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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?

#401

Post by badpun »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #356
badpun wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the software can be crap because the companies tend to only hire technical people over here in Poland, while business guys remain in the HQ. The highest business person you'll see in Poland is typically a PO, while a PM and people above him are in the headquaters. This has the effect of not keeping the Polish team tightly in the loop, which translates into worse software. The second problem is that…

This isn't a mistake or overlook. They treat the office like a sweatshop. No you are not exceptionally skillful. Within weeks they're able to move to a cheaper location and they will once their Excel will say so. It's so funny seeing devs on B2B in Poland thinking they are some entrepreneurs while for HQ they are in the same league as another office in Pajarumbad.

They don’t move to cheaper locations though, because the work quality would suffer. So far, I’ve only seen one group of people laid off in Poland and their jobs moved to India - DB admins. The company deemed the job simple enough to risk moving it to an outsourced Indian sweatshop. The results were terrible BTW.

Also, your experience is very different than mine, I’ve never meet anyone working in Poland doing coding for a company abroad thinking they’re some kind of entrepreneur. They’re not delusional, they know that they’re just doing a job, selling themselves to a highest bidder like everybody else.

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

#402

Post by k__ »

vineyardlabs wrote: post #377
k__ wrote: post #10

I'm self employed for around 10 years now. Before that I was employed as frontend developer for around 7 years. I started self employment as software consultant, which worked pretty well despite not having any connections from my previous employment. I only needed one or two projects a year to sustain my lifestyle. Getting two companies a year to accept your application isn't hard. If you write at least 5 application…

Curious about this. How did you manage to build up a consulting business without prior contacts? You say you wrote applications, but normally companies aren't soliciting consultants in a public fashion (other than fiver/upwork which seem to be a race to the bottom).

Sure, the public platforms don't have the best paying projects.

But that's how I found my first clients. After 2-3 clients from such platforms, word of mouth did the rest.

I only went for projects that went 3-6 months, so I didn't need that many per year.

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

#403

Post by mackopes »

vineyardlabs wrote: post #378
mackopes wrote: post #348

I quit my job and became self-employed ~6 months ago. I work as a freelance developer and I focus on 3D graphics and computer-vision, but I occasionally take on other projects if they are interesting. I find jobs on Upwork and I do cold reach out on LinkedIn and via email. So far, I managed to keep myself pretty busy and I landed a few pretty good projects. I consider that a success since I went into the freelancing…

If you don't mind my asking where are you based? I am interested in building a consulting business but all my contacts are in industries that are regulated and don't really hire individual consultants. So Upwork and places like it seem attractive but seem like such a race to the bottom due to the saturation of developers from third world countries there.

I am based in London, UK.

And yes, you are right, Upwork can be a race to the bottom. Since I am based in a rather expensive city, I can't really compete with other developers on price, but I can still compete on offering, expertise, commitment, etc.. So far I managed to find enough clients who are willing to pay extra for a premium service.

Naturally, it also depends on the service you are providing. Luckily, my niche is not as saturated yet.

The other point with companies not willing to hire an individual is something I can relate to as well. And not only in regulated industries. It's mostly startups and small companies I work with at the moment.

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

#404

Post by JamesBarney »

zoomablemind wrote: post #267
JamesBarney wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah did the same, and I'm also enjoying the corporate life. Learned a ton of lessons, the first of which is starting a consulting shop for general development is fools errand. You can kind of make if worth it if you're decent at sales and offshore everything. If I do it again I'll slice our niche down thinner than prosciutto, something like CRM integrations for real estate agents, and have contracts that allowed us…

> ...and have contracts that allowed us to own the IP. Is it a dreamland or such clause is really possible in the present day cookie-cutter contracts?

It depends.

Large enterprise clients would never let you own the IP. But those gigs are usually pretty profitable because they're large and they can afford high rates.

Small clients mostly don't care unless they are planning on selling the software.

And mid sized clients it seems to depend on whether or not they see it as a cost savings measure or competitive advantage. If it's the latter you can usually justify higher rates.

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

#405

Post by fredsted »

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

> not have it redirect on load

I've not been able to reproduce this in neither Safari nor Chrome (https://sf.gl/share/1707213387.mp4), curious to know which browser you're using. Thanks!

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

#406

Post by bdhcuidbebe »

ethanpil wrote: post #293
nlh wrote: post #217

Currently self-employed as a.....rare coin dealer! Odd path for a tech nerd hacker like me, but certainly the most fun thing I've ever done with no plans to change this gig ever. My backstory: Collected coins as a kiddo, took a 35-year detour into startup land: Started a VC-backed Web 1.0 company from 1999-2002, ran a non-tech company for ~10 years, then 2014-2022 did very traditional early stage tech product managem…

I have been curious about using computer vision to bulk scan and identify valuable coins. Have systems like this been put into use already? If not do you think they might dilute the value of "rare" coins by creating many more "finds" then were typically possible without the technology?

I used the iphone/android Maktun a little, it can identify coins and paper bills from camera.

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

#407

Post by XCSme »

jacquesm wrote: post #397
XCSme wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for fueling my success anxiety.

YW :) Here's to hoping you succeed. The thing I messed up: personal relationships due to business success.

Thanks! I was actually writing exactly this in another comment above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39268994

As someone with a likely ADHD, it's very hard to plan for multiple things in my head, I can usually focus only on one big event at a time: product release, party event, plan romantic date, etc. So, usually I do have to choose onlu one thing to prioritize in the short-term.

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

#408

Post by matsemann »

jacobyoder wrote: post #318
rungabajje wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Company taxes are paid based on the profit. If you spend all the company income, on salaries or equipment or whatever, there’s no profit, and thus no taxes.

Not all expenses are deductible, or 100% deductible in one year. The biggest issue we've seen in software was the 2017 tax act, affecting software R&D starting in 2022. Depending on how you classify those expenses, you could have a sizeable tax bill, even without any 'profit'. But even hardware - that's typically going to be amortized over minimally a few years. Bring in $200k in revenue. Spend $20k on hardware. You…

But are you doing R&D for your company when you're hiring yourself out as a consultant? Sounds weird if it's so categorical.

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

#409

Post by KingOfCoders »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #228
KingOfCoders wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. Usually clients talk to me to see if we click, ask questions and decide if I can help or not. On one hand I have been doing software development for a long time, 40+ years of coding (currently Go), 25+ years as a manager (CTO, DoE, HoD,...) in large enterprises and startups. Founded three startups, one fizzled out, one went belly up in 2001 and one sold successfully. But I learn something new every day.…

I generally call bullshit on coaches, but with that sort of experience you may be one of the few who can actually advise. I always find it extremely difficult to believe a 20 or 30-something can provide meaningful coaching advice, most of it is going to end up being a combination of theory (what they think) and things they've read (their interpretation of others experience). - a crotchety 45+ year old

- a white-hair-white-beard 51+ year old

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

#410

Post by liminvorous »

vhpoet wrote: post #169

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.…

I got a certificate error you might want to look into: > Web sites prove their identity via certificates. Firefox does not trust this site because it uses a certificate that is not valid for www.iso100mm.com. The certificate is only valid for the following names: img.iso100mm.com, iso100mm.com
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