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The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

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Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#211

Post by balabaster »

rchaud wrote: post #210
balabaster wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be easy to assume that from one statement, but there's far more to relationships than one slice of one facet of our dynamic. When you're in a relationship, you work together for the common good of your relationship. It might be my work, but it was our family, and a household that she had every bit as much right to feel safe and secure about as I had to my needs. That's not naivete, that's considering that I'm…

Not who you're replying to, but I wanted to say I respect you for offering thoughtful, measured responses to what seem to be throwaway comments from internet alphas who couldn't resist projecting their own biases and stereotypes into their replies, simply because you happened to mention your ex-spouse was a woman.

Thanks. I don't tend to rise to such personalities, but I equally won't let their comments off the hook and allow toxic behavior to propagate unchallenged.

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#212

Post by otakucode »

jameslk wrote: post #135
porker wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I went from hourly, to per project, to weekly billings I have tried all three, read all the HN favourites on why value pricing is the way; tried charging for roadmapping; and yet I come back to the most stressful of day-rate (hourly by any other name), unable to break this in 15 years of technical consulting. Why? Because with per project billing I was losing 30-50% as client expectations were different to mine. Wh…

The way I've seen a large and successful agency handle fixed bid projects was to write very detailed waterfall requirements and attach a price to that. Any scope creep meant new work with new requirements and a new price tag. The key was to break the project into smaller phases and price each phase. The detailed requirements are a contract between the two parties. They have dedicated product managers help the client…

I freelanced for a couple years, and that was how I always did it. The contract spelled out exactly what functionality was included, and that was priced on its own. I often did projects where it was assumed that the completion of one contract would immediately start a new one, but that new one was also similarly defined and priced. This enabled iterative building out of a system while giving the client the ability to judge value of each piece. I usually focused on systems that I could define a good ROI for (replacements for existing systems with high maintenance costs or requiring lots of man-hours to operate, etc) because it's pretty easy to sell almost anything to a business if you can show them that within 2 years it will have paid for itself.

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#213

Post by lukestevens »

zilian wrote: post #92
mancerayder wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freelancing can be highly stressful and demoralizing, unless you take the steps to go into consulting or beyond. It's a ladder, just like your corporate gig, you gotta do the work to move up or suffer where you are stuck. I have one sticking point I'd love to hear what the HN crowd does to deal with it. I'm freelancing and I find gigs that are long-term via recruiters / LinkedIn. And never directly with companies. Wh…

Outsource this to a profiler/marketer to build yourself an identity Don't work under your name but create a brand even if it's just you ;)

I'm a tech copywriter and have had a couple of developers reach out to me with similar needs. It was unexpected, but it's been interesting exploring the issue with them and I'm curious if other developers are interested in chatting about it too. If that's you, then please feel free to hit me up -- email is in my profile :)

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#214

Post by pault »

demircancelebi wrote: post #44
pault wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered going hourly with a staffing agency? A senior developer can charge a three figure hourly rate and if you aren't known in the industry an agency can place you at companies that can afford to keep you working full time. I've always gone above and beyond at my salaried jobs because I find the work gratifying, and I've been thrilled being able to charge for those extra hours. I doubled my yearly incom…

Right now, I'm thinking about applying to the largest companies of our industry in a few weeks, but can you please briefly share your experience on staffing agencies, because making $200k/year without an office sounds appealing.

I haven't worked at home since I started contracting (after a 10 year stretch of all remote work). In my experience most jobs that you get through a staffing agency are for big lumbering corporations that are completely out of touch with the industry and think that all employees are thieves and villains that must be supervised at all times. These companies are also the ones that have enormous budgets for contractors (for accounting reasons, I guess) and very little oversight (institutional inertia can keep you on a contract for much longer than it takes to finish a project, and projects take significantly longer than they should because of all the above factors). I've been fortunate that I'm mostly working on projects where I'm the sole front end developer and I get to dictate all of the technology decisions, and building something from the ground up is very gratifying, even if you have to work in a soul sucking office park in the middle of the suburbs.

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#215

Post by scirocco »

balabaster wrote: post #98
josefresco wrote: post #41

"I went outside to get coffee and ran into three different neighbors who wanted to chit-chat. I wanted to scream, ‘For every word that comes out of your mouth, I’m losing money!" This is a statement from someone who either hasn't been freelancing that long, or who hasn't realized that "brain down time" is just as important as raw coding hours. I've worked "for myself" for almost 20 years and for the first 5 I too pan…

The biggest problem for me was my (ex)spouse always pushing for billable hours. Every time I decided I wanted time off there was a constant nagging reminder and guilt of not only what it would cost to go and do what I want - for example cost of flights, accommodation, entertainment and food, but also the cost of the loss of income for that time off meaning that every time I was away from my keyboard it was costing me…

Reminds me of Avicii, who wanted to stop touring but his peers reminded him how much we would lose, and how irresponsible he was to turn down ”unique opportunities”. So much for his mental health

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#216

Post by braindouche »

hopler wrote: post #176
OJFord wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting, because I think (I don't freelance) I'd look at it the other way: work funds my leisure, so how much must I work to fund the leisure?

Sleep isn't fun enough to be worth 8hr every day. But we try to do it anyway because it makes non-sleep hours better. That's the sort of thing OP is talking anout.

Give it ten years, you'll change your tune.

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#218

Post by wehere1111 »

goldenkey wrote: post #196
balabaster wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem for me was my (ex)spouse always pushing for billable hours. Every time I decided I wanted time off there was a constant nagging reminder and guilt of not only what it would cost to go and do what I want - for example cost of flights, accommodation, entertainment and food, but also the cost of the loss of income for that time off meaning that every time I was away from my keyboard it was costing me…

Sounds like you got cucked due to youth and naivety. Looks like you learned your lesson. Remember, it's your work, not hers.

lol 'cucked' what an epic own bro you really out logiced that feminist!

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#219

Post by seanwilson »

andysinclair wrote: post #15
JackPoach wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. All you need to do is charge on 'per project basis'. But it's fare to say that not all freelancer can do this. There isn't really such thing as a 'freelancer'. A coder, a writer, a designer, a virtual assistant - these are entirely different lines of work.

It is better if you can charge on a 'per project basis' but only if you have spent time up front working on an accurate estimate and, more importantly, built in significant contingency into your price. Often though this up front time working on an estimate can end up being for free, an opportunity cost really, if you don't win the project.

> Often though this up front time working on an estimate can end up being for free, an opportunity cost really, if you don't win the project.

Charge for a discovery phase. Your requirements gathering skills and planning for what to build have very significant value.

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#220

Post by rchaud »

balabaster wrote: post #211
rchaud wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not who you're replying to, but I wanted to say I respect you for offering thoughtful, measured responses to what seem to be throwaway comments from internet alphas who couldn't resist projecting their own biases and stereotypes into their replies, simply because you happened to mention your ex-spouse was a woman.

Thanks. I don't tend to rise to such personalities, but I equally won't let their comments off the hook and allow toxic behavior to propagate unchallenged.

This is the only way to maintain a solid level of discourse on online forums in this day and age. Hopefully more commenters will take the approach you have.
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