Where/how do you find these freelance gigs?
My blog helped me but mainly connections and returning clients. I do Facebook application development.
Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?
111–120 of 167 posts
Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?
#112Sadly this can be a very skewed number as it will differ per project type, length of project and locality. I would be more interested in hearing what people charge on an hourly basis - but alas this same issue would occur there. Without a literal "How much would you charge to do X (and where do you live)?" type question it is hard to come up with a number that could be used for comparison.
You can use a different unit to remove the cost-of-living variation: "how many months of rent do you charge for an aggregate month of gigs?"
Though in heavily dense areas that have different commutable neighborhoods this can still be off. In NYC you have commuters from New Jersey, Connecticut, the various Borroughs and even upstate NY or Pennsylvania. Each of these will have a vast difference in average rents within their community - for example, my rent in Staten Island for a comparable place within any of the other Burroughs will be a lot lower because I am willing to trade in commute time for it, even though my salary will be comparable to other developers within NYC.
Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
that brings up a question for me. when you say $15K/2weeks, is that for a task that can be accomplished by a single person (2x40h), or do you have to break the job up amongst other people?
Just me, it is usually complex stuff where only one person or two in tandem can do the work. I would be pleased to be able to offload some of the work to other people, but it is hard to find people having the right skills — the niche effect, few skilled people.
just a suggestion. maybe you can create a training system, where people can "shadow you", and the possibly take some of the load off of you. of course i understand that the work is complex, so perhaps someone with the necessary academic background, but not fully knowledgeable of the tech side yet?
Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?
#114My Dad is an engraver, he's good at it, he was complaining to me that he had more work than he could handle. I suggested he raise his price then. He responded with the typical "I couldn't in good conscience charge that for something that takes me only a few hours to do!" And then we had a long discussion about how the market sets the rate, not you, and if you hold your rate under market it will overwhelm you because…
This is capitalism 101. Funny thing is, my parents (who are both near-retirement service providers in their own professions) won't adopt such a model in either direction (raising their rates or decreasing their rates based on workload). They also just recently chastised my brother (who is in his mid-20s) for doing an arbitrage play where he could get a plentiful supply of iPad 2's on discount and sell them above mark…
Most of my generally very pro-market older relatives are actually kind of squeamish about that sort of thing, oddly enough. They're probably more libertarian on government and regulation than most younger people I know, but much stronger on a "fair price for fair work" sort of ethic, where they look down on arbitrage-type plays, and on charging too high markup above cost + moderate profit. To them, running an "honest business" that charges reasonable prices, based on hard work, and doesn't engage in any trickery, is what American capitalism is supposed to be about (in a mid-20th-century white American middle-class view of capitalism).
Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?
#115I have looked at sites like odesk or elance and those just suck for US freelancers as they do not pay shit. No one can outbid some russian company charging $3 per hour. Where do you go to find projects?
Reminds me how once a customer came to me and needed his elance-made-in-russia-iphone-app fixed because it "mysteriously" crashed since apple "broke it" with the new iOS version. (ASAP!) I took a look at the code and ... you know what happens in japan with that nuclear plant right now? Yeah, the app was the fukushima of code. It only hold together because of luck. Luck didn't last till iOS 4 where Apple seemingly cha…
I'm sure you could have eloquently described the code without comparing it to Fukushima. It is an ongoing crisis, part of a larger natural disaster, with many people still actively grieving.
Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
that brings up a question for me. when you say $15K/2weeks, is that for a task that can be accomplished by a single person (2x40h), or do you have to break the job up amongst other people?
Just me, it is usually complex stuff where only one person or two in tandem can do the work. I would be pleased to be able to offload some of the work to other people, but it is hard to find people having the right skills — the niche effect, few skilled people.
What kind of skills are you looking for?
Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
it amazes me how few people who do contract work create a requirement docs. Before you even give the potential client a quote, create a requirement doc of every little feature that will be included in the project. Then show it to the client to make sure nothing has been missed or out of scope. Once you have this list you can accurately estimate how long each little piece will be to do. Add in the time it takes to cre…
The problem is often that the work is not clearly defined. Sitting down and thinking about the project, what the client asked for vs. what they really need, listing the unknowns, doing some tests to validate an approach... this can take a lot of time. What I want to start doing with projects that aren't clearly defined, is to simply do an initial contract to nail down some of these details. Build a prototype, do some…
so basically what you're saying you want to do is do work for clients who have a high probability of not paying you because they don't even know what they want. This can still be accomplished but it still needs a requirements doc. Let them know that they'll be charged for an initial requirements doc, then you'll create a prototype, then a rewrite of the requirements doc. Also charge these clients a 50% retainer for this part of the project.
Prototypes aren't as useful as you would think. Clients see them and are like "hey that's a nice mock up, now make what I want", then you build the actual application and they say "well where's feature X, Y and Z?!?! when you say it wasn't in the prototype they just say "well I thought it wasn't there because it was just a mock up"
Ideally though, you want to charge them for the requirements doc (and get paid for it) before you start the actual project. You can usually tell the client this and tell them they can use the requirements doc to shop around with other developers so they can get the best deal. Clients are usually happy with this and usually don't bother shopping around.
Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?
#118My Dad is an engraver, he's good at it, he was complaining to me that he had more work than he could handle. I suggested he raise his price then. He responded with the typical "I couldn't in good conscience charge that for something that takes me only a few hours to do!" And then we had a long discussion about how the market sets the rate, not you, and if you hold your rate under market it will overwhelm you because…
Moreover, for many services, clients have no idea who is good at providing the service, and one of the best ways you can "advertise" that you can deliver the service well is to raise your rates. Some clients will assume, perhaps with warrant, that the most expensive providers do the best work, and thus really are least expensive in terms of value to the client. Try it.
Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you go about doing estimation? When you are asked for a bid and have loose requirements what are some good practices for estimating?
I am so incredibly horrible at estimation that I bid more with emotion. If I find the project very interesting and I can fall in love with building it, the client is going to get a good deal. Boring or otherwise tedious projects engender some stone-cold, take-it-or-leave-it negotiation. I mean, this is my free time. Edit: Nevermind that extra bit, however true. :)
Check out (non-aff link) http://www.amazon.com/Software-Estimation-Demystifying-Pract...
It's a good summary on a several techniques, how to apply them, and how to pick how in depth of a one to do, as well as how to talk with people who try to negotiate with them.
Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?
#120Working in the chemical engineering area. Hard science + all the cool technologies you can read on HN => Fun + money. Usually a contract starts at $15k (2 weeks) and goes up to 2 months of work on average. I always advice people to go the hard science way if they like computer science, because there is a really big big lack of people being good at both. I should write about it.
I'd also be interested in what you have to write about it.
Off-topic: what books do you recommend on chemical engineering? What's the equivalent of The Art of Electronics for analog electronics, or HDL Chip Design for digital chip design, or Code Complete or Algorithms in C or CLRS or The Pragmatic Programmer or SICP or TAOCP for software?