Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective • Hacker News Board

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#41

Post by adrianhoward » Sun, Jul 08, 2012, 8:06 PM UTC

jagira wrote: post #9

A well written introspective piece. I left my job a few months before you did (Aug '11) and have a similar experience. Here are some of the things that I've learned - a) Set your working hours. Try to follow them, but not religiously. Having a batch of hours as free time is much better than being occupied throughout the day even for a 4 hour gig. b) Get a small long term (ongoing) project. Few hours every month. Use…

Set your working hours. Try to follow them, but not religiously. Having a batch of hours as free time is much better than being occupied throughout the day even for a 4 hour gig.

Yup. Very good lesson to learn. Setting hours for work is much more useful than timing when you work.

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#42

Post by sneak » Sun, Jul 08, 2012, 8:07 PM UTC

xxbondsxx wrote: post #38

sneak wrote: post #8

This guy knows what he's talking about. He omitted the part about not having to put on pants to go to work, though. That's worth $25k/year to me, easy.

I don't get this with developers. Are pants that uncomfortable? That much of a terrible obligation that you'd forego 25k a year?

Specifically, it's more the "working someone else's schedule" than anything. Also, traveling to some other physical location. Commuting is a total drag, and it's nice sometimes in the middle of a project to postpone the shower until _after_ work that day and sit around in your skivvies in Get Shit Done mode until dinnertime.

Surely I can't be the only one who transitions from sleeping to awake with some crazy architectural change or refactoring in their head? I go straight to the keyboard and do it while it's all crystal clear in my mind.

The only time in the last five years I've _ever_ set an alarm clock is when I've had a doctor's appointment before noon.

Home is comfy.

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#43

Post by Alan01252 » Sun, Jul 08, 2012, 8:08 PM UTC

blu3jack wrote: post #40

osxwm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were those starkly drawn benefits and drawbacks you discovered in your six years of freelancing?

It's a big topic. To the author's point, the role of free time changes a bit once you have been able to plan your free time over a period of years rather than months. It takes on a very different rhythm. Beyond that, probably the biggest single evolution was in my relationship to the work itself. In the early months and years I loved being able to go heads down on a project without ever worrying about the politics of…

I'm keen to know whether you ever expressed these concerns?

My recent (and limited in comparison to yours) experience is that as a freelancer demanding a certain wage my knowledge and feedback is taken in very high regard and if I feel something needs changing it has been.

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#44

Post by sneak » Sun, Jul 08, 2012, 8:09 PM UTC

blu3jack wrote: post #40

osxwm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were those starkly drawn benefits and drawbacks you discovered in your six years of freelancing?

It's a big topic. To the author's point, the role of free time changes a bit once you have been able to plan your free time over a period of years rather than months. It takes on a very different rhythm. Beyond that, probably the biggest single evolution was in my relationship to the work itself. In the early months and years I loved being able to go heads down on a project without ever worrying about the politics of…

> Sure, you can do a great job and collect a good paycheck, but if you love what you do it can be frustrating to have extremely limited input into decisions outside the scope of your contract.

This is a big one. I semi-solved it by becoming a freelance architect/netadmin. Engaging the customer before it's time to write code can help a _lot_. Be full service! (It's also more work = time = money, too. I like money.)

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#45

Post by brandall10 » Sun, Jul 08, 2012, 8:14 PM UTC

nolok wrote: post #10

I've always wanted to turn to freelancing, mostly because my girlfriend has visa issues and it would allow me to go live with her full time and take better care of my family, but my biggest drawback and what stopped me was that I didn't know how to start getting decent projects. I'm a webdev, I mostly feel confident to start with PHP where I have lots of experience and worked on websites with millions uniques and thi…

I would say get involved in your local community... go to meet-ups, tech talks, Startup Weekends, etc, and become a known entity.

The real benefit to this is you get to meet people who are already established, as usually those are the people who tend to do these things and sometimes they work in teams. I did a pro-bono project with a local known dev, he liked the work and invited me to come along on a long-term paid gig which was sufficient enough for me to quit my day job.

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#46

Post by mgl » Sun, Jul 08, 2012, 8:16 PM UTC

cageface wrote: post #22

nolok wrote: post #10

I've always wanted to turn to freelancing, mostly because my girlfriend has visa issues and it would allow me to go live with her full time and take better care of my family, but my biggest drawback and what stopped me was that I didn't know how to start getting decent projects. I'm a webdev, I mostly feel confident to start with PHP where I have lots of experience and worked on websites with millions uniques and thi…

I've been doing iOS apps for the last year or so and lately I've had a bunch of people approach me for work mainly because they liked the apps I'd published on my own. I think if you want to get started freelancing the best thing to do is build up some kind of online portfolio to show people what you can do. If you're not a designer yourself maybe you could partner with a designer in a similar position that's interes…

Thanks, sounds like a reasonable advice! Does portfolio have to be quite large to attract people with application ideas? Is it yours: http://www.plastaq.com ?

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#47

Post by mrooney7828 » Sun, Jul 08, 2012, 8:17 PM UTC

RawData wrote: post #13

Where do you find work? Is I just word of mouth?

I tried to address this in http://mrooney.github.com/blog/2012/07/01/freelancing-a-6-mo..., but let me know you find it lacking!

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#48

Post by mrooney7828 » Sun, Jul 08, 2012, 8:21 PM UTC

autarch wrote: post #32

Without knowing what his income goals are, it's hard to know how well this would work for others. Most people can't easily charge more than $100 per hour for consulting, unless you have niche, in-demand skills, or are notably above-average in skills and you can back that up somehow (like you wrote a major FS/OSS tool that people know about).

Pretty much anyone will have specific experience that they can market themselves for. Just think about what you've done in your past few jobs, and you probably know more than 99% of developers in those specific areas you worked in. If you check out my About page at http://mrooney.github.com/about, you can see I'm not marketing myself just as a general web developer, as you don't stand out that way and can't charge a good rate against all the competition.

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#49

Post by mrooney7828 » Sun, Jul 08, 2012, 8:23 PM UTC

zupatol wrote: post #21

Does anyone have an idea what kind of programming jobs lend themselves best to part-time work? The author doesn't mention the kinds of projects he works on. I'm unemployed since last week and I've been trying to find a part-time programming job for more than three months in Geneva, Switzerland. Part-time freelancing sounds great, but I have no idea where to look for clients.

See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4215576, but just look at what niche skills you have and find markets where those are needed. Generally if they are in demand, putting yourself on LinkedIn / Github with those specialties is all you need, for example http://mrooney.github.com/about.

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#50

Post by robbiea » Sun, Jul 08, 2012, 8:46 PM UTC

nolok wrote: post #10

I've always wanted to turn to freelancing, mostly because my girlfriend has visa issues and it would allow me to go live with her full time and take better care of my family, but my biggest drawback and what stopped me was that I didn't know how to start getting decent projects. I'm a webdev, I mostly feel confident to start with PHP where I have lots of experience and worked on websites with millions uniques and thi…

I don't normally post links to my articles, but check these posts out which cover this topic:

1) http://robbieabed.com/how-to-make-money-as-a-new-developer/ (i know you have experience, but understand concept.

2) http://robbieabed.com/thinking-about-quitting-your-job-10-un...

3) http://robbieabed.com/your-professional-network-sucks-and-it...

In Summary. You have the skillset. Build an internal network, and the offers will come. It just takes a long time. Let me know how I can help if you have more questions.