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Costs of running a macOS app studio business

notes.alinpanaitiu.com

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Re: Costs of running a macOS app studio business

#101

Post by mutex_man »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #78
micromacrofoot wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because they say “not a good culture fit” and you can’t prove anything

Yup. Also, the entire industry pretty much actively supports and accommodates ageism. It's not like a few "rogue actors." Everyone is in on it, and it starts from the top. Also, I found out that some younger folks really hate us. A number of folks used the interview process to try humiliating me, and taking out their personal animus. After a few of these, I decided "Bugger this for a lark," and just accepted that I s…

We just hired a guy out of retirement a few years ago. Retired after 30 years of C dev but wanted to keep busy in the small town we're based in. He's beloved by all of the software devs and the cyber team (we're basically two companies in one). The first week he was asking questions about how git worked. Then like a week later he was explaining why massive amounts of python code we wrote for running simulations was inefficient and how it could be fixed.

Re: Costs of running a macOS app studio business

#102

Post by avtolik »

codingcodingboy wrote: post #87
trollied wrote: post #2

The net revenue he gets is actually reasonable.

Romania is basically a tax haven in Europe and he complains.

Poor eastern-European countries cannot compete easily for investments. Bad infrastructure, brain drain, small working population, judicial system, etc. Taxes is one of few things that they can use to attract investors.

Re: Costs of running a macOS app studio business

#103

Post by pard68 »

dazhbog wrote: post #84
tomschwiha wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Germany its similar, maybe its could be worth for the author to consult a tax consultant as he may be missing out quite some money. Also a wage you pay yourself is usually better off for tax readons - that's why the maximum wage you can pay yourself as business owner is limited.

Agree about the accountant, they are expensive in some countries, but usually worth it. Can you elaborate on your last point? For salary you still need to pay >20% income tax + social insurance, and for dividends you still need to pay >20% after you just paid your corporation tax >15%. I'm curious, why its better to pay yourself more, when your laptop, phone and even food can be covered by the company? (Assuming a si…

What is "social insurance"?

Re: Costs of running a macOS app studio business

#104

Post by justinclift »

SushiHippie wrote: post #75
justinclift wrote: post #61

> A bare metal Hetzner server: $600 Alin, are you ok to share the specs of that server? I'm interested mainly because I'm a server guy and have a bunch of stuff at Hetzner, but nothing (yet) big enough to be US$600 for a single server. :)

(Not OP) The cheapest are €44.76/month so that's already ~$600 (if you want your server to be located in germany you are already at minimum €51.36/month which would be ~$680) But you can get better bang for buck on the "serverbörse"/server auction. (That's what I'm currently renting) https://www.hetzner.com/sb But if you want to have large storage while also using RAID + a decent amount of RAM you'll still get to the…

> EDIT: ah okay, you thought it was $600/month?

Yeah, complete brain-o on my part.

We have several dedicated servers with Hetzner, but nothing like a $600/month one. :)

Re: Costs of running a macOS app studio business

#105

Post by fragmede »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #85
novok wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried the indie software thing like this guy? How has that been going? I feel like I have enough saved now that even if I can't get corporate work anymore due to age (which I kind of doubt due to the age of people I've worked with in FANG, and the fact I'm already pretty much a manager of managers, which tends to run older) that I would be pretty happy doing the indie thing too.

I'm working on apps for nonprofits that can't afford people of my caliber. I don't charge for my work, but take it every bit as seriously, as if I were. It's actually part of the satisfaction that I get from the work. Keeps me busy and up-to-date, and is extremely gratifying. I'm getting ready to release an app that is a top-to-bottom system, involving a couple of servers that I wrote, along with a fairly robust nati…

Do you invoice them anyway and zero out your fee, or just do the work for free and don't invoice them?

Re: Costs of running a macOS app studio business

#106

Post by xrd »

alin23 wrote: post #91
xrd wrote: post #47

I'm really curious how you found that MacOS consulting work. I have been battling MacOS build problems for years and so agree it is a rare and important skill. But I've yet to find the right place to sell that skill.

I was tasked with packaging an app so that it would run as a root LaunchDaemon. So a bit of launchd config work, a bit of pkg install scripts, weird workarounds in code for having the “daemon app” run in the login session of any user. It needed a bit of sleuthing which I liked, it’s the other non-code stuff that I disliked. Oh I realized now that you probably meant how I found, as in searched for the job, not how I l…

That's great. An inbound lead, it sounds like. Nice looking page! Really appreciate the follow-up.

Re: Costs of running a macOS app studio business

#108

Post by croemer »

pard68 wrote: post #103
dazhbog wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree about the accountant, they are expensive in some countries, but usually worth it. Can you elaborate on your last point? For salary you still need to pay >20% income tax + social insurance, and for dividends you still need to pay >20% after you just paid your corporation tax >15%. I'm curious, why its better to pay yourself more, when your laptop, phone and even food can be covered by the company? (Assuming a si…

What is "social insurance"?

Literal translation from a language such as German, French or the like. The right translation would be payroll tax, all sorts of mandatory insurances like health, unemployment, retirement (continental Europe has a few more mandatory items than US)

Re: Costs of running a macOS app studio business

#109

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

fragmede wrote: post #105
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working on apps for nonprofits that can't afford people of my caliber. I don't charge for my work, but take it every bit as seriously, as if I were. It's actually part of the satisfaction that I get from the work. Keeps me busy and up-to-date, and is extremely gratifying. I'm getting ready to release an app that is a top-to-bottom system, involving a couple of servers that I wrote, along with a fairly robust nati…

Do you invoice them anyway and zero out your fee, or just do the work for free and don't invoice them?

I don't invoice them. The outfit is really small. I am an officer of the 501(c)(3), though.

I've found that most non-tech folks don't have any idea how much it costs to have real talent working for them (or even crap talent). I don't feel like arguing about it. I can't declare it, so it's not worth the agita.

Re: Costs of running a macOS app studio business

#110

Post by croemer »

Jhsto wrote: post #77
wsh wrote: post #51

The author writes, about his purchases of computers, phones, and other hardware, “These are not recurring so I can't count them in.” Here in the U.S., many such items would be considered capital assets, for which the cost would be recognized as an expense over time through depreciation, for both management accounting and tax purposes. It appears Romanian practice is similar; see “Depreciation” on this page: https://t…

Anecdotally relevant to employees too: sometimes companies (and even public organizations like universities) let you keep the hardware they buy for you after it meets the 3 years depreciation rule.

Sounds like black hat tax accounting. If it's still worth something after 3 years it would be an in-kind payment which will need to be taxed.
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