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My first month freelancing

alanhollis.com

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Re: My first month freelancing

#91

Post by ams6110 »

sequoia wrote: post #52
thechangelog wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one of the times: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420303

Cool! Lots of neat discussion there. I must say however, that "If I work an hour for you I can't work for anyone the rest of the day" argument is one I wouldn't want to pitch to a prospect. Seriously? If you work for 1 hour on project X you're done for the day? I know it's super inefficient to switch contexts and I agree about the "bill full day" assertion, but I wouldn't phrase it as "I can't ever do any context swi…

I think what he's saying is "we bill in full day increments. If I work an hour for you I cannot work a full day for anyone else." No?

Re: My first month freelancing

#92

Post by ams6110 »

csomar wrote: post #86
ams6110 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be regionally dependent. Around here there is no way you would get $2,000 day for web development. Best I have ever gotten is half that, for a one-day "emergency" engagement (i.e. drop everything and help me).

Lots of WordPress (yes, WordPress) devs charge $250/hour. That's $2,000 (assuming no travel expenses). JavaScript/Ruby/Python, I don't see why $2K/day is actually not feasible.

Around here (university town) you can find students and unemployed graduates who are more than willing to do web work for $20 - $30 an hour.

Re: My first month freelancing

#93

Post by voltagex_ »

Alan01252 wrote: post #18
benholmen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to subscribe to your site in Google Reader but it could not detect your feed. Since you're running Wordpress I was able to locate http://alanhollis.com/feed/ but you should probably add some link tags in your header that indicate the location of your RSS feed. I'm eager to hear more about your progress. Good luck!

Thanks benholmen. I'll put this under the 'things to learn banner'. I don't use rss so didn't even think about it. I'll be getting it sorted asap. edit: Subtle button now under the post :)

I think there should also be an RSS tag somewhere in the markup to let Google Reader et al find your feed automagically.

Re: My first month freelancing

#94

Post by cheatercheater »

tptacek wrote: post #80
lotharbot wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean that you should bill hourly if you can measure your work in hours. I mean that you should bill hourly if you want to run the sort of business where you work on six different clients' smallish tasks each day (say, simple web stuff with minimal ramping), like the setup ErrantX described elsewhere. As you say, this is based on value provided to the customer. If you're working with clients who are going to w…

Ok, but there are a bunch of reasons why I think you should actively avoid "markets best served by hourly work": * It positions you against the lowest-quality cheapest providers. * It misaligns your incentives, so that you're penalized for doing a better job. * It totally hides the cost of ramp-up and ramp-down (if you think clients push back on daily or project rates, wait until you charge them for 2 hours of "getti…

How do you manage the often-found expectation of customers that pay daily rate that overtime is unpaid, when those customers more often than not end up making sure you do a lot of overtime?

Re: My first month freelancing

#95

Post by patio11 »

ams6110 wrote: post #92
csomar wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of WordPress (yes, WordPress) devs charge $250/hour. That's $2,000 (assuming no travel expenses). JavaScript/Ruby/Python, I don't see why $2K/day is actually not feasible.

Around here (university town) you can find students and unemployed graduates who are more than willing to do web work for $20 - $30 an hour.

Don't do work, and don't pick clients, where your contribution is indistinguishable from that of a college student.

Re: My first month freelancing

#96

Post by pessimizer »

tptacek wrote: post #61
patio11 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much like your billing rate, your billing increment is not a discussion, it is an announcement. Most of your customers are going to agree to it automatically, and the ones who don't are giving you fair notice that they're going to call you and need precisely 89 minutes of your time ("rounds to 1 hour, right?"). Good clients will occasionally have an oh-cripes moment and need an hour from you in the middle of the day.…

Worth noting: good clients tend not to pay anything for the 1-hour "oh cripes" conversation. I'm extremely unlikely to bill for an hour or two of work. Why does this work? Because I don't bill anyone for an "hour or two of work", and don't have to worry about this level of accounting. Clients notice. More importantly: clients are much more willing to reach out and ask questions when they know the meter isn't going to…

This really struck a chord with me. I always feel really awkward billing for an hour or two - either because it was no sweat to help them out because I wasn't doing anything anyway, and it was barely any work (a phone discussion and changing a couple of lines of code), OR because dropping everything to put out their fire pretty much hosed most of my day.

Just billing a full day once I determine what they need isn't trivial would have a nice effect on both my guilt and bitterness in these situations.

Re: My first month freelancing

#97

Post by AjJi »

stevejalim wrote: post #43

Shameless, shameless plug alert: if you found Alan's post interesting, you may also like the book I've almost finished writing. Check out http://freelancedeveloperbook.com The plan is to ship it before the end of June - am publishing via leanpub.com (great experience so far) and it'll be a paid-for book to cover the (many, many, _many_) hours I've put into it. When it's ready, I'll make a sample available so you can…

signed up too, looking forward to reading the book :)

Re: My first month freelancing

#98

Post by sneak »

sant0sk1 wrote: post #41
tptacek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two common consulting arrangements in which a customer gets a discount for a commitment. The first is a retainer. Retainer hours come at a significant discount because they might not get used, but are billed regardless. The second is long-term forward-looking commitment. A monthly rate is at the short side of long-term commitment; a multi-month project feels like a more typical discounted commitment. You sh…

Well said. Thanks for the advice, Thomas. I probably just need to be more assertive, which I'm slowly getting better at. With regard to retainers, what is a typical retainer discount (percent is fine) for (mostly web) software development consulting?

> I probably just need to be more assertive, which I'm slowly getting better at.

To be fair, it took me (a generally obnoxious, opinionated loudmouth) the better part of ten years to get to the point where I feel I should be w/r/t my level of client assertiveness. It's tough!

Re: My first month freelancing

#99

Post by sneak »

tptacek wrote: post #80
lotharbot wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean that you should bill hourly if you can measure your work in hours. I mean that you should bill hourly if you want to run the sort of business where you work on six different clients' smallish tasks each day (say, simple web stuff with minimal ramping), like the setup ErrantX described elsewhere. As you say, this is based on value provided to the customer. If you're working with clients who are going to w…

Ok, but there are a bunch of reasons why I think you should actively avoid "markets best served by hourly work": * It positions you against the lowest-quality cheapest providers. * It misaligns your incentives, so that you're penalized for doing a better job. * It totally hides the cost of ramp-up and ramp-down (if you think clients push back on daily or project rates, wait until you charge them for 2 hours of "getti…

As another person who's spent a loooong time learning these lessons the Hard Way, I can assert that this man speaks the truth.

Re: My first month freelancing

#100

Post by sneak »

tptacek wrote: post #56
ErrantX wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking large scale projects & clients here, though. For smaller scale work and titchy clients (a massive marketplace where some of the most successful consultants I know operate), "daily rate" just doesn't work (YMMV). Neither does fixed price, really. I spent a period charging daily and half day rates based on the advice of someone else - it was a pain for me more than anything. I spent more time asserting…

The industry standard project in my field is 2 people, 2 weeks. We do one-week projects, we do sub-week projects, and we do multi-month projects, but the modal project staffing is 4 person-weeks. These aren't huge projects. We work with as many startups as we do with large financial companies. I'm having a hard time understanding how a simple daily rate causes you more stress. Why were you discussing with your client…

> What makes me nervous is the overwhelmingly obvious fact that nerds like us are all too happy to leave money on the table. "It's stressful for me personally to effectively receive 8x$hourly instead of breaking out precisely how many hours I worked so I can justify 6x$hourly with the client without arguing". Well, you just left a new iPad on the table; if your clients are forcing you to do this because they are fucking assholes, then get better clients. It is a seller's market right now.

I wish I could somehow cause this to be bold and in 36 point type.

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