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Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

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Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#161

Post by jacquesm »

dappermanneke wrote: post #147
jacquesm wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't see why a company couldn't have one long-term customer. Let's hope you won't find out why that's a very bad idea. > Clearly having multiple customers isn't a reasonable requirement for a small company. On the contrary, it's a must. > Software engineering isn't like private residential plumbing - "sink drain unclogged, next please!" :) That's a strawman. Sorry, but if you have just one customer and you're de…

sounds like you simply really don’t like freelancers. you know no one stops you from accumulating reserves in your company or in general, right?

You're funny. I've been self employed for the last 30+ years and I really enjoy it. But I know the risks and I'm making sure I don't get burned because having only one customer is just setting yourself up for various kinds of failure.

I love freelancers and I love freelancing. But I know the difference between being a freelancer and running a company and being an employee in all but name and you really don't ever want to be in that position.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#162

Post by sebnun »

KuzMenachem wrote: post #158
sebnun wrote: post #154

About 6 months ago I left my job to start my own company and make a language learning tool I always wanted to build ( https://www.langturbo.com ), It's something I use myself and I see real value in it. I'm fully bootstrapped and I have some months left of savings to try this out. If this doesn't get traction then I guess I'll have to get a "real" job again :).

link has a , in place of a .

Thanks! fixed.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#163

Post by mcv »

jacquesm wrote: post #112
V-2 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see why a company couldn't have one long-term customer. It's not unusual eg. in the building sector (where large construction projects, not unlike software projects, can take years to complete). Another common example is MDs - quite a lot of private doctor's offices are contracted by the National Health Fund, basically providing their services for the public healthcare that way. Clearly having multiple custom…

> I can't see why a company couldn't have one long-term customer. Let's hope you won't find out why that's a very bad idea. > Clearly having multiple customers isn't a reasonable requirement for a small company. On the contrary, it's a must. > Software engineering isn't like private residential plumbing - "sink drain unclogged, next please!" :) That's a strawman. Sorry, but if you have just one customer and you're de…

I have multiple customers over time; 3 years ago, I worked on a different project, for a different client, than I do now. But with the kind of projects I work on, it's hard to do several of these projects at once, and they're too long to do several in a year. Expecting self-employed contractors to have multiple clients is unreasonable.

As for job security, employment doesn't give a shred more job security than being a self-employed contractor these days. My job security comes from my skills and the succession of successful projects I've worked on.

And there are a lot of companies that have a single large customer. I think I have a lot more flexibility than they do.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#164

Post by hospitalJail »

biddit wrote: post #152

I've been independently employed the for 13 years as a software consultant. Most of my work has been building web-based business software for small/medium sized businesses. This involves both designing and implementing solutions for non-technical clients. It's a lot of greenfield design and development, which feels a lot like working in an early stage startup. I have at times taken 6mo - 24mo contracts as just a soft…

>It's a lot of greenfield design and development, which feels a lot like working in an early stage startup.

What does this mean?

Also how'd you get your first business?

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#165

Post by jacquesm »

radicalbyte wrote: post #144
jacquesm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's for tax reasons only though, technically it is just another form of long term employment. As soon as you have multiple customers that you send invoices to with some regularity and you have autonomy would you pass the 'self employed' test in other countries. If you refer to them as your client and you only have one then you're technically an employee, if you refer to your contact at your client as 'your boss' t…

If you're not jumping around contracts regularly every 2 years in NL and are not billing the approximate annual wage for your role every year (assuming that you work the 40-44 weeks) then you're an employee and shouldn't be contracting. The market now is interesting - there are a huge number of low experience / low skill people flooding the market which has driven prices down for some very good people whilst also mak…

You should be billing a multiple of the approximate annual wage to offset the risks of freelancing. Twice is good, three times is better. If you can't do that you're much better and safer off to find employment so make sure you understand exactly what the risk/reward trade-off is for being a freelancer and set yourself up accordingly.

Find customers that value you and make sure they pay and pay on time. A single hickup in the payment department is a good reason to start looking for a replacement customer. And never ever rely on just the one customer: your negotiation position is now crap and if anything happens to that one customer, their customers, their market or the relationship then you're done.

If and when you are looking for funding for your healthcare start-up please contact me, I may not be able to invest myself but I do have a whole pile of contacts and some of those are doing regular medical investments.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#166

Post by jcfrei »

sebnun wrote: post #154

About 6 months ago I left my job to start my own company and make a language learning tool I always wanted to build ( https://www.langturbo.com ), It's something I use myself and I see real value in it. I'm fully bootstrapped and I have some months left of savings to try this out. If this doesn't get traction then I guess I'll have to get a "real" job again :).

Very cool idea. Probably also needs an app to really gain traction (maybe just start with a webview and not a full native app?). I think lots of people are listening to podcasts on smartphones.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#167

Post by sparks1970 »

V-2 wrote: post #46

In Poland, where I'm from, it's pretty much the norm to be self-employed in Poland in the IT sector. I believe that around 50% of workers are technically contracted one-man companies, and this percentage is inversely correlated with the seniority level - the greater the earnings (and the sense of job security that goes along with expertise and experience), the greater the incentive. Going B2B makes a substantial diff…

In the UK this was normal for IT (and other) contractors because there were tax advantages to the employer and to the employee/contractor. The employer could avoid paying National Insurance (social security) taxes of 10% as well as pension and sick pay contributions. The employee could pay themselves a small salary - enough to get social security benefits but be in the lowest or no-tax band and pay the rest as dividends from their limited company where tax was paid at a lower rate than income tax.

It was a good wheeze but some years ago the govt bought in legislation "IR35" which basically says that if it looks like a employment contract then it should be taxed like a "normal" employment contract.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#168

Post by snovv_crash »

belinder wrote: post #120
fredsted wrote: post #104

I've been working on https://webhook.site since 2016 when I posted it here on HN. In fall 2023, I quit my job to work on it full time, and it's one of the best decisions I've ever made. I have around 1400 subscribers, which is enough to pay myself a good salary. I've not done any funding or marketing so far.

This looks really useful, I've used similar websites in the past but it's nice that it's all together here in one place. If only you could not have it redirect on load, it makes the back button break. Clicking back to return to hackernews is almost impossible

Press and hold the back, then select the one you want, works on many browsers

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#169

Post by vhpoet »

I've been juggling side projects while working full-time as an engineer for the last 15+ years. Most of these projects tanked, but a few have started to bring in some side income. About 6 months ago, I went fully self-employed. I'm not at a Silicon Valley salary range yet, but I should hopefully be there in a year or so.

Main income builders: - https://www.deepwander.com - https://www.readthistwice.com - https://www.iso100mm.com

I've got a background in B2B and product development, and I don't think it would be too hard for me to raise some capital, but I'm intentionally choosing the indie/bootstrapped route as I want to maintain my relaxed lifestyle and have complete ownership and freedom over what I work on and how I do it.

I also enjoy working on B2C way more than B2B because I like seeing my impact on an individual level. But I digress. :)

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#170

Post by jjackson5324 »

darajava wrote: post #129

I am working on https://audiodiary.ai as a solo founder, I recently have been getting enough income to just about cover my living expenses and haven’t received any funding and didn’t do any marketing, with 9k users so far since launch last May. It’s fulfilling and great to see people use and love a product I’ve built. I’m obviously highly motivated to grow so it keeps me busy.

That's really amazing. You should start doing some marketing to accelerate the growth!

If you don't mind, can you share how much you're currently able to make from this?

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