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Ask HN: In the current crisis is starting freelancing doable?

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Re: Ask HN: In the current crisis is starting freelancing doable?

#61

Post by sefrost »

Joe8Bit wrote: post #60
sbacic wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. How is the market in London for frontend devs, specifically ones working in the React stack (plus some GraphQL)? I was in London last year and got the impression that it's a pretty lackluster market - high cost of living, average earning potential. I did some back of the napkin math and realized it only made sense if I worked remotely and occasionally visited London (once a month, twice a month maybe?).…

Pretty saturated as well, lots of FE folks looking for contracts at the moment. Day rates of £400-1000 a day for FE devs were common before COVID, now I’d expect ~20% less than that but YMMV. Remote and visiting occasional is getting a lot more common for contractors these days, so you could detonate it work.

£4-600 sure, but £1000 day rates? Who's getting that?

Re: Ask HN: In the current crisis is starting freelancing doable?

#62

Post by themodelplumber »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #55
themodelplumber wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope for your sake that's not the majority of your work! Personally I've found that if I have to reference a contract to make a point, it's almost always a red flag-level event for that relationship.

Hey Marc! Good to "see" you again. There's a sad old saying in business that you know you've "made it" in business when someone sues you. There's something to that unfortunately, that if you are in business long enough, chances are you'll be on one side or the other of legal action. It happens. You misjudge a client, maybe they have some personal issues that bleed into a business, maybe there is a market downturn and…

Hello Jeff! (Have we met? Apologies if I'm forgetting something...)

I see what you mean, but given the context I wonder if there might be some projection at work here, since your experience with law is so deep--so tell me what you think of this clarification: I could also recommend lawyers and accountants; however not so much with the current discussion context in mind--that being the case of a beginning freelancer working in tech. For such an individual, getting sued is typically way out of the immediate area of concern and almost certainly game over, at least in energy expenditure if not financially.

Case in point, one meeting with a business attorney and the time he spent drawing up only a contract _for working together_ resulted in one of my business partners receiving a bill of almost $3K. He told me, "I'm so glad I never bothered retaining an attorney until it was absolutely necessary."

To a brand new freelancer, building a professional team is often an anticipated risk, but it's still a risk; they are often slow to move in that direction while building capital and reputation. I think rightly so in many cases.

Given your business though--you've clearly "made it"--congratulations and I wish you all the best with all the trimmings, etc. ;-)

Re: Ask HN: In the current crisis is starting freelancing doable?

#63

Post by gentleman11 »

themodelplumber wrote: post #54
valuearb wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was working full time on a side project a week and a half ago, when a former boss approached with a client he couldn’t service who urgently needed a developer with my skill set. I negotiated a higher rate and now am working full time for them. I don’t have any accountant, no contract. They will either pay me or it’s back to my side project.

You reminded me of a successful animator friend from long ago. He did work for all of the big names in animation, but would never sign a contract. He told them, "if you want me to do the work, let's do this. If you don't treat me well, we're done. If I don't treat you well, it'll be easy to get rid of me." It was a pretty brash style but it matched the kind of breezy guy he wanted to be. There were quite a few contra…

You can’t transfer ip without a written contract. I suspect he still owns all the work they bought

Re: Ask HN: In the current crisis is starting freelancing doable?

#64

Post by bambataa »

BerislavLopac wrote: post #8
arichard123 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IR35 may be less of a thing now anyway. It's purpose (for those not in the know) is to stop people being taxed as companies while working as, effectively, employees. There are no hard and fast tests for this, exactly, but a number of smaller tests which taken together would paint a picture. One of these tests is "Where do you work" another is "Whose equipment do you use" and another is "Can you substitute someone in…

The problem with the recent -- currently postponed -- changes is not with the IR35 itself; it has been a thing for quite some time now. The changes are about redefining who is responsible for determining the IR35 status: in the old (still valid) regulation, the responsibility is in the hands of the contractor's company, while with the new changes it falls down to the end client. The reason this change is not welcome…

I must admit I’ve never really understood this argument against IR35. Contractors don’t get tax breaks to compensate for the lack of employee benefits. They get higher day rates to compensate for that. How the tax is handled isn’t part of the deal. If my last contract had been inside IR35 it would have still been better than perm pay for that reason.

Too many contractors seem to view lower taxes as one of the perks of being a contractor and in that sense I think the reforms are well-intended though I wont’t say the implementation has been perfect.

Re: Ask HN: In the current crisis is starting freelancing doable?

#65

Post by themodelplumber »

gentleman11 wrote: post #63
themodelplumber wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You reminded me of a successful animator friend from long ago. He did work for all of the big names in animation, but would never sign a contract. He told them, "if you want me to do the work, let's do this. If you don't treat me well, we're done. If I don't treat you well, it'll be easy to get rid of me." It was a pretty brash style but it matched the kind of breezy guy he wanted to be. There were quite a few contra…

You can’t transfer ip without a written contract. I suspect he still owns all the work they bought

It'd be interesting to ask him about that. I suspect his answer would involve some pretty direct comments about how a deal can be done, but I really don't know.

Re: Ask HN: In the current crisis is starting freelancing doable?

#66

Post by koffiezet »

PappaPatat wrote: post #11

I say (from experience) during hard times is the best time to start. You will not be lured into massive fixed costs and start with the absolute minimum and required, which you can scale up when your business start flying. As long as you start tight, you will stand a good change.

Highly depends on the pool you'd be swimming though. As a Javascript dev, I would not want to be looking for a contract right now...

Re: Ask HN: In the current crisis is starting freelancing doable?

#67

Post by poulsbohemian »

themodelplumber wrote: post #62
poulsbohemian wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey Marc! Good to "see" you again. There's a sad old saying in business that you know you've "made it" in business when someone sues you. There's something to that unfortunately, that if you are in business long enough, chances are you'll be on one side or the other of legal action. It happens. You misjudge a client, maybe they have some personal issues that bleed into a business, maybe there is a market downturn and…

Hello Jeff! (Have we met? Apologies if I'm forgetting something...) I see what you mean, but given the context I wonder if there might be some projection at work here, since your experience with law is so deep--so tell me what you think of this clarification: I could also recommend lawyers and accountants; however not so much with the current discussion context in mind--that being the case of a beginning freelancer w…

Marc - I'm nearly certain we went through public school together. We might have even had a previous chat in another thread about year ago.

My thinking is that too often freelancers think "I'm just a freelancer" rather than "I run a business" and it is important to make the mental leap because of the key word you said above - risk. We need contracts because they give all parties clear expectations of what is expected to happen, but also what will transpire in the event things don't go the way we expect. Without a well-written legal contract in place, both parties are at the mercy of each other acting in good faith, and unfortunately that's not always how things actually go. As a freelancer too, we often have a lot of personal skin in the game, which to my mind makes it even more imperative to have professional advice from accountants and lawyers, because we have more to lose personally. On the accounting front, I see a lot of people who make mistakes that cost themselves a lot of money because they didn't spend the relatively modest amount to get good professional advice. As another commenter stated in this same thread, the amount accountants save you pays for their cost.

Run of the mill lawyers generally bill between $200-$300/hour, so $3K might work out to ten hours of work. For many freelancers with basic needs, resources like Nolo or your local SBA office might be more affordable and get to the same goal - we're still getting professional advice, just in a different form.

Re: Ask HN: In the current crisis is starting freelancing doable?

#68

Post by winrid »

toyg wrote: post #9

> we are being put at 80% pay / 80% time. Uhm, you want to check the fine prints. If you've been furloughed , which is typically what people on "80%" are, then the Treasury is paying your salary, but you're NOT supposed to work AT ALL. If you are actually working, you and your company are effectively committing benefit fraud. > Do you think in the current climate it would be doable to start freelancing Everything is…

Interesting - my wife's "furloughed" for 1/4 every month now. She gets to pick her week off and is just not paid for that week. I assume it's only illegal if she works during that time and they don't pay her? Also it's a private company.

Re: Ask HN: In the current crisis is starting freelancing doable?

#69

Post by dep_b »

jlevers wrote: post #53
dep_b wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My accountants saved me enough money every year to be basically free, while I don't need to worry about all kinds of stuff. I did my taxes myself often as well, but I didn't like to do it (instead of doing billable work or having spare time). Contracts: I really suck at them. I rarely do them. I got lucky so far, perhaps 2 clients that managed to pinch me but then again assholes will be assholes with or without contr…

As a consultant with no accountant -- in what areas did they save you that much? Entirely taxes?

Yeah all kinds of tax laws I didn't know existed, places where I could earn a bit more, starting a company together with my wife so the earnings are divided instead of going into one big pile where the top part gets taxed most.

But also a US$1500 bill that never was paid by a customer by going over bills vs the business bank account's movements.

Re: Ask HN: In the current crisis is starting freelancing doable?

#70

Post by chuck3201 »

bambataa wrote: post #64
BerislavLopac wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the recent -- currently postponed -- changes is not with the IR35 itself; it has been a thing for quite some time now. The changes are about redefining who is responsible for determining the IR35 status: in the old (still valid) regulation, the responsibility is in the hands of the contractor's company, while with the new changes it falls down to the end client. The reason this change is not welcome…

I must admit I’ve never really understood this argument against IR35. Contractors don’t get tax breaks to compensate for the lack of employee benefits. They get higher day rates to compensate for that. How the tax is handled isn’t part of the deal. If my last contract had been inside IR35 it would have still been better than perm pay for that reason. Too many contractors seem to view lower taxes as one of the perks o…

> How the tax is handled isn’t part of the deal.

It kind of is though? There is a reason why company directors are able to withdraw money as salary or as dividends - their income is less stable, they take more risk, so they are allowed to take more profit in good times but they feel the pain more in bad times too.

Also, as limited company contractors, we haven't received any meaningful support from the government over Corona. Most contractors pay themselves a minimum salary of around £719 / month. The only government support available to such people now is to furlough themselves which gives you £575 / month, which is only a tad above universal credit.

I'm not complaining about that though, its fair enough because we are NOT employees, but thats also why HMRC should stop treating us like employees too.

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