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Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#91

Post by exdsq »

castr0 wrote: post #12

Don't bother contracting. In the United States almost all software contracting companies fall under two categories: 1.) Money laundering of some sort or another. 2.) Groups of people who have figured out they can create fraudulent projects and then contract them out to "friends". These are the worst as they are gaslighting festivals where you're forced to buy from certain places or people start purposely breaking sof…

I don't think you understand how contracting works or what it is in the global market

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#92

Post by somehnacct3757 »

Bill what you need for the life you want. If your total compensation is 100,000 and you want to keep earning that but working half as much, bill 2x your hourly rate.

In reality you will spend your free time lining up the next job, so maybe work a third as much for 3x the money.

If you don't feel comfortable charging that, why bother. Keep the desk job

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#93

Post by texasbigdata »

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…

Just be mindful sometime adding frosting to a terrible cake doesn't make it taste good. And the failure to pivot looks really bad to you. So your $300 hourly rate is not really deeply utilized. Consider project billing and also think about internal barriers (including humans that might be resentful or threatened) and how you might clear them.

If you're doing strategic work it still needs to get implemented. And you're not doing that work. But the result is what the CEO will convey as your reputation to your next client referral reference check.

Just some thoughts.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#94

Post by koolba »

gilmore606 wrote: post #86
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…

> Don’t underestimate how good a stable, big company job is right now. This, but also don't underestimate the personal satisfaction of "eating what you kill". I feel far less alienated from my labor than I did as an FTE. When I get a tough new task, I get excited thinking of those hours piling up. My reward is directly tied to my efforts and success in a way it never was before, and that has improved my quality of li…

> This, but also don't underestimate the personal satisfaction of "eating what you kill".

I love that expression and mere words cannot describe the sense of satisfaction one gets when the sale is made and the checks are cashed. It’s not for everybody. Honestly, it’s not for most either. But if you do pull it off, the feeling is fantastic.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#95

Post by oleh »

elcapitan wrote: post #26

I'm currently considering the same, does anybody have good advice (or resources) for doing this in Germany? (or maybe EU in general)

Put your profile up on Freelancermap.de, I got some ok offers and in the end a very good contract within a few weeks. You end up on the mailing lists of recruiting companies very quickly. I‘m usually receiving multiple emails with offers every day. Probably not very good ones, but good enough for feeling secure and boosting your feeling of self-worth. Good luck to you! :-)

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#96

Post by hackerfromthefu »

nickjj wrote: post #25
Lucasoato wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don’t underestimate how good a stable, big company job is right now. This. Also don't underestimate how hard it is to get the money from a client if they decide not to pay you, even if you did a good job.

> This. Also don't underestimate how hard it is to get the money from a client if they decide not to pay you, even if you did a good job. It's not too bad in my opinion. I've been freelancing for close to 20 years on my own with no 3rd party platforms. I've had assorted clients from around the world. I've only been legit ripped off once out of issuing hundreds of invoices and working with a bunch of individuals and b…

Both your examples mention single digits hours, ie very small amount of money.

The problems tend to happen if there's larger amounts of money involved. So it's important as a contractor not to enable a situation where they owe you a lot of money, especially if you have no leverage.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#97

Post by iancmceachern »

honkdaddy wrote: post #82
Lucasoato wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don’t underestimate how good a stable, big company job is right now. This. Also don't underestimate how hard it is to get the money from a client if they decide not to pay you, even if you did a good job.

In broad strokes, what does one typically do here? Say it’s for a cheap job, maybe $20k, where it might not make sense to litigate.

Eat it and spend any effort towards finding better clients

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#98

Post by convolvatron »

zoomablemind wrote: post #70
convolvatron wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tou…

sounds like you really dont want a contractor. i try to be available for followon work, but i cant promise anything really.

instead of trying to find another senior X person to come on fulltime, maybe you should pay someone to pick up X?

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#99

Post by softwaredoug »

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…

“Organic” marketing can also just mean writing content genuinely helpful to your immediate network, thus making you the go to person for a given problem area.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#100

Post by nickjj »

hackerfromthefu wrote: post #96
nickjj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This. Also don't underestimate how hard it is to get the money from a client if they decide not to pay you, even if you did a good job. It's not too bad in my opinion. I've been freelancing for close to 20 years on my own with no 3rd party platforms. I've had assorted clients from around the world. I've only been legit ripped off once out of issuing hundreds of invoices and working with a bunch of individuals and b…

Both your examples mention single digits hours, ie very small amount of money. The problems tend to happen if there's larger amounts of money involved. So it's important as a contractor not to enable a situation where they owe you a lot of money, especially if you have no leverage.

> Both your examples mention single digits hours, ie very small amount of money. The problems tend to happen if there's larger amounts of money involved.

I've had lots of 100+ hour month contracts, some of which have spanned for years.

At some point you have to use your judgment to figure out what to do. If an individual with no registered business emails you asking you to put in 150 hours worth of work in a month, has a lot of grammar mistakes, seems weirdly aggressive over video calls or won't do video calls and tries to haggle down your prices then yeah it wouldn't be a good idea to wait until the end of the month to bill them.

But usually you'll have a chat or 2 with someone, get a good feel for them, propose a single page contract with a clear set of deliverables and compensation, then do the work and collect your money.

If you're doing project based billing with a new client it wouldn't hurt to ask for a decent chunk (33-50%) up front or at least earlier than your usual billing cycle for the first time.

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