davidscolgan

18 ms·

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by davidscolgan 8y ago
Freelancers generally charge higher rates than employees because you don't get benefits, don't usually work 40 billable hours a week, have to do a number of the things your boss was doing behind the scenes, and have to pay the tax
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
Speaking of getting hit by a bus, a friend and I are considering a consulting service that could help mitigate bus factor risk - would love any feedback on this idea. We've both noticed that for nontechnical owners of small businesses
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
In short, part time remote freelance web development. Do it for 10-20 hours a week depending on how much money you need/want. Do whatever you want with the rest of your time. I've been doing this for 8 years (the entirety of my
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
One idea: Start a mailing list about a topic that you know and that other people want to learn. Write to them once a week with a valuable piece of information. Once you hit 200 subscribers write an ebook that summarizes everything you say
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
Yes it is. Finding a community has helped me greatly. Two years ago it was literally just me. Now I have a therapist, a coach, a private freelancer community, three mastermind groups, an in-person entrepreneur meetup, three Slack groups,
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I've done a similar setup, working part time remote doing freelance web development for the last several years. My one paragraph answer: The book The E-Myth makes the point that people fall into this trap: I've been doing a techn
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I live in Chicago and get my insurance through the health insurance marketplace. If you have a qualifying life event you can get insurance even if it isn't the open enrollment period, which is usually the end of the calendar year. I h
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
This is why I've never worried about anyone stealing my ideas or code. The set of people who could both actually have the ability to pull off forking something and running the project, and have the motivation to see it through, is so
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
One that you can certainly do is to be one of the voices of positivity and gratitude. If I enjoy or benefit from something someone has released into the world, I've started trying to send them an email of thanks. Many times I've g
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
Thanks so much for writing this out, and to everyone else who responded to this thread! Seems like whether we call it ADHD or not, productivity and focus is a real problem. And you mention "being your own life coach" - especially
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
The best jobs come when you have an in. Someone refers you, someone you know is a manager inside, etc. You get ins by building your network. Meet people, talk to them, make what you do public. This can be easier in a big city. But, if yo
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
So I've recently been throwing around the idea that I might have some form of ADHD after really not wanting to accept it for a while. I also happen to have the least structured job of all time - work from home freelance web developer
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I'm thankful for my city. I finally moved to Chicago from from rural Indiana and I feel like I've finally found where I belong. I'm thankful for my mental health therapist who has helped me greatly in dealing with relationsh
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
Oh man, this brings back memories. Larry Wall is a wonderful human who I had the privilege of meeting back in college. He came out for a summer tech conference we were hosting and was the keynote speaker. When we broke out into small grou
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
Ha! I spent about a year in Chicago a few years back and got the full winter experience. I actually like the cold and snow, so I wasn't bothered too much. I was the digital nomad who went to Lithuania in November and December and so
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I've recently moved to Chicago and am thoroughly loving it. There are tons of programming meetups here, seems pretty progressive, super good public transportation (at least for the US) and costs seem to be mostly reasonable. My studio
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
The biggest reason I wanted to be a freelancer was to gain control of my own time. If you charge enough and do valuable enough work, along with having lower costs of living, it's completely doable to make a good living working part ti
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
Medical insurance in the US is for sure a big consideration for doing freelance here. It's gotten better with the beginning of the federal marketplace, but it still is true that better coverage is gotten from a full time job. Though,
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
The biggest takeaway I got from How to Win Friends and Influence People is simply this: Think about things from the other person's perspective. Instead of talking about yourself, let them talk about themself. Instead of boasting abou
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
Something I wish I'd known when I started freelancing about 8 years ago: Being good at your craft (like programming) is assumed. In order to do well at freelancing, you also have to have some business sense. There are all sorts of
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
In general the thumb is very under-utilized on the keyboard but also the strongest finger. Any use of the keys beside the spacebar is a win in my mind. Alt is used so infrequently compared to most of the other modifiers.
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
A few things I started early in my career that may or may not have helped me avoid finger problems but I figure certainly didn't hurt: 1. Rearrange a few select keys - Backspace goes on Capslock, Ctrl goes on Alt, Alt goes on Windows k
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
This is super cool! Networked games are a special kind of challenging to pull off, and I'm always really impressed by people who manage to pull these kinds of projects off at any level of polish. Any plans for further development?
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I've wondered if software can also be the solution here. Can you make an app that appeals to my emotional lizard brain and prevents me from eating candy and browsing the internet? That's something I'd pay for.
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
Yeah and it sucks. There's a convenience store right outside my apartment that now sells chips and ice cream. I eat more of those now than I used to. My Android phone will not let me uninstall the YouTube app, and I've been watchi
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
This is a topic near and dear to my heart. As a freelancer, I sit in my apartment sounded by as much high calorie food as I want that is scientifically optimized to be as tasty as possible, I have a job that requires zero exertion or even l
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
SEEKING WORK | Remote: yes | www.lessboring.com On-Call Maintenance and Development of your Small but Critical Web App Hey owner of a very small online business: In trying to hire a part time web developer, have you been frustrated by: *
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
One thing you can try doing is to rework sections of the codebase gradually over time as you change them. Don't touch code that is working and doesn't need to be updated, but if you are working on a feature in one corner of the c
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I'm a freelancer. Literally every job I've gotten has come from "luck". The trick has been increasing my "luck surface area" by putting myself out there. How I got each of my current clients: Person in my col
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by davidscolgan 9y ago
Good catch. I've made an edit.

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