Drawbacks of Freelance Web Development • Hacker News Board

Re: Drawbacks of Freelance Web Development

#11

Post by einarvollset » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 5:48 AM UTC

The main drawback to freelancing is defining yourself as a "$$ by the hour" worker. It's very common to do so, but it invariably leads to burnout. It's not terribly hard to shift your mindset to do something different, but it's not necessarily obvious how to do so.

The main things to do are:

- understand that recurring revenue is unsurpassed in terms of LTV of your customers.

- realize that it's easy to become a world expert in an extremely narrow field

..then combine the two: what niche thing (much narrower than you're thinking) can you become a world expert in and charge a recurring fee for?

Re: Drawbacks of Freelance Web Development

#12

Post by timpiele » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 8:04 AM UTC

I've been a freelancer since 1996. I've made $5,000 a year and $200,000 a year. You scale by charging more, using retainers writing books etc.

To fight boredom I'm selling my home in Seattle in 2016 and moving to Ireland for 3 months, then Sweden then New Zealand etc.

Re: Drawbacks of Freelance Web Development

#13

Post by timpiele » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 8:06 AM UTC

einarvollset wrote: post #11

The main drawback to freelancing is defining yourself as a "$$ by the hour" worker. It's very common to do so, but it invariably leads to burnout. It's not terribly hard to shift your mindset to do something different, but it's not necessarily obvious how to do so. The main things to do are: - understand that recurring revenue is unsurpassed in terms of LTV of your customers. - realize that it's easy to become a worl…

Yup, bill by value not the hour. Look at a Project and say that'll be $10,000 and knock it out in two weeks.

Re: Drawbacks of Freelance Web Development

#14

Post by old-gregg » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 8:10 AM UTC

Another disadvantage of freelancing is generally lower bar of requirements and less interesting work. There are always exceptions, of course, but it's usually mind-destroying disposable CRUD work or building iOS clones of existing web apps, don't expect to eat "rich programmer food" [1] as a freelancer.

Besides, you will rarely have an opportunity to learn from other/smarter people, so growing professionally will be a challenge. I may even go as far as to say it's very easy to see your programming skills deteriorate unless you apply a conscious effort to mentally stay in shape.

There are always exceptions of course (especially for a specialist vs generalist) but this has been my experience being on both sides of the table.

[1] http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com.tr/2007/06/rich-programmer-f...

Re: Drawbacks of Freelance Web Development

#15

Post by pmontra » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 9:12 AM UTC

timpiele wrote: post #13

einarvollset wrote: post #11

The main drawback to freelancing is defining yourself as a "$$ by the hour" worker. It's very common to do so, but it invariably leads to burnout. It's not terribly hard to shift your mindset to do something different, but it's not necessarily obvious how to do so. The main things to do are: - understand that recurring revenue is unsurpassed in terms of LTV of your customers. - realize that it's easy to become a worl…

Yup, bill by value not the hour. Look at a Project and say that'll be $10,000 and knock it out in two weeks.

I usually do fixed cost projects unless projects are so ill defined to require by the hour billing. Your advice is my advice but unfortunately customers are not so out of touch with reality. If they expect the project to be done in 2 weeks they'll start negotiating from 2,000 and If I can do it in two weeks they won't expect more than one month.

Re: Drawbacks of Freelance Web Development

#16

Post by TheLogothete » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 9:17 AM UTC

s3nnyy wrote: post #6

Switzerland is very close to Italy. I don't know if you are willing to move but if you are, you could easily work here 3-4 days a week (60%-80% emploment), make more than enough to live, have no clients who call you at night and build your own product/company in your spare time. At least this is what I am doing right now. If you look for a tech-job in Zurich, check out my story "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland t…

What if I only know English? Do you have an idea how is the landscape looking for "data science"/marketing analyst folks?

Re: Drawbacks of Freelance Web Development

#17

Post by blue1 » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 11:15 AM UTC

hayksaakian wrote: post #8

Another angle is to progressively fire your smallest clients and get referrals from your larger ones. You can scale to 880$ per hour or whatever it was using this strategy. It could be hard emotionally to fire nice clients, so keep a good list of devs handy who you can send your undesirable work. Last thing is to read patio11's guide about freelancing -- its a very relevant read.

> patio11's guide about freelancing

link?

Re: Drawbacks of Freelance Web Development

#18

Post by patkai » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 1:30 PM UTC

timpiele wrote: post #13

einarvollset wrote: post #11

The main drawback to freelancing is defining yourself as a "$$ by the hour" worker. It's very common to do so, but it invariably leads to burnout. It's not terribly hard to shift your mindset to do something different, but it's not necessarily obvious how to do so. The main things to do are: - understand that recurring revenue is unsurpassed in terms of LTV of your customers. - realize that it's easy to become a worl…

Yup, bill by value not the hour. Look at a Project and say that'll be $10,000 and knock it out in two weeks.

I agree with you, but this is a really bad advice for most people reading this. Billing by value - as a consultant/freelancer - will get you in endless discussions about what value actually is and you will have problems estimating the project.

Re: Drawbacks of Freelance Web Development

#19

Post by CM30 » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 4:14 PM UTC

I agree with much of the article, but I also sort of question the idea you'll automatically make money being a freelancer. Because you see, a lot of small companies and individuals don't really respect freelancers and single developers as much as they do companies, and often see them as a cheap way to get things done. An awful lot of them think you can pay someone a couple of hundred quid for a clone of Facebook or the likes.

Agencies may pay their employees less individually, but they tend to be able to negotiate prices better, since there's a certain perception of 'leigitimacy' that individuals don't have. The same company that pays them ten or so grand for a site might think they can pay the random freelancer a couple of hundred quid with a few extra beers thrown in.

This gets even worse if it's someone you know (like say, a friend of a friend) asking for a site done, since the price usually ends up dropping even further (from a couple of hundred quid to less than a hundred quid or free). Working freelance is an easy way to make people think you'll help them with their 'world changing million app' for nothing.

Re: Drawbacks of Freelance Web Development

#20

Post by JoeAltmaier » Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 4:20 PM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #19

I agree with much of the article, but I also sort of question the idea you'll automatically make money being a freelancer. Because you see, a lot of small companies and individuals don't really respect freelancers and single developers as much as they do companies, and often see them as a cheap way to get things done. An awful lot of them think you can pay someone a couple of hundred quid for a clone of Facebook or t…

Agreed; never market yourself as a freelancer. Become a design house - even if its only you. That image flies much better.