Agencies charge like a very good contractor but use midrange to lousy contractors/employees to do most of the work, and bring the good ones in only in need.
It’s selling the difference between the two.
I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency
11–20 of 262 posts
Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency
#12As a solo dev contractor who got my business to $500k/year during the pandemic - I echo a lot of the sentiment in this post.
An extension to the post I want to touch on is that VC funded startups are not the only way to break free from the dreadful corporate games.
Working for yourself at your own pace is.
As an industry we're surprisingly very behind in normalizing this.
Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency
#13[flagged]
You'll be surprised by how many people want what she have.
Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency
#14Can someone explain what the appeal of solo freelancing is in the age of bountiful remote work? My typical day as a remote worker is not that different from the one described: a couple hours of work per day and mostly leisure the rest of the time. And I probably still make more money than a freelancer. Consistently too. Is chasing down new clients all the time and working on multiple projects really that desirable to…
Nbr of digits in the hourly rate? Remote work is usually two digits number while freelancing on short term projects would be at least three digits.
Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency
#15Can someone explain what the appeal of solo freelancing is in the age of bountiful remote work? My typical day as a remote worker is not that different from the one described: a couple hours of work per day and mostly leisure the rest of the time. And I probably still make more money than a freelancer. Consistently too. Is chasing down new clients all the time and working on multiple projects really that desirable to…
You're more easily replaceable as a remote worker, you're also dependent on the whims of your employer. It's easier and more beneficial to develop the skill of chasing down clients vs chasing down jobs in a remote work environment. You also don't have any options for residuals and your working largely to pad someone else's pocket and not your own.
Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency
#16As a solo dev contractor who got my business to $500k/year during the pandemic - I echo a lot of the sentiment in this post. An extension to the post I want to touch on is that VC funded startups are not the only way to break free from the dreadful corporate games. Working for yourself at your own pace is. As an industry we're surprisingly very behind in normalizing this.
Can I ask how you find contracts? Are there that many contract roles posted in public or is it due to your network?
Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency
#17As a solo dev contractor who got my business to $500k/year during the pandemic - I echo a lot of the sentiment in this post. An extension to the post I want to touch on is that VC funded startups are not the only way to break free from the dreadful corporate games. Working for yourself at your own pace is. As an industry we're surprisingly very behind in normalizing this.
Can I ask how you find contracts? Are there that many contract roles posted in public or is it due to your network?
Upwork. Solely up work.
Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency
#18I have a similar vision. I want to hire one person and pay them well. Culture will definitely be very easy to maintain. I only want to net like $20k/month.
Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency
#19Can someone explain what the appeal of solo freelancing is in the age of bountiful remote work? My typical day as a remote worker is not that different from the one described: a couple hours of work per day and mostly leisure the rest of the time. And I probably still make more money than a freelancer. Consistently too. Is chasing down new clients all the time and working on multiple projects really that desirable to…
Biggest difference is that you get to 100% chose exactly what you want to work on, and all the profits generated by the work goes to you. You're not beholden to anyone but yourself.
> Is chasing down new clients all the time and working on multiple projects really that desirable to people?
Chasing down new clients is probably a thing mostly affecting new freelancers without much experience. When I've done freelancing in the past, I've never had to look for any clients besides posting "I'm available to help out people on a freelance-basis" on various social media, and then I get more work available to me than I could realistically do.
I think most established freelancers "suffer" from the same. Once you're available for work, it fills up quickly.
Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency
#20Can someone explain what the appeal of solo freelancing is in the age of bountiful remote work? My typical day as a remote worker is not that different from the one described: a couple hours of work per day and mostly leisure the rest of the time. And I probably still make more money than a freelancer. Consistently too. Is chasing down new clients all the time and working on multiple projects really that desirable to…
> Can someone explain what the appeal of solo freelancing is in the age of bountiful remote work?
Income multipliers, flexibility and being treated like an adult are a few reasons that come to mind.
For example, with salaried work your income is mostly fixed (minus a pre-defined'ish bonus or options, etc.). With contract work you might land a $30,000 contract that takes 2 weeks to do because the focus is on providing value that allows your client to 5x that in a few months so it's a no brainer. This is different than salaried work where you're expected to be available for 40-45 hours a week.
You may decide to spend a year traveling the world while maintaining existing work and working whenever you feel like it. As a salaried worker I don't think you'll be able to work a few hours a week for 6-12 months in a row and still be employed unless you had an exceptional situation.
With a number of salaried positions, especially with companies that receive funding or are growing a bit past early startup stages you often lose all freedom to make decisions that you're qualified to make. Such as having to ask permission from multiple people to store $0.01 / month worth of files in an S3 bucket where the discussion to get this approval literally costs 10,000x to 20,000x more in engineering time.