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Poll: Do you have your own company?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#61

Post by yaddayadda »

throwaway520141 wrote: post #20
zippergz wrote: post #17

If people are open to it, I would really love to hear some anecdotes about making the transition from working for a big tech company to doing independent consulting. It seems very hard (often forbidden by the company) to pick up clients on the side while being an employee, but quitting a job without any clients is pretty scary. And I'm not even clear where to find clients (who will pay a reasonable rate).

I am currently doing this. What I am doing on the side or the companies I am doing it for does not compete in any way with what my day job company produces. Edit - I do have the problem you are describing though. Where to find clients who will pay a reasonable rate. Don't mean to spam but since this seems relevant, full story here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7821974

The link takes me to an empty HN page.

Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#62

Post by 6cxs2hd6 »

modoc wrote: post #21

At the time of writing this 262 responses and 0 "life style" business. That seems pretty nutty to me. Maybe "high growth" captures more than how I read the poll author's intent, but 91 of you are chasing funding/VC/big exit and 0 of you are building a profitable business that can fund its own growth that you enjoy and want to keep control over? FWIW I'm 7 years in on my fully bootstrapped, profitable, strongly growin…

Agreed, and I don't love that label. In my experience, when someone uses the term "lifestyle company", nearly always that someone is incentivized by funding businesses. Translation: "A company that won't butter my bread, so meh". Insinuation: "People who don't pick up what I'm laying down are second-rate; not alpha entrepreneurs".

So I find the term somewhat derogatory. Instead, I would call a profitable, sustainable company, a "company" -- the presumed norm.

There's nothing wrong with getting on the other-people's-money treadmill, but there's nothing inherently superior about it, either. It's one choice, and AFAIK a relatively unusual one in the wider world.

Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#64

Post by sdfjkl »

zippergz wrote: post #17

If people are open to it, I would really love to hear some anecdotes about making the transition from working for a big tech company to doing independent consulting. It seems very hard (often forbidden by the company) to pick up clients on the side while being an employee, but quitting a job without any clients is pretty scary. And I'm not even clear where to find clients (who will pay a reasonable rate).

I saved enough cash to last me for more than a year, took some time off to chill out, think and make plans, then work found me. You know all these times someone asks you if you can do this or that for them, and you had to say no because you didn't have the energy to do it well in addition to your job? Yeah, you just stop saying no. Then you do it _well_. Word gets around. More folk ask. Eventually you start saying no again, because you're fully booked.

This is where it again gets a bit tricky - don't over-commit, you don't want to deliver bad work because you're rushing, this business is very much about reputation. And don't forget the overhead. You can and should automate the meta work (invoicing, accounting, etc.) as much as possible, but it will still take some time. Don't forget to take a break and relax either. Give yourself a 20% Friday to play with new stuff or just go swimming. Enjoy the freedom of being your own boss.

Now, if you've done it well, you can pick your projects. If you get a lot more requests than you can work on, raise your rates until things balance out. Don't be an idiot and undervalue yourself, it's an open market, use it or get exploited.

That initial cash reserve? Keep it. Rebuild it when it drops low. It both acts as a safety belt (what if you break an arm and can't type for a month, huh?) and it gave me the piece of mind I needed - I don't think I could've done it without the assurance of looking at an Excel sheet that said at the bottom "n more months before you either have to make profit or go be a wage slave again" (yeah, make a budget, you'll thank me later).

My first client was the company I left. Most of my other clients are from contacts I have made during my work life, either their side projects or places they had moved on to, or because friends they recommended me to. Networking, reputation, and a bit of luck will get you there. Or maybe not. Not everyone is cut out for it, and if you aren't loving it, maybe consider that the slightly sticky embrace of employment wasn't so bad after all. I for one can't imagine going back there.

Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#66

Post by Nursie »

zippergz wrote: post #17

If people are open to it, I would really love to hear some anecdotes about making the transition from working for a big tech company to doing independent consulting. It seems very hard (often forbidden by the company) to pick up clients on the side while being an employee, but quitting a job without any clients is pretty scary. And I'm not even clear where to find clients (who will pay a reasonable rate).

In the UK there's a sort of middle path - contracting/consulting.

You tend to work through agents who have client companies that want someone with extensive domain knowledge to work with them (and usually exclusively with them) for short terms (several months).

The money is better than permanent work, and you get to do all sorts of interesting things, though you do need to be prepared for dry patches. I just bit the bullet, quit work and went for it. In the last two years I've worked with three different clients, and my latest client is an established consultancy in their own right who are hopefully going to keep me on their books as more stuff comes up.

This seems to me far easier than hunting down clients by yourself.

Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#68

Post by jasallen »

aggronn wrote: post #35
jasallen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I've always considered "lifestyle" business to refer to something that pays your salary, but that doesn't really grow beyond maybe hiring an admin or two. Something like an Insurance Agent type of scope.

As an example, most web consultancies are not meant to be high growth startup type businesses, but its apparent that many grow to be fairly sizable. There are lots of large botique organizations, for instance companies that specialize in RoR development, which can employ 30+ people while still being owned entirely by a single person who expands the business organically to accomodate demand.

Yeah, I wouldn't really consider that a lifestyle business, maybe I'm wrong, but I guess I think there is a middle ground between lifestyle business and "high growth/big exit" business.

Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#70

Post by will_brown »

patio11 wrote: post #43

Two LLCs, one for Appointment Reminder and one for everything else. The separation is exactly because AR has potentially high liability in event of a HIPAA incident and, while I'm insured against it, I don't want DHS to have a claim on substantially all of my business assets in the event that everything goes wrong. I go back and forth on whether I want to take investment at some point. At the moment, mostly working o…

I do not want to make assumptions, but because your concerns are regarding potential liability (and rightfully so)if those are single member LLCs (you are the sole owner), then you will not be receiving the limited liability legal protection generally associated with the LLC.
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