my minimum is at 50€/h because people hired those for 10 or 5€/h which failed or stopped calling back ..
Ask HN: Do Americans stand a chance on freelance sites?
31–40 of 52 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do Americans stand a chance on freelance sites?
#32While folks (particular Jason) are giving you excellent advice, can I take this from another angle? A $20 bill rate does not mean you are getting $20 per hour. Not even close. You have to factor in all the non-billable parts of consulting, like writing proposals, educating these clients that $10/hr providers will likely not lead to project success, and handholding them through the project because they'll likely need lots of it. They're disproportionately likely to be pathological clients because they are attempting to do business in a place which might as well be marketforlemons.com to save a few hundred bucks. It took me years to adjust to this, but it is true: a few hundred bucks is not a lot of money.
Can I strongly suggest you make a small investment in improving your business skills, get clients in the old- or new-fashioned ways without a marketplace site, and laugh in the general direction of a $20 bill rate? Also, don't call yourself a freelance programmer. You solve problems for businesses. Many businesses have problems such that there is no number they will not pay to get them resolved.
Re: Ask HN: Do Americans stand a chance on freelance sites?
#33I will answer this from an employers perspective. I myself have managed teams of developers, and have also hired individual developers off free lance sites. (as well as graphic designers and writers).
To most employers, the actual rate you charge is not that important. The basic reason is that we view our time as the most valuable constraint on a project. That is, we are far more likely to pay more, if it assures us that it is going to save us time in the long run.
Time can be taken up by having to re-do a project, poor communication, misunderstood requirements, etc etc.
The most important thing you can do (as many below have said), is to read the job description I have posted, and provide a customized proposal to it. I am not asking for a detailed in depth proposal, but I would like to see that you have put in say 20 minutes or so of work on it.
The comment here, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2619472 is also applicable. My description of the job is likely not going to be exhaustively complete. Ask me one or two questions about the job.
Better yet, if i've missed a very important part of the description, ask the question, but then make an assumption and say, "if I assume this is the task, then I would do y, and my timeline would be x"
Also, use bullets in your reply to me, I'm going to be scanning a ton of applicants, and bullet points help me quickly read through your application.
Hope that helps.
Re: Ask HN: Do Americans stand a chance on freelance sites?
#34While folks (particular Jason) are giving you excellent advice, can I take this from another angle? A $20 bill rate does not mean you are getting $20 per hour. Not even close. You have to factor in all the non-billable parts of consulting, like writing proposals, educating these clients that $10/hr providers will likely not lead to project success, and handholding them through the project because they'll likely need…
I'm not sure if you've done this in the past, but would you mind explaining how to get clients in the "old - or new-fashioned ways without a marketplace site"?
Re: Ask HN: Do Americans stand a chance on freelance sites?
#35I could write a book on my experience going from $12/hr to $85/hr on odesk. It's been quite an experience. I get plenty of invitations for projects at a rate slightly above $60/hr. I haven't bid on a project in many months, and I even hid my profile for a while when things got too busy at my day job. There are a few things you need to do to be successful on odesk. I've never done a project on another site, so I don't…
You know, you could probably just get your noprocrast setting reset if you sent an email to the right person... cough Why would you go on a 70-day hiatus from HN, though?
Yeah, I know I could probably send an email, but I have chosen not to do that.
As for reasoning, it was just a personal experiment to see how much karma influenced my decision to post. Apparently it was a lot because this is the first time I jumped the hurdle of creating an account to comment in 93 days, even though there were times I felt the urge to comment.
I also discovered that I get more out of HN because I'm no longer formulating possible comments when I read articles or other user comments.
It was a useful lesson, and I'm undecided whether I want to go back.
Re: Ask HN: Do Americans stand a chance on freelance sites?
#36I don't think you can compete on price, which is why you should compete on quality.
Just as an example, I have seen some bids request that the person speak fluently English. Obviously, the person posting the project has been bitten in the past with communication issues with their outsourced resource. That's one of your strengths.
How professional and thoughtful are your answers? They'd better stand out if you want to justify charging more.
Re: Ask HN: Do Americans stand a chance on freelance sites?
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know, you could probably just get your noprocrast setting reset if you sent an email to the right person... cough Why would you go on a 70-day hiatus from HN, though?
Yeah, I know I could probably send an email, but I have chosen not to do that. As for reasoning, it was just a personal experiment to see how much karma influenced my decision to post. Apparently it was a lot because this is the first time I jumped the hurdle of creating an account to comment in 93 days, even though there were times I felt the urge to comment. I also discovered that I get more out of HN because I'm n…
To be fair, it's not clear that that's because of Karma - could be because of convenience... but anyway, fair point! Enjoy :-)
Re: Ask HN: Do Americans stand a chance on freelance sites?
#38While folks (particular Jason) are giving you excellent advice, can I take this from another angle? A $20 bill rate does not mean you are getting $20 per hour. Not even close. You have to factor in all the non-billable parts of consulting, like writing proposals, educating these clients that $10/hr providers will likely not lead to project success, and handholding them through the project because they'll likely need…
I'm not sure if you've done this in the past, but would you mind explaining how to get clients in the "old - or new-fashioned ways without a marketplace site"?
You network. You build relationships. You go to meetups and meet interesting people, swap connections, swap leads. You get strong introductions, you follow up, you build client relationships. They like you, they trust you, they want to do business with you, and they're willing to pay 4 or 5 figure sums for the privilege because you sell them more than work: you sell them peace of mind.
http://swombat.com/2011/2/24/paulina-sygulska-how-to-network... is a great article on how to network.
http://swombat.com/2011/2/25/kevin-mcdonagh-how-to-attend-a-... also proposes an approach to get leads from conferences (and despite the apparent machine-gun methodology, I'd like to qualify this article by saying that Kevin is an incredibly chilled out, laid back, friendly kind of guy).
Re: Ask HN: Do Americans stand a chance on freelance sites?
#39While folks (particular Jason) are giving you excellent advice, can I take this from another angle? A $20 bill rate does not mean you are getting $20 per hour. Not even close. You have to factor in all the non-billable parts of consulting, like writing proposals, educating these clients that $10/hr providers will likely not lead to project success, and handholding them through the project because they'll likely need…
The "market for lemons" paper was not about the average quality of the market---it was about the selection effects generated when market participants cannot judge quality. Within a online labor market, there are platform-imposed features that reduce information asymmetries & make relative comparisons possible e.g., tests, feedback, verified records of billed hours. The informational problem is much worse without an intermediary, which is why these markets exist.
Re: Ask HN: Do Americans stand a chance on freelance sites?
#40If you're not in a position to market your skills outside of freelance sites or at a higher cost, your skills probably aren't worth over $10/hour.
Those are completely separate skillsets which don't even contribute to each other. I make six figures full-time from an employer who's very eager to keep me onboard, but I know almost nothing about marketing myself freelance. I've only worked 1099 once, at the request of a company who licensed code from a failed startup I was part of.