there are endless lines of clients throwing money around for vague needs.
scardine 11y ago
Well, I thought like you for a long time because the idea you can make more by turning down some work and markerting yourself in a niche is is very counterintuitive. Before trying this approach I lose a lot of time racing to the bottom.
- irrigation 11y ago
  I didn't say that it was counterintuitive, or that you can't turn down clients. I was observing the reality that most freelancers are more likely to find themselves absolutely starving for business, and shouldn't look at this and wonder what they're doing wrong. Telling a client to keep their money because it's an "ego project", when they're your only client over a month period, is a quick recipe for bankruptcy. It doesn't magically make other clients come knocking. Once you get to the point where you're reaching saturation, sure you start to evaluate engagements for most reward/utility/etc. Many if not most freelancers will never come anywhere close to that.
  - dasil003 11y ago
    One alternative is to live below your means and build up some savings so that you are not living paycheck to paycheck as a freelancer because that is even more of a recipe for disaster. Look, $30k/week does sound ridiculous to me too, but Patrick doesn't strike me as a bullshitter either. He's just a great combination of programmer, businessman and marketer. As far as I remember, he never claimed to have a continuous stream of $30k/week projects lined up, those are words you're putting in his mouth to make it appear more embellished than it actually is. The very terminology you use—"saturating" one's freelance schedule—is a mindset I've been in before, and I now think is dangerous. If you are overworked and stressed about money and billable hours, there is no free time or headspace to move up the food chain. Even worse, the quality of your work can slip due to minor hiccups like scope creep, unforeseen rabbit holes, or just getting sick for a few days; then you are undermining your future pitches and word-of-mouth! Admittedly it's not easy to start charging more, you need to find the right clients, and you need to shift to a value-based billing where you take more risk on yourself. This is phenomenally difficult for anyone with expenses and wage-earner's mindset. However I wouldn't write off Patrick as being too privileged, lucky, or any other excuse—those things may be true, but that doesn't mean there aren't lessons that can be applied to people grinding it out at a lower level.
HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
Why do you find it ludicrous? The organization I work for just spent $50,000 for work that many of its employees could have done in about a week. However, since we're all booked up with work for the next 5 years, it made sense to farm it out. Various flavors of this are probably playing out in those "ludicrous" $30k/week engagements.

pauljarvis 11y ago

i can't speak for anyone else - but by the same token, i'm not embellishing anything. verifiable? no, because i'm not sharing my bank account statements. believable? definitely - most of my friends make about what i make a year freelancing, so it's not totally out of scope or outside the norm (i also never said i make $30k/week freelancing - some weeks i do, but others, i definitely don't). i've built a career and an audience by being very honest, even about my epic failures and shortcomings. i know you don't know me from adam - but luckily my audience and client-base does, and really they're the ones i cater to. my pricing is listed publicly on my website, and i wouldn't do that if clients weren't willing to pay for it (i don't have a sugar daddy or sugar mama to support me). i also appreciate that you voiced your opinion in an actually civil way! i hope it doesn't get down voted.

irrigation 11y ago
The 30K thing was related to a post on here a few days back where an author claimed that they had their pick of "30K / week" engagements. As an interesting contrast with your policy, they claimed that they kept their rates hidden, thus allowing them to magically and endlessly ramp it up. In any case, I've long come to learn in the freelance industry that the more people talk about their success (which can be "so many clients I turn them away", or "I am now charging 50K+"), the more unlikely that success actually is. e.g. the guy who puts "published author" at the top of his blog likely has an Amazon Digital Delivery PDF book. The guy who talks about "top clients" had someone from Apple visit their blog once. And so on. The more bombastic about success someone is, the more incredible the claims, the more likely they're struggling for relevance, using the escalating accomplishments to create it. Again, this has been my experience in the industry, where when you look behind the curtain you find Lenny asking you not to tell anyone how he lives. In no way am I saying that about you, but just in general HN has been awash in "so much success I have to wear shades....now would you like to buy some tupperware?" type posts (I'm not being facetious with the tupperware thing -- it's people claiming boundless success, and then pitching something so petty that it puts it all in stark contrast), and I have to think it does a massive disservice to most of the readership, putting in their notice on this notion that there are endless lines of clients throwing money around for vague needs.

scardine 11y ago

Well, I thought like you for a long time because the idea you can make more by turning down some work and markerting yourself in a niche is is very counterintuitive. Before trying this approach I lose a lot of time racing to the bottom.

irrigation 11y ago
I didn't say that it was counterintuitive, or that you can't turn down clients. I was observing the reality that most freelancers are more likely to find themselves absolutely starving for business, and shouldn't look at this and wonder what they're doing wrong. Telling a client to keep their money because it's an "ego project", when they're your only client over a month period, is a quick recipe for bankruptcy. It doesn't magically make other clients come knocking. Once you get to the point where you're reaching saturation, sure you start to evaluate engagements for most reward/utility/etc. Many if not most freelancers will never come anywhere close to that.
- dasil003 11y ago
  One alternative is to live below your means and build up some savings so that you are not living paycheck to paycheck as a freelancer because that is even more of a recipe for disaster. Look, $30k/week does sound ridiculous to me too, but Patrick doesn't strike me as a bullshitter either. He's just a great combination of programmer, businessman and marketer. As far as I remember, he never claimed to have a continuous stream of $30k/week projects lined up, those are words you're putting in his mouth to make it appear more embellished than it actually is. The very terminology you use—"saturating" one's freelance schedule—is a mindset I've been in before, and I now think is dangerous. If you are overworked and stressed about money and billable hours, there is no free time or headspace to move up the food chain. Even worse, the quality of your work can slip due to minor hiccups like scope creep, unforeseen rabbit holes, or just getting sick for a few days; then you are undermining your future pitches and word-of-mouth! Admittedly it's not easy to start charging more, you need to find the right clients, and you need to shift to a value-based billing where you take more risk on yourself. This is phenomenally difficult for anyone with expenses and wage-earner's mindset. However I wouldn't write off Patrick as being too privileged, lucky, or any other excuse—those things may be true, but that doesn't mean there aren't lessons that can be applied to people grinding it out at a lower level.

HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago

Why do you find it ludicrous? The organization I work for just spent $50,000 for work that many of its employees could have done in about a week. However, since we're all booked up with work for the next 5 years, it made sense to farm it out. Various flavors of this are probably playing out in those "ludicrous" $30k/week engagements.