Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that • Hacker News Board

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#101

Post by theworstshill » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 4:47 PM UTC

super-serial wrote: post #92

gaius wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of what a doctor does is repetitive. Every year the next batch of new parents come in with the same problems with their kids and get the same prescriptions, people break arms and legs, get flu, have headaches, etc etc. Most people just want to be told what pill to take, they don't care about neuropharmacology or myocardial infractions.

Unpopular opinion here... Anyone can be a doctor! I've had multiple health problems over the years that I've cured by doing the proper research online. Most doctors wouldn't even consider the solutions that helped me because they're always just looking to prescribe a pill. They fix the symptoms and not the cause. You're better off acting as your own doctor, unless you have some traumatic injury that requires surgery.…

You're partway right. A real world example I had back in college - heartburn. Doc's solution is take a pill when needed (the part thats left over - for the rest of your life). The solution I found online is - change your diet. After a few years of experimenting, I fixed the root cause of my issue, and don't have to be reliant on pills as much as I was before. Obviously this is not applicable to all cases, but the point to take from this is that you need to manage your own health.

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#102

Post by robotkilla » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 5:00 PM UTC

zippergz wrote: post #71

robotkilla wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a freelancer for almost 4 years and I have yet to make money via any sort of website. The clientele's expectations are borderline delusional for the price they want to pay. I get all of my contracts through recommendations from past clients and colleagues and can charge from $60 to $90 per hour (the most I charged was $250 per hour for a job I didn't want to do and didn't expect the client to accept).

I don't know where you're located, but $60/hr seems insanely low. Annualized as a full time job that's $125k/yr. not terrible, but quite a bit less than what a good developer can make as base salary at a tech company. But that tech company job comes with benefits, paid vacation, stability, and possibly equity and bonuses. Plus the freelance gigs are rarely actually full time (even if you have enough clients on a stea…

Based in the midwest. I agree that $60 per hour is low. If you know of anyone who will pay more, please send them my way :)

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#103

Post by firasd » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 5:03 PM UTC

ahallock wrote: post #93

firasd wrote: post #2

The trick is to avoid looking for work on platforms like oDesk (now Upwork) where the world is underbidding you. It’s a positioning and deal flow issue. Ideally you want clients to refer you on to other clients. And maybe you should call yourself a contractor, agency, solo developer—something like that—instead of a “freelancer.” So it’s possible to do well if you quit your job and work as a freelancer, but you need t…

Are you speaking from experience? I've found plenty of great gigs on these freelancing sites. You just have to dig a bit and know what the "crap" jobs are, so you can avoid them altogether. The world is not underbidding you. Most times, you negotiate directly with the client and the bids are just a formality.

Fair point; although I’ve done a fair amount of work as an external developer I haven’t actually tried to get work on those sites.

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#104

Post by robotkilla » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 5:04 PM UTC

sqldba wrote: post #75

zippergz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you're located, but $60/hr seems insanely low. Annualized as a full time job that's $125k/yr. not terrible, but quite a bit less than what a good developer can make as base salary at a tech company. But that tech company job comes with benefits, paid vacation, stability, and possibly equity and bonuses. Plus the freelance gigs are rarely actually full time (even if you have enough clients on a stea…

I absolutely agree. For freelance/contract work the price should be about double expected base salary. First of all because agencies get away with charging that much so you're just undercutting yourself needlessly unless you join in. But secondly because there are big costs; liability insurance and software licensing being some of them.

The problem is that I typically work for small startups that don't have a big budget to work with.

I'm also not sure what sort of data the people in this thread are working with. I can't make $125k per year in the midwest as a fulltime developer (unless I'm freelancing - and even then keeping steady contracts has been near impossible). In fact I'm not seeing those numbers anywhere outside of the west coast - I applied for a fulltime job in CO recently and they balked at $90k... said they couldn't go over $60k.

Edit: recently quoted a local client at $75 per hour... he looked visibly perturbed and never got back to me.

A few contracts back I quoted $80 per hour and was told max budget was $60/hour (which I had to accept out of desperation).

I hear a lot of talk on the internet (especially HN) about people making massive amounts of money as contractors, but I have yet to see this in action. On the other hand $10k per month isn't that bad.

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#105

Post by mamcx » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 5:12 PM UTC

zippergz wrote: post #71

robotkilla wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a freelancer for almost 4 years and I have yet to make money via any sort of website. The clientele's expectations are borderline delusional for the price they want to pay. I get all of my contracts through recommendations from past clients and colleagues and can charge from $60 to $90 per hour (the most I charged was $250 per hour for a job I didn't want to do and didn't expect the client to accept).

I don't know where you're located, but $60/hr seems insanely low. Annualized as a full time job that's $125k/yr. not terrible, but quite a bit less than what a good developer can make as base salary at a tech company. But that tech company job comes with benefits, paid vacation, stability, and possibly equity and bonuses. Plus the freelance gigs are rarely actually full time (even if you have enough clients on a stea…

Country-specific. $60/hr for me well be great!.

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#106

Post by robotkilla » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 5:12 PM UTC

mattchew wrote: post #80

zippergz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you're located, but $60/hr seems insanely low. Annualized as a full time job that's $125k/yr. not terrible, but quite a bit less than what a good developer can make as base salary at a tech company. But that tech company job comes with benefits, paid vacation, stability, and possibly equity and bonuses. Plus the freelance gigs are rarely actually full time (even if you have enough clients on a stea…

Location makes a big difference. I live in the Midwest and there aren't many $125K positions out here. But a 3 BR house in good shape in a decent neighborhood can be less than 100K. Freelancing at $~60/hour * ~30 hours/week can work fine here. You can raise a family on it no problem. You're not going to retire early this way, but different strokes for different folks.

Exactly - my goal has been self improvement / preservation over the last few years, not wealth, and I've been achieving this goal:

1. brought my suicidal depression back down to regular occasional depression

2. brought stress levels down to manageable

3. learned / learning 3 new programming languages, 2 platforms and 2 game engines and developed skills in pixel art.

achieved this by making money a secondary priority and living a life of near seclusion in my apartment (do have a daughter here 2 weeks per month and live with my gf so i'm not completely secluded).

edit: i've only worked 6 months this year and spent the rest improving my game dev skills. I usually take on 3 month contracts and then break for 1 to 3 months before my next.

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#107

Post by rnprince » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 5:14 PM UTC

kyriakos wrote: post #29

Quit my job 2 years ago and went freelance. I earn just a bit more than before but I have way less stress and quality of life improved. All my clients are contacts I gathered over the years, never had to look for a client online. My advice is, before you quit make sure you are networked enough to pull it off on your own. Maybe it's a good idea to plan spending the last couple of months at your regular job arranging y…

It's awesome to hear that you're doing well doing freelance work. Do you have any tips for how to find clients, especially the first ones when you can't get them through existing ones?

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#108

Post by robotkilla » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 5:21 PM UTC

mamcx wrote: post #105

zippergz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you're located, but $60/hr seems insanely low. Annualized as a full time job that's $125k/yr. not terrible, but quite a bit less than what a good developer can make as base salary at a tech company. But that tech company job comes with benefits, paid vacation, stability, and possibly equity and bonuses. Plus the freelance gigs are rarely actually full time (even if you have enough clients on a stea…

Country-specific. $60/hr for me well be great!.

^ which is probably also why i can't charge more than $60. How can you compete with poland / india / etc when they are able to charge less?

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#109

Post by thrownear » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 5:37 PM UTC

kawera wrote: post #85

thrownear wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They expect next to free for skills that take at least 10 years to actually master. You compare it to a doctor, but really it is more like that of a driver. Most of the people are only concerned about getting from point A to point B. They don't really care about proper cornering techniques or following the best line..

A driver? Well, I think a better comparison would be to watchmaking or other crafts that require deep understanding and great attention to details.

Deep understanding? Really? I don't think so. For example, You can do a lot of web application development with out actually knowing the first thing about the request/response cycle..

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#110

Post by lifeisstillgood » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 8:17 PM UTC

YooLi wrote: post #99

patio11 wrote: post #86

If you can write a scraper which performs against any real world data, your new rate is $100 per hour [+]. Your first month you spend 140 hours of pounding the virtual pavement looking for clients outside of the markets for lemons that are the freelancing sites. You spend 20 hours on delivery. Now you have the same $2k that you'd have if you killed yourself working on PayPeanutsGetMonkeys.com and you have the nascent…

Your first month you spend 140 hours of pounding the virtual pavement looking for clients outside of the markets for lemons that are the freelancing sites. This is the part many people have problems with, myself included. Any tips?

Firstly, don't take advice that impacts your ability to feed your kids from random guys on the Internet.

Having said that, sell yourself as a niche provider, and act surprised when asked to do generic stuff.

The simplest niche to start with is "lives in the same town as me". not London or NY that does not count - think town of 100k.

Now choose three business needs (sales funnel management, tickets on smartphones, GPS tracking of goods or RFID in a warehouse.). They must be clear things. Things you could plan your architecture for just from hearing the sentence.

Write a blog post on each of them and how they can be solved or improved by software - and software is what you have experience in writing (even if not in this niche.)

PS you are probably thinking this is dodgy now - well spend a day or two making a ticket scanning app on an iPhone. Make sure the essence is there. You will even be able to write another new knowledgable article about how the focal point of smartphone cameras makes ticket scanning difficult / easy / costly whatever

Now find your local business meetups - chambers of commerce, networking meetings. Go to them, and at each of them say "I am looking for businesses that are looking for software developed to solve their problems in sales funnels / tickets on smartphones. Some networking meetups actually expect this of everyone at the meet, some you have to do this on every handshake.

(Pro tip: set up a mailchimp list called "software in middle of nowhere-vile". At the met up say "hey can I get your mail address onto my list ... ". Just push an article onto the list every so often - try monthly.

The key here is to inject a specific need into the existing network of businesses. They will take this around with them and somewhere in the next six weeks will meet someone who is trying to sell tickets and ... They will remember you. Mostly they will have forgotten your contact details but Google for your blog / search your email list will solve that.

It's painful. And it works a lot lot better if you are also calling the likely businesses yourself, contacting their CTOs. (Ps as an ex CTO I always took cold calls, but I always asked "what are you selling". The good ones could tell me.)

But sell a particular niche, and be prepared for the "I know this is not what you usually do but what if ..." That way you are really selling your "generic I can do coding me" but in not a lame and totally forgettable way.

So, have a niche, have an online presence, and sell the niche so that eventually you will be asked to step outside the niche.

Also find local government - hard to get into, pay is regular though.