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Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#61

Post by cushychicken »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #3

Finding clients is basically the hardest part. Not going to lie: Most of my clients come from my network and their referrals. Most of my freelancer friends’ clients come from their network and their network referring clients to them. While it is possible to find clients organically through advertising, it’s much easier if you can build a network to pull from. You can start by simply contacting people you know and ask…

This comment is a nice reminder of how good my current clients are - especially regarding their comfort with asynchronous communications.

Finally: Don’t underestimate how good a stable, big company job is right now. Freelancing isn’t really the easy money that some people make it out to be, especially if you’re not actually free during the day because you have a job.

I am acutely aware of how much more money I could be making if I chose to work at a big company at the moment. Much better benefits, too.

I've ended up taking the perspective that consulting is a route where I can trade earning more money for having more control over my time. My current clients don't care that I dedicate half of my working hours to building and marketing the job site I'm working on. I get their deliverables done on time, on budget, and (importantly) right the first time. That's something they've had a hard time finding, and it shows in their willingness to accept my (relatively high) hourly rate.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#62

Post by cushychicken »

jollybean wrote: post #27
leros wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it mostly finding your own clients? I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engineering teams who need someone to lead an effort in something like a product manager and engineering architect role. Those sounded interesting, though I did not follow up. My main fear is pay. Ideally, I'd like to be able to make at least $300/hr. I have no ide…

$300/hr is the same as $600K/year. As a manager, who are you going to pay that kind of rate to? Why would someone hire a contractor at that rate, when they could hire the top tier Google Engineers? $200-300/hr rates are usually for 'expertise' style inputs - it's where you have industry leading or arcane knowledge in your field, and you bill for your insight, which might just be a few hours. A lawyer who specializes…

>$300/hr is the same as $600K/year.

...at 100% utilization, yes.

I've never personally met an independent contractor who books more than a thousand hours a year.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#63

Post by jokethrowaway »

ushakov wrote: post #58
dceddia wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would anyone read my blog? Because you’d write high quality articles that help people solve problems, share them around as you write them, slowly grow some viewership that way, and eventually start to get organic visitors from search engines. It’s not very fast though, and it helps to know what you hope to get out of it, so you can target your writing. I know people who get freelance leads from their writing, b…

last time i tried blogging someone stole the content and tried to pass it off as their own

I had people stealing my pastebin code, swap my name with theirs in the comments and post on their blog

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#64

Post by zoomablemind »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #3

Finding clients is basically the hardest part. Not going to lie: Most of my clients come from my network and their referrals. Most of my freelancer friends’ clients come from their network and their network referring clients to them. While it is possible to find clients organically through advertising, it’s much easier if you can build a network to pull from. You can start by simply contacting people you know and ask…

> ...Whatever you do, don’t use your work computer for any freelancing tasks.

Depending on terms of your full-time employment, it may even preclude a contracting work in the same field if it overlaps the main work. It may also claim ownership of any IP created while employed.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#65

Post by 123pie123 »

When I first started contracting, another contractor said a piece of advice that has stuck.

Your playing a game that you'll never know the full set of rules to and people will cheat anyway.

i've been contracting for over 15years, and I wish I'd started earlier, one of the best decisions that I've ever made.

For me the biggest thing is variety and occasionally being challenged

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#66

Post by k__ »

I got my first projects via online job/project boards. Wrote a bunch of application emails.

It's not that hard. Just remember that you go for 4-6 month projects. That way you only need 1-2 projects a year and waste lass time with applications.

After you did a good job for a few clients, they will refere you and new clients will start applying to you.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#67

Post by crucialfelix »

leros wrote: post #17
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engineering teams who need someone to lead an effort in something like a product manager and engineering architect role. Interesting. It’s not exactly common for companies to want contractors to be in leadership roles. Leadership roles generally warrant full-time employees who can be more invested in…

Those companies were willing to hire me. Hopefully this doesn't arrogant, but those companies can't hire someone of my caliber. They're mediocre companies that can only hire average/mediocre people. I wouldn't want to join a company like that full time, but I could see it being fun to hop in and help them out with a big project. For example one company was a media company that you've probably heard of. For their next…

Then once you start working with them you discover that the tech and architecture are a reflection of their management structure, and then you find out they really don't want a port/rebuild, they want a new product (but this only becomes apparent half way through the rebuild).

Green field projects are much easier, but you really need to have a great product owner/manager.

Tldr: It's not just coding, it's people.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#68

Post by 10x-dev »

cushychicken wrote: post #61
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #3

Finding clients is basically the hardest part. Not going to lie: Most of my clients come from my network and their referrals. Most of my freelancer friends’ clients come from their network and their network referring clients to them. While it is possible to find clients organically through advertising, it’s much easier if you can build a network to pull from. You can start by simply contacting people you know and ask…

This comment is a nice reminder of how good my current clients are - especially regarding their comfort with asynchronous communications. Finally: Don’t underestimate how good a stable, big company job is right now. Freelancing isn’t really the easy money that some people make it out to be, especially if you’re not actually free during the day because you have a job. I am acutely aware of how much more money I could…

Aside from non-compete and generally unenforceable "ownership of work during your own time" clauses in my employment contract, I'd say I have quite a bit of control over my time. Nobody cares what I do throughout the day as long as I deliver my stuff on time.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#69

Post by bdavis__ »

jollybean wrote: post #34
akerl_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure why you think a company that wanted to hire you for a leadership role would pay you as a free-lancer to do that role. Generally consultant and full-time hiring pipelines and roles are fully separate, for a variety of reasons. Also, just in case it wasn’t obvious, this comment does read as extremely arrogant. A company wanted to hire you, you didn’t want to work there because they’re “average/mediocre”, s…

It's not arrogant if it's true, it's just candid. We would never communicate things like that - that would be arrogant, but if he's giving us the reality, then it's fine. That said - the 'Red Flag' to me is that someone things they are going to 'contract' and 'help out a bit' and 'fix their architecture'. This seems worse the a bit glib, it seems upside down. This seems like someone who might be a good engineer and w…

some problems cannot be fixed. they either need to be cancelled, or they will run to completion using 2 or 3 or 4 or X times the budget and schedule.

the real value is identifying these projects early. but identification is not near as difficult as getting the message understood by the stakeholders.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#70

Post by zoomablemind »

convolvatron wrote: post #57
ushakov wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, pretty hypocrite that the author doesn’t work to work for a company, because it’s not his caliber, but then accepts a freelancing gig if you don’t want to work for a company for any reason, why did you accept the offer?

why is that so hard to understand? this has been a good source of clients for me. i dont have any faith in your product or your leadership - you really seem to be chasing your own tail, and working for you is just going to be pointless and frustrating for both of us. however, you want to hire me because i'm an expert in X. actually I am, and if you give me the go ahead I'll basically fix all your X problems in 3 mont…

> ...i dont have any faith in your product or your leadership

Sounds as not a good proposition for me as a client. It breaks the trust in your effort being for the best of my interest.

No that different from a mercenary's logic. Even then some loyaly to the payer is expected.

How would you go on supporting the product past completion of your work? Saying that it broke in the part that you did not write? Well, you touched it, you "own" it... at least in client's mind.

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