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I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

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Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#211

Post by hnbad »

dmje wrote: post #105

12 years into running a tiny digital consultancy with my wife. We've used an "associate" model for all that time - a posh way of saying "a network of trusted freelancers". We've deliberately chosen not to take on staff. We could have grown at many points along the way but haven't wanted to. Instead we've stayed small, focused and profitable. The benefits to growing would have been being able to take on bigger gigs, b…

We're in this spot after 9 years, most of which was spent trying to be an "agency".

The pandemic cost us most of our employees and the final one left for personal reasons later that year. Trying to be as non-exploitative as possible (within the constraints of the system) left us without sufficient resources to weather a nearly year-long struggle and the fixed nature of wages meant we ended up sinking money into people effectively just sitting on their hands (to no fault of their own).

We talked about possibly moving to an "associate" or "collective" model before the pandemic hit and it was very clear that people who look for employment aren't necessarily also people willing to run a company or give up the labor protections for a stake in their place of work, especially when they were already with a "good employer" which we tried to be.

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#212

Post by hnbad »

beachy wrote: post #123
idopmstuff wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest advantage to owning your business is that you can optimize it solely for what's best for you. If growth is all you care about, go nuts, but if you've got it humming along making decent money with just the right amount of work, there's zero pressure to change it. I think a lot of people forget that and think that they need to push to be more "successful" - kudos to you for doing in the right way for you.

> The biggest advantage to owning your business is that you can optimize it solely for what's best for you. Another great advantage is being able to fire bad clients. It's not something I've done more than once or twice but the freedom not to be brought down or stressed by someone else's insane demands is worth gold. Related is the ability to pick and choose your clients in the sales process. e.g. plenty of small con…

> Another great advantage is being able to fire bad clients.

That's not an advantage to owning your business, that's an advantage to owning a successful business. When you're struggling to get off the ground or to keep the lights on, you can easily get stuck with bad clients because you can't afford to fire them just yet. In the worst cases this results in a death spiral where the financial hit from firing them would be too much of a risk but the cost of maintaining them slowly starves your business and/or burns you out.

As the old wisdom goes, most businesses die and most businesses that die do so in the first couple of years. If you have to start by bootstrapping your business you already start from a disadvantage. If your financial situation means failure is not an option, bad clients can turn into hostage scenarios.

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#213

Post by wsc981 »

dmje wrote: post #105

12 years into running a tiny digital consultancy with my wife. We've used an "associate" model for all that time - a posh way of saying "a network of trusted freelancers". We've deliberately chosen not to take on staff. We could have grown at many points along the way but haven't wanted to. Instead we've stayed small, focused and profitable. The benefits to growing would have been being able to take on bigger gigs, b…

I work with an Iranian guy and he used to be CEO of a ~30 people company. He told me it was too stressful for him as well. He also did’t make much money, as he was concerned about the income of his staff.

During COVID, work dried up and company (more or less) ceased to exist (but website is still up).

He told me he is much happier again as a “normal” developer.

As for me, I also wouldn’t want to manage many people. The stress of dealing with bad employees, sickness, all government related stuff, etcetera, it’s not for me.

Actually I’d prefer to develop full time on my own projects, if I had the financial means. But I don’t, so since May I am an employee at a Thailand based company.

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#214

Post by joenot443 »

LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #27
pxue wrote: post #12

As 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.

> As an industry we're surprisingly very behind in normalizing this. Given the fight we’ve seen over WFH, I’m very inclined to believe that this is intentional by the industry. By focusing on paying top dollar for FTEs and demanding incredible amounts of time and energy from them, companies maintain a level of control that they wouldn’t have by working with a fractional engineering team.

> Given the fight we’ve seen over WFH, I’m very inclined to believe that this is intentional by the industry

Doesn't this require a level of coordination between hirers that almost certainly doesn't exist?

I see these takes all the time about how "the industry" cabal coordinates to screw over workers. Never have I seen any meeting notes or interviews from former CEOs on how this coordination might happen, just disgruntled employees feeling they deserve more.

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#215

Post by tobr »

locallost wrote: post #209
ako wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did he say that it included exclusively working for one employer?

Where did I say he did? The first word of my post is "depending" and the first part of the first sentence is "Depending on how you actually do it", so it was pretty hard to miss that it depends.

Where did ako say you did, etc.

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#216

Post by yipbub »

synergy20 wrote: post #159

freelance is not scalable, not good to have any passive income, and, you stop working your income stops, there is not even any PTO to take a break. I have been doing freelance on and off over the years, and I believe using all the free time before next project to build some sellable products is the only way to become more financial independent.

Theoretically, you charge taking PTO into account.

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#217

Post by Keirmot »

atum47 wrote: post #131

Back when I was a 3d artist I was making good money as a freelancer. I would also work with a archviz studio as an "employee". Time went by and I leaned towards the "secure" job with the studio (instead of opening my own), cause from time to time I would have a hard time with my clients as a freelancer (sometimes they did not pay, sometimes they would ask for changes that would be a entire new work...). Making a long…

I think any kind of career move, be it freelance, corporate or anything in between, has risks. You shouldn’t regret the decision you made if when you made them you used the best information available to you - no one can predict the future.

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#218

Post by johndhi »

candiddevmike wrote: post #83
beezlewax wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong but I feel I work harder than most people on my team. I always go for stories in areas that are more complex than the rest or areas that are new to me. I'm always trying to learn more to keep ahead of the rest. My performance reviews are always "exceeds expectations", but I haven't seen how this benefits anyone other than the company so far. Maybe I should just take it more easy but I feel li…

Not to be discouraging, but promotions rarely go to top performers in the sense of what you're doing. They go to movers and shakers, folks with heavy soft skills who routinely interact with skip levels and the like. Their work output is marginal to the influence they command. Basically, you're most likely being taken advantage of and will never be properly rewarded for what you're doing, IME.

This is true for me at work right now. Tips on how to reverse it?

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#219

Post by JackMorgan »

dmje wrote: post #105

12 years into running a tiny digital consultancy with my wife. We've used an "associate" model for all that time - a posh way of saying "a network of trusted freelancers". We've deliberately chosen not to take on staff. We could have grown at many points along the way but haven't wanted to. Instead we've stayed small, focused and profitable. The benefits to growing would have been being able to take on bigger gigs, b…

Same as what my wife and I are doing.

Together we make enough in 10 hours a week to pay for our tiny apartment, 16 year old car, insurance, and healthy veggie diet. The rest of the week?

Well, this year we're ultra-marathon training, volunteer firefighting, backpacked the first half of the Appalachian trail, crew on a racing sailboat, and running a charity teaching apprentices how to be software engineers (got two into the industry in 2023). I just got asked to come be a helper at our fire academy starting next week which I'm very excited about.

We've based this model on that story of the corporate worker and the poor fisherman. https://www.reddit.com/r/simpleliving/comments/9yze06/the_fi...

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#220

Post by htormey »

joenot443 wrote: post #214
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an industry we're surprisingly very behind in normalizing this. Given the fight we’ve seen over WFH, I’m very inclined to believe that this is intentional by the industry. By focusing on paying top dollar for FTEs and demanding incredible amounts of time and energy from them, companies maintain a level of control that they wouldn’t have by working with a fractional engineering team.

> Given the fight we’ve seen over WFH, I’m very inclined to believe that this is intentional by the industry Doesn't this require a level of coordination between hirers that almost certainly doesn't exist? I see these takes all the time about how "the industry" cabal coordinates to screw over workers. Never have I seen any meeting notes or interviews from former CEOs on how this coordination might happen, just disgru…

Personally I don’t believe theirs a conspiracy regarding this but just to play devils advocate.

Clearly, the heads of HR and other people who define corporate compensation talk to one another, “hey what are you guys doing to manage pay cuts, reductions in staff, etc in this economy at company x/y/z”.

It’s a pretty obvious benefit of having a strong professional network. I.e you have people you can ask for mentorship and advise. Every startup board was asking companies to belt tighten and reduce costs because of the economy earlier this year and last year.

A relatively small number of companies and startups in tech define top of market for compensation. Clearly the people at those companies know one another and talk about what they are doing.

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