Thread

I’m planning to go freelance when I’ve built up my portfolio/customer base, as I’m pretty much losing the will to live working in an over-staffed office ‘collaborating’ with people. The constant and heavy flow of emails ( amongst other things ), is quite frankly ‘yanking my chain’, and at the age of 32 I’ve finally woke up and smelt the coffee.  :wow:

Has anyone else been through a similar process? I know there are a few ‘privateers’ amongst this forum, I’d be intrigued to hear anyones thoughts.

Why not working for a smaller firm instead of going freelance? Less collaboration than in a bigger firm and more focus on the work you like to do than if you go freelance. I think if you don’t like the fact you have to work with so many people freelance working will be an even greater ordeal for you.

I agree. Going freelance to “just get on with your work” very rarely happens. I have freelanced for a while and even ran a 3 man studio for a while and I did much less programming than I expected.

You have to be good at customer relations, accounting, taxes, project managing, planning, testing, etc. In a company (even a smaller one) you would normally have someone to do all this for you.

I would not like to put you off as it can be great fun, but its no easy ride! Do your research, make sure you will have enough clients and get some advertisements out.

My company failed purely because I never bothered with marketing. Work randomly popped up for a year and it was going sweet, then one month… nothing… That was silly eh? :shut:

Yeah, my post sounds like I want to shut myself away in a dark room doesn’t it? I think it came across wrong, I’m not fed up with actually working with other people, if I was I’d be in trouble. Its the BS overload thats starting to wear me down, and the sheer amount of unnecessary stuff that I have no control over. I just feel working for myself ( or clients to be exact ) will suit me better as I appreciate that I’ll have to do a lot of marketing/BS, but it would be for a reason. That reason would be my own.
I feel all the stuff I’m passionate about is not appreciated in the ‘office’, and I’d feel a lot better if I wasn’t fizzling 8 hours a day away when I could be really putting myself to good use ? I just feel wasted.

Its the BS overload thats starting to wear me down, and the sheer amount of unnecessary stuff that I have no control over

Haha, you just described freelancing perfectly.  😉

I went freelancing relatively recently, but I think my situation was a bit unique. Going freelance for me meant I instantly made more than twice the yearly income, and I had two contracts spanning almost 2 years waiting for me. So, my opportunity meant I could stop commuting 2 hrs a day to an office, I could work closer to my home and my family, I could set my own hours (besides meetings and stuff), and enjoy almost a 300% pay raise.

Oh, and when I told my old boss I was thinking about leaving, he offered me a 10% raise. So yeah, the decision was more than easy for me! Good luck to you.

I went freelancing relatively recently, but I think my situation was a bit unique. Going freelance for me meant I instantly made more than twice the yearly income, and I had two contracts spanning almost 2 years waiting for me. So, my opportunity meant I could stop commuting 2 hrs a day to an office, I could work closer to my home and my family, I could set my own hours (besides meetings and stuff), and enjoy almost a 300% pay raise.

Oh, and when I told my old boss I was thinking about leaving, he offered me a 10% raise. So yeah, the decision was more than easy for me! Good luck to you.

All freelancers situations are unique. 

I think your situation is more like trading one job for another except with a different tax situation.  This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s a good example of the different ways you can go.

I believe you have two ends of the spectrum when going solo in web development.  I would call them freelancer and contractor. 

On the freelancer end you put a strong emphasis on being an independent business and building your brand.  On this end you probably take on a relatively larger number of clients and choose work which will specifically help you build your brand. 

On the contractor end you tend to gravitate more towards a small number of clients or perhaps just one client.  If you are in this situation may just sort of just fold yourself into that business rather than working on your own.

I think being on the contractor end can be more risky for a long term sustainable business.  A business relies heavily on networking and marketing and the freelancer end is much more powerful for these sorts of things than the contractor end.  The more clients you deal with, the more exposure you get, the more varied projects you work on and the bigger your network grows.

I also think Freelancer is ultimately more lucrative.  As you build your brand, your perceived value goes up, you gain more demand and the rates you can charge go up. 

Really this is all semantics though.  Most people probably just have to take what they can.  I would rather be making good money as a contractor than be a starving freelancer.

If you really want to start a great business, you won’t do freelancing at all.  Your ceiling is the number of hours in your day.  You are trading dollars for hours.  Either find out a way to make money from the efforts of others or create something that you can scale better than your available hours.  I mean, if you are going into business, you might as well do it right.  😉

When you define it that way, John, my situation is definitely more contractor. But I disagree that this means I’m not building a brand. I just don’t have a brand name other than, well, Colin Williams. My brand, and it’s perceived value, grows each day as I network with new business contacts running higher and higher up the chain of various corporations. Even locally, my brand is “the really good Web designer who works on national stuff now.” So, my brand is my name, my marketing is my portfolio, and my risks are diminishing each day as I meet and interact with new people who appreciate my personal demeanor and the quality of my work. I guess, in my particular situation, if the big contracts I was talking about belly up for some reason, I have a long list of potential clients (2 just last week) that I’ve had to decline thus far.

I think the issues you raised are important for people looking to go there own way. They’re paramount.

Your ceiling is the number of hours in your day.  You are trading dollars for hours.  Either find out a way to make money from the efforts of others or create something that you can scale better than your available hours.

+ 1 but…

I would add that hours for dollars is a broken formula.  There are other formulas that work better.  Value based work is an effective tool as well.  For instance…

Let’s say you have a client that trusts your ability (because you’ve proven yourself - like Colin).  Let’s say you put together some application or web presence or magic for your client and your effort alone increases annual revenue 120% for you client.  You get $12 bucks, your clients reaps $178,000.

Current thought in the world of value based consultants, experts and practitioners is that your efforts led to the increase and you should be compensated based upon the value you’ve added. 

Bottom line?  Trade hours for dollars and ask for a percentage of the increase in value you bring to the table.  Negotiating this takes time, trust, and patience.

And please don’t tell me I’m full of ....

Randy

Your not full of anything, Randy. I actually have that very agreement with one of my clients for whom I am a sub-contractor. I have an hourly rate plus a percentage of revenue share (essentially percentage of ownership) in his firm.

Good for you Colin.  My shields are up…I’ve been taking a beating lately 😜

I’ve been burned on the ‘percentage of ownership’ thing. 

I want to be absolutely clear to everyone reading this that cash flow makes or breaks your livelihood.

No matter what anyone tells you about ‘worth’ or ‘net worth’ or shares or value or anything else that equates to value on paper, you must have positive cash flow to survive.

I have a friend I race with and he has a huge AR (accounts receivable) but no one will pay their bills.  On paper he’s worth a bunch of money because people owe him $$$.  He just closed his business because he couldn’t pay his business’ bills with “paper money”.  Don’t take paper money in exchange for your work…you will not survive.

<<steps off soap box and rustles back into the woods>>

Randy

More good points, Randy. I’ve got it to where I’m getting real money my way twice a month. It pays (literally) to work for respected, publicly traded companies 😊

When you define it that way, John, my situation is definitely more contractor. But I disagree that this means I’m not building a brand. I just don’t have a brand name other than, well, Colin Williams. My brand, and it’s perceived value, grows each day as I network with new business contacts running higher and higher up the chain of various corporations. Even locally, my brand is “the really good Web designer who works on national stuff now.” So, my brand is my name, my marketing is my portfolio, and my risks are diminishing each day as I meet and interact with new people who appreciate my personal demeanor and the quality of my work. I guess, in my particular situation, if the big contracts I was talking about belly up for some reason, I have a long list of potential clients (2 just last week) that I’ve had to decline thus far.

I think the issues you raised are important for people looking to go there own way. They’re paramount.

Sure.  I didn’t mean you in particular.  Everyone is different.  But I think on the contractor end more developers run the risks that I have talked about.

It really depends on your exact situation.  I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t have experience with it.  For long periods out of the time I have been solo I have worked for a single client (and maybe a couple of other jobs here and there from others) and neglected my own business and it hurt me when I decided it was time to move on.  Luckily I have been able to turn myself around each time.

But others wouldn’t have to worry about this so much.  If you spend a year of your time on the staff page of 37signals and do nothing else to build your own business then you will likely still have great prospects when you move on.

Your ceiling is the number of hours in your day.  You are trading dollars for hours.  Either find out a way to make money from the efforts of others or create something that you can scale better than your available hours.

+ 1 but…

I would add that hours for dollars is a broken formula.  There are other formulas that work better.  Value based work is an effective tool as well.  For instance…

Let’s say you have a client that trusts your ability (because you’ve proven yourself - like Colin).  Let’s say you put together some application or web presence or magic for your client and your effort alone increases annual revenue 120% for you client.  You get $12 bucks, your clients reaps $178,000.

Current thought in the world of value based consultants, experts and practitioners is that your efforts led to the increase and you should be compensated based upon the value you’ve added. 

Bottom line?  Trade hours for dollars and ask for a percentage of the increase in value you bring to the table.  Negotiating this takes time, trust, and patience.

And please don’t tell me I’m full of ....

Randy

I agree, especially if you help sell work.

I appreciate this chaps, its extremely interesting to read your replies.