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But still, I haven't learned from my mistakes. I charge way too less compared to what people posted here. I don't increase the price continuously. PLUS I don't market myself much. I heard word of mouth marketing is best for freelancers but I am yet to get a gig from word of mouth marketing.
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I outsource a lot of game dev related work. Usually I give the requirements, ask for an estimate from the contractor then I increase it 25% and ask if they’d do it at that fixed price. Does that seem fair? So far it seems to have worked out over a few tasks but curious what objections you or others reading might have to this?
> I outsource a lot of game dev related work. Do you mind if I ask what kind of game dev related work? My experience in the industry involved only hiring companies to do completed bits of work. This included programming, art, sound and level designs all in one. Basically, whole playable levels and/or mini-games from scratch. Not ideal jobs for a single programmer.
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- what if you found an even faster way and did it in 30 minutes, do you charge half that? - what if it takes you a bit longer, 2 hours, is it fair to charge the client 2x? The point is, the client wants a car, not an hour of car-making. Also, the moment you provide an hourly rate you get compared to other hourly workers, whether it’s fair or not. “What?! $100k an hour? Even our lawyers cost less!”
> The point is, the client wants a car Except most clients don't know what they want in such clearcut way before the project begins.
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Do not think in hours. You are not a worker in a factory. Consider the value you deliver. When you deliver twice the value in the same time you did a year ago charge twice as much.
It does depend. When I was a consultant, we tried to charge based on value (by engagement). OTOH, clients often still thought in terms of hours. If we were on-site for one engagement that was only going to take half a day, they'd often try to hook us up with some other group as well given we were there and had the time. (Typically we'd go along as these were long-time clients.) And some areas like law are very hourly…
You mitigate the risk of getting paid not enough in case the hours spiral out of control while still getting paid a lot when you outperform expectations.
Took a project as a whole price. As a result, the client asked for a lot of changes and paid only initial price, of course. What was supposed to be a short 2 days project blew into a full month. Learned my lesson, never worked on a fixed-price project again, only hourly. Now I welcome clients with gazillion of change requests and new features since I get paid by the hour. Also allows me to be at hand maintenance guy…
I outsource a lot of game dev related work. Usually I give the requirements, ask for an estimate from the contractor then I increase it 25% and ask if they’d do it at that fixed price. Does that seem fair? So far it seems to have worked out over a few tasks but curious what objections you or others reading might have to this?
You see, I do your kind of work, meaning small tasks, after the solution is finished and it enters maintenance phase. Client comes back and, for example, on top of exporting to PDF, now he wants the same reports to be exported to Excel as well. Small task, to which I can give a very precise estimate in hours and after clients agrees to it, I go implement it. Usually that kind of task is around 100% accurate from estimation point of view.
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Stephanie Hurlburt talked on the IH podcast about doing 7-figure contracting deals for C++ graphics work (math, C++, GPU optimization and various technical work). https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/044-stephanie-hurlburt-...
Like I said, there are exceptions. To do this you have to be a well known expert in a highly valuable skill. I'm sure Troy Hunt does fairly well in security consulting on Azure for instance. Being an expert in something challenging but that doesn't make the client money (say Haskell, or whatever the distributed DB flavor of the month is) doesn't pay beans. Nor does knowing 50 languages or web frameworks: the client o…
I 100% agree with this. Specialization is worth it. Nobody cares if you're fairly close to workplace competence in ten things, but people will beat a path to you door (or inbox) if you're world class at one.
I'd also add that when you add to your skill stack, make sure it's complimentary skills you can use with your existing strength, not alternative skills that accomplish the same thing.
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> I outsource a lot of game dev related work. Do you mind if I ask what kind of game dev related work? My experience in the industry involved only hiring companies to do completed bits of work. This included programming, art, sound and level designs all in one. Basically, whole playable levels and/or mini-games from scratch. Not ideal jobs for a single programmer.
Working on a first person shooter in Unreal Engine 4 so tasks include stuff like weapon inventory systems, bullet penetration, AI bots, server hosting, modding tools, in-game VOIP. I also do a lot of programming (~75%) but outsource modular tasks where ever I can to try to buy some time.
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Penalty clauses are not always enforceable. Early payment discounts are... I mentioned it in my post, but the number one reason a reasonably sized company doesn't pay is that your invoice is not on their ledger. Call their accounts payable dept up after a few days, check they have the invoice, ask them when it will be paid. Don't be shy, this is what they expect!
Doesn't matter - they work anyway. Nobody in accounts payable is going to get into the details of whether things are enforceable or not. They'll just pay your invoice instead.
Longer write-up here: https://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to-get-consulting-l... Some things I learned through mistakes: - Charge more. - Travel like a professional and bill the client. For my first business trip I used airline points, stayed at an Airbnb on my own dime, and even refused the client's offer to reimburse me. Stupid. (Full story here: https://www.gkogan.co/blog/stupid/ ) - If I'm not enjoying the w…
How do I get over the mental barrier of charging more than $100 per hour? - I'm a junior developer and I mostly freelance for larger companies. - I feel like $100/hour is the industry standard and if I charge 150-300 I need to do work that requires managerial work. - 300+ comes from charging a percentage of revenue increase or creating such a narrative, which often requires additional business and strategic consultin…