£1,785.25 Is below to what is considered a minimum vague here. I wonder if you are happy with this and what your cost of living is. But I think UK (London especially) is also very expensive. Personally I think you need to charge (way) more.
My first month freelancing
101–110 of 125 posts
Re: My first month freelancing
#102So you actually only worked for 7 days? (£1,785.25 / 250 ~ 7) Also you say you entered a programming competition, can you share which and why you chose that one?
A bit more than than that, unfortunately I haven't got exactly £250 from every client so far. And finding work, is work ;). I have had to negotiate as it's early days, and work for a reduced rate is better than no work. I haven't yet taken the first offer any company has offered me though, hence my advice in the post to negotiate. I entered a competition ran by a company supporting http://siliconmilkroundabout.com/ ,…
I wonder what kind of competition. Something like topcoder?
Re: My first month freelancing
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just a search engine you go to. I was already paying a VA to trawl through most of the sites that it scrapes so using it saved me a few dollars a month. I'm quite sure there's a paid service at a similar sort of price range to what you're describing that does email you. Don't remember the name atm.
I see...ok, well keep your eyes peeled - if you are interested :)
I'm interested as well. :) jim.jones1@gmail.com
Re: My first month freelancing
#104Shameless, shameless plug alert: if you found Alan's post interesting, you may also like the book I've almost finished writing. Check out http://freelancedeveloperbook.com The plan is to ship it before the end of June - am publishing via leanpub.com (great experience so far) and it'll be a paid-for book to cover the (many, many, _many_) hours I've put into it. When it's ready, I'll make a sample available so you can…
Signed up too. I kind of started freelance work but like Alan's post, the c# freelance world was either "contract" or "permi".
Found some good guys to do work with now on a kind of "per project" approach which is good.
Interested to read the book as I found my weaknesses to be:
1. Charging for my work. I still find I undercharge as I enjoy the work and feel awkward asking for large amounts per billable hour. I'm now kind of trapped on low billable hours with my initial clients...
2. Finances. I've learnt enough and in the UK you can survive for the first 6 months without an accountant. I'm probably going to get one soon to handle the more complex tax/pay stuff.
3. Work out a proper hourly rate. Don't use the same broken formula I did thinking I can work 7 billable hours per day. I end up with about 4.5. I didn't account for the gaps between work. I now understand why freelancers have high rates.
Re: My first month freelancing
#105Shameless, shameless plug alert: if you found Alan's post interesting, you may also like the book I've almost finished writing. Check out http://freelancedeveloperbook.com The plan is to ship it before the end of June - am publishing via leanpub.com (great experience so far) and it'll be a paid-for book to cover the (many, many, _many_) hours I've put into it. When it's ready, I'll make a sample available so you can…
Signed up too. I kind of started freelance work but like Alan's post, the c# freelance world was either "contract" or "permi". Found some good guys to do work with now on a kind of "per project" approach which is good. Interested to read the book as I found my weaknesses to be: 1. Charging for my work. I still find I undercharge as I enjoy the work and feel awkward asking for large amounts per billable hour. I'm now…
Thanks Phil. That's exactly the kind of stuff I'm including in the book, although - as this thread proves - there is no cut-and-dried answer to rates/billing, so my approach is to set out a sensible baseline for stuff, to help people get up and running. As time goes on and feedback comes in, version 1.x of the book will probably take that further and provide more detail where people are asking for it. Because I'm publishing via leanpub.com, updates will be pushed to owners of 1.0 for free.
Re: My first month freelancing
#106Shameless, shameless plug alert: if you found Alan's post interesting, you may also like the book I've almost finished writing. Check out http://freelancedeveloperbook.com The plan is to ship it before the end of June - am publishing via leanpub.com (great experience so far) and it'll be a paid-for book to cover the (many, many, _many_) hours I've put into it. When it's ready, I'll make a sample available so you can…
Signed up (even if the iPad layout is quite horrible :/) As a jack of all trades freelancer (data analysis, web development, advertising, SEO, reporting...) I'm very interested :)
That's interesting - I just used launchrock's templates. Could you ping me a screengrab so I can see how it looks?
Re: My first month freelancing
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Signed up (even if the iPad layout is quite horrible :/) As a jack of all trades freelancer (data analysis, web development, advertising, SEO, reporting...) I'm very interested :)
That's interesting - I just used launchrock's templates. Could you ping me a screengrab so I can see how it looks?
Just dropped you an email with the screenshots to the email address you wrote in another sub-thread here.
Re: My first month freelancing
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of WordPress (yes, WordPress) devs charge $250/hour. That's $2,000 (assuming no travel expenses). JavaScript/Ruby/Python, I don't see why $2K/day is actually not feasible.
Around here (university town) you can find students and unemployed graduates who are more than willing to do web work for $20 - $30 an hour.
Are you aware that there are lots of Indians willing to do work at $5/hour? There are $10 watches in the market, but that doesn't mean that $2,000 watches don't get sold.
Re: My first month freelancing
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of WordPress (yes, WordPress) devs charge $250/hour. That's $2,000 (assuming no travel expenses). JavaScript/Ruby/Python, I don't see why $2K/day is actually not feasible.
Around here (university town) you can find students and unemployed graduates who are more than willing to do web work for $20 - $30 an hour.
And there's no end of students (even students with honours degree in computer science) who don't know the first thing about programming. That's why "how to do interviews" and fizzbuzz questions are a popular topic on this site.
You get what you pay for.
Re: My first month freelancing
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would phrase this as "bill based on your natural work increment". If you're working at the thrift store putting price tags on shirts, your timeclock is probably in 5 minute increments. If you're a defense contractor bidding on a major combat platform, your minimum increment is probably ten engineers worth of salary. Anything smaller than "the increment" is probably a rounding error, which is a headache for both par…
Your natural work increment and your fee structure are not the same thing. When you freelance, you aren't being compensated solely for your effort; you are providing much more value than that. Factors that go into freelancers getting paid more include: * Access to talent on predefined schedule * Minimal commitment to that talent, instead of a year of salary * Allocation of that talent to your projects as opposed to s…
There's all kinds of things companies don't have to pay for freelancers. Sick pay, holiday pay, possible maternity pay, pension contributions, etc.