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My first month freelancing

alanhollis.com

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Re: My first month freelancing

#11

Post by alinajaf »

Great post. I'm in London and started freelancing a few months ago and I'd agree with everything you've said. Only things I would suggest:

* Contracts. Watch this talk by Obie Fernandez[1] and take a look at his Master Services Agreement + Statement of Work bundle (paid for, but totally worth it). Not only does it protect you to some extent legally but you come across as a lot more professional to clients.

* Charge more. I have a comparable amount of experience and I'm charging around double what you've listed on your price card. Many good things fall out of charging more. Even if you don't intend to charge a higher rate, I would at least quote higher on your price card page for more negotiation room.

Good hunting!

[1] http://www.infoq.com/presentations/fernandez-sales-do-the-hu...

Re: My first month freelancing

#12

Post by moystard »

I keep the thought in my head of freelancing in the future, and whether I will do it or not, it is always nice to read about the starting of the business.

I will follow your blog to see if you give more details about how you found your initial contracts, why should you ask to be paid daily, and how your enterprise will evolve on the mid-term.

Thank you anyway for sharing these details.

Re: My first month freelancing

#13

Post by Alan01252 »

throwaway1979 wrote: post #10

I'm impressed with your persistance! For the activities you list in "How I found work" ... did you start these before the first month? I'm curious how long it takes to get work flowing through the pipeline. The blog seems interesting and I wish you the best of luck. I think I hit a bug though ... When I make the font larger/smaller, the different elements of the screen move around and reposition themselves for a few…

Absolutely everything was started from April 21'st. Which is the date I returned from 8 months travelling. It took me a few weeks to get into a routine again and see friends, family etc. The first blog post was published on 2012/05/03 which is when I started really hunting for work, so it has been just over a month in total.

Thanks for the bug reports. I'll investigate as soon as the site calms down a bit. :)

Re: My first month freelancing

#14

Post by nollidge »

Looked at another article on your blog [0] and the Crayon plugin acts really strangely in Chrome/Win7. As I mouse over a code block it keeps disappearing and reappearing.

EDIT: Also...where's the RSS link? If I just follow on Twitter, I'll probably miss any updates.

[0] http://alanhollis.com/silicon-milkroundabout-coding-competit...

Re: My first month freelancing

#15

Post by sequoia »

tptacek wrote: post #7

People want to pay you hourly/per project, convince them it’s better for both you and them to pay you daily. I’ll explain why in a future post. I've burned many thousands of words here arguing the same point and will hopefully be able to spare you all a retread, so let me just say that I think a lot of good habits and useful dynamics emerge organically from this one decision. If you make no other careful strategic de…

link or something? I'm also curious.

Re: My first month freelancing

#16

Post by benholmen »

Alan01252 wrote: post #13
throwaway1979 wrote: post #10

I'm impressed with your persistance! For the activities you list in "How I found work" ... did you start these before the first month? I'm curious how long it takes to get work flowing through the pipeline. The blog seems interesting and I wish you the best of luck. I think I hit a bug though ... When I make the font larger/smaller, the different elements of the screen move around and reposition themselves for a few…

Absolutely everything was started from April 21'st. Which is the date I returned from 8 months travelling. It took me a few weeks to get into a routine again and see friends, family etc. The first blog post was published on 2012/05/03 which is when I started really hunting for work, so it has been just over a month in total. Thanks for the bug reports. I'll investigate as soon as the site calms down a bit. :)

I tried to subscribe to your site in Google Reader but it could not detect your feed. Since you're running Wordpress I was able to locate http://alanhollis.com/feed/ but you should probably add some link tags in your header that indicate the location of your RSS feed.

I'm eager to hear more about your progress. Good luck!

Re: My first month freelancing

#18

Post by Alan01252 »

benholmen wrote: post #16
Alan01252 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely everything was started from April 21'st. Which is the date I returned from 8 months travelling. It took me a few weeks to get into a routine again and see friends, family etc. The first blog post was published on 2012/05/03 which is when I started really hunting for work, so it has been just over a month in total. Thanks for the bug reports. I'll investigate as soon as the site calms down a bit. :)

I tried to subscribe to your site in Google Reader but it could not detect your feed. Since you're running Wordpress I was able to locate http://alanhollis.com/feed/ but you should probably add some link tags in your header that indicate the location of your RSS feed. I'm eager to hear more about your progress. Good luck!

Thanks benholmen. I'll put this under the 'things to learn banner'. I don't use rss so didn't even think about it. I'll be getting it sorted asap.

edit: Subtle button now under the post :)

Re: My first month freelancing

#19

Post by thechangelog »

sequoia wrote: post #15
tptacek wrote: post #7

People want to pay you hourly/per project, convince them it’s better for both you and them to pay you daily. I’ll explain why in a future post. I've burned many thousands of words here arguing the same point and will hopefully be able to spare you all a retread, so let me just say that I think a lot of good habits and useful dynamics emerge organically from this one decision. If you make no other careful strategic de…

link or something? I'm also curious.

Here's one of the times: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420303
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