Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#21

Post by aggieben » Mon, Jan 18, 2016, 4:58 PM UTC

andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

Don't charge by the hour but by the value

This sounds like a recipe for disaster to me without a lot more explanation. Time is the main cost to a provider, so it's very natural that time would also be the driver for billing. "Charging for value" sounds like you're trying to say "fixed price" without actually saying it. I have many, many issues with trying to do fixed price projects of any appreciable size (say, more than 20-40 hours).

What do you mean, precisely, by "charge by the value"?

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#22

Post by jeffmould » Mon, Jan 18, 2016, 5:00 PM UTC

aggieben wrote: post #21

andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

Don't charge by the hour but by the value This sounds like a recipe for disaster to me without a lot more explanation. Time is the main cost to a provider, so it's very natural that time would also be the driver for billing. "Charging for value" sounds like you're trying to say "fixed price" without actually saying it. I have many, many issues with trying to do fixed price projects of any appreciable size (say, more…

https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consultin...

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/08/13/doubling-saas-revenue/

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#23

Post by sharemywin » Mon, Jan 18, 2016, 5:05 PM UTC

andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

The problem with charge for value is now your a product not a service. Not that that's a problem per say but it's a whole different animal than trying to being a contractor.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#24

Post by dmitri1981 » Mon, Jan 18, 2016, 5:09 PM UTC

For those who are London based, I recently launched a mailing list for members of the London Hacker News Meetup, which sends out contracts based on your language preference. It's averaging about 10 jobs a month at the moment however I am working on getting it to about 100 pm by the end of the year. The current sign up page is at http://eepurl.com/byq7Af

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#25

Post by JoeAltmaier » Mon, Jan 18, 2016, 5:11 PM UTC

My way was working at several successful startups, and then going into contracting. So I had contacts at every level of Silicon Valley. Might not work for everybody.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#26

Post by chilicuil » Mon, Jan 18, 2016, 5:12 PM UTC

Fiverr (https://www.fiverr.com/), tasks usually take less than an hour and give me enough revenue to pay domains and hosting for my pet projects.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#27

Post by DrJokepu » Mon, Jan 18, 2016, 5:14 PM UTC

aggieben wrote: post #21

andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

Don't charge by the hour but by the value This sounds like a recipe for disaster to me without a lot more explanation. Time is the main cost to a provider, so it's very natural that time would also be the driver for billing. "Charging for value" sounds like you're trying to say "fixed price" without actually saying it. I have many, many issues with trying to do fixed price projects of any appreciable size (say, more…

Really depends on the client. If your client is able to agree on tight specs and project plans, everyone is better off with fixed project fees. The client can more easily plan financially with a fixed budget. You can charge more, because instead of charging $DAILY_RATE * $DAYS, you can charge $REVENUE_CLIENT_WILL_MAKE_WITH_FEATURE - $THEIR_MARGIN, and the latter figure tends to be significantly higher. You can also deliver the project more quickly because now it's in your interest to do so. Everyone wins.

That being said, if the client is unable to commit to tight specs and project plans, you need to revert to invoicing on a time & materials basis. But even if you do that, you should really charge a daily rate, rather than an hourly rate.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#28

Post by peterbsmith » Mon, Jan 18, 2016, 5:14 PM UTC

chilicuil wrote: post #26

Fiverr ( https://www.fiverr.com/ ), tasks usually take less than an hour and give me enough revenue to pay domains and hosting for my pet projects.

Hey thats a really good idea! How long does it take to get started with that? Do you find a long lead time from signing up to building a reputation to getting a lot of gigs?

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#29

Post by michaelbuckbee » Mon, Jan 18, 2016, 5:15 PM UTC

aggieben wrote: post #21

andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

Don't charge by the hour but by the value This sounds like a recipe for disaster to me without a lot more explanation. Time is the main cost to a provider, so it's very natural that time would also be the driver for billing. "Charging for value" sounds like you're trying to say "fixed price" without actually saying it. I have many, many issues with trying to do fixed price projects of any appreciable size (say, more…

A good example of "charging by value" is productized consulting - where it's a particular task, etc. that needs done for multiple customers.

Say you're really good with Postgres, instead of just hanging out a shingle for "any Postgres stuff?" you offer something like a one time $2500 "Postgres Performance Audit".

You get really good at this one thing, have a set bunch of scripts, very deep knowledge, predone report template, etc. and providing a bunch of value. So at the end of the day who cares that it only took you 5 hours (effectively making $500/hr).

Bunch of examples: http://www.christophengelhardt.com/ultimate-badass-list-of-p...

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#30

Post by jseliger » Mon, Jan 18, 2016, 5:16 PM UTC

andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard to compete on quality here.

Have an upvote. I don't work in software, but I am a grant writing consultant, and I've never met a successful consultant of any kind who relied on or even used marketplaces.

A huge part of many consultants's lives consists of marketing and pitching. I know that we've found email marketing to be our biggest strength in this regard. Consultants who can't get deal flow or close deals won't survive.

I also learned a lot about assertiveness and saying no by being a consultant: http://jakeseliger.com/2014/04/07/how-i-learned-about-assert....