
Everything I know about freelancing - andy_adams
https://andyadams.org/everything-i-know-about-freelancing/
======
csomar
> Your first interactions with anyone will set the tone for the rest of the
> relationship. If you crush the first emails, phone calls, or meetings, your
> reputation will be solidified for the long-term.

It is a weird world. The above has been consistent in the following:

1- In high school. If you just meet some new kids for a first time and mumbble
stupidly, they'll think you are retarded and it'll be hard to change that
view.

2- If you fail to impress your potential date in the first date, you are
pretty much over. I think as a guy I'm more tolerable with girls but I might
not be accurate or maybe an exception.

3- It still applies in adulthood. I think that's why doctors care a lot about
their medical offices. I mean if you check a doctor with a messy office, no
secretary and not so expensive equipment.

It sucks: The first impression matters a lot. You are allowed to suck (within
limits) afterward but the first impression is a must.

> Until you’re sure of your effective tax rate, set aside a minimum of 25% of
> every dollar you earn for the tax man. Put it away, don’t touch it.

Try to maximize your business expenses. Can you make your gym as a business
expense? Your "personal" car? Your mobile phone bill? There are lots of things
you can expense. Check with your accountant. Have a list and let him check
what can be checked to the business account.

My advice will be: Don't touch the business money until next fiscal year. That
might be hard if you don't have a full year reserve but you can do the math
and "borrow" from your company.

~~~
mattferderer
I would be interested in hearing more from freelancers about tax tips they've
found useful. One interesting thing I learned this year is it's common to
setup a S-Corp LLC & then pay yourself a fair & reasonable wage. Anything over
that you can pay yourself as dividends every quarter. Besides dividends being
a huge tax savings (in the US) they also act as a sort of bonus. This also
seems to help a bit with budgeting.

~~~
csomar
I'd do the following:

1- Push as much expenses as legally possible to the business. Lease (buy a car
on a lease). Depending on the country, there might restrictions on how
luxurious the personal/business car is. By leasing you deduct the interest. So
there is literally no reason why you'd not do it.

2- Only "pay" yourself the minimum required. That is, how much is your
personal rent, food and other. Pay yourself that. Don't pay yourself from
dividends. Make yourself a salary. That can be helpful if you are getting a
loan on the business and on your personal account.

3- Do not pay dividends if you made profit. Always re-invest or suck profits
on some way or another. This will make your tax rate effectively 0 but you'll
notice that the government has always ways to suck in taxes.

I'm not in the US, so YMMV.

~~~
jimnotgym
Please take care with this advice

1) This may not be true. In most countries you would get a capital allowance
that means you could make this saving even if you buy the car outright. There
are also different kinds of lease that have different tax effects. In the UK
VAT on a contract hire is 50% disallowed if you use the car personally for
instance. Another reason this might be a bad idea, driving the companies car
for personal use may be a 'benefit in kind' and taxable at a high rate. In
many situations it is better to buy the car personally and record business
miles and claim it on expenses at a government approved rate per mile. Talk to
an accountant, it depends on several factors.

2) Many countries have minimum wage legislation. Don't pay less than that!

3) This is far too general to be true. If you can afford it and are planning
an exit then leaving profits in a company can be great. This presumes that
there is no better user for the money, which is not something you can
generalize about.

Disclosure: I'm in Finance, but not a tax specialist.

~~~
ownagefool
You can pay yourself less than minimum wage as a director/office holder.

[https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/national-minimum-
wa...](https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/national-minimum-wage-
manual/nmwm05140)

Still, you're right. Talk to an accountant. I use these guys:
[https://www.maslins.co.uk/](https://www.maslins.co.uk/)

~~~
jimnotgym
And from the first paragraph

> The national minimum wage does not apply to company directors unless they
> have contracts that make them workers as defined in section 54(3) of the
> act.

I suggest if you are a single freelancer in the UK you may easily fall foul of
that. Remember employment contracts can form without you writing them down. I
know of cases where this has happened. If you only come into work for board
meetings then sure, avoid minimum wage.

But then if you are a single freelancer in the UK you will already be talking
to an accountant to discuss IR35...

~~~
ownagefool
Yeah, I've read it.

I'm not overly worried about an implied contract between myself and the
company I own and direct. It's also generally the advice of accountants and
legal professionals that it is fine to operate this way.

Also, snark aside, I get my contracts reviewed by QDOS, act outside and have
an accountant. Anyone considering being a freelancer or contractor in the UK
needs to be aware of IR35 and should get an accountant. Mines is
[https://www.maslins.co.uk/](https://www.maslins.co.uk/)

------
davidscolgan
There is so so much good stuff in this article. A++ content. Incidentally, my
hunch is that one way to build trust with clients is to write articles like
this. I can tell you know what you are doing if you can write something like
this.

> I’d estimate over half of freelancers disappear before delivering their
> projects. Good for you: Finish your projects and you’re already in the 51st
> percentile of freelancers.

This matches my gut as well and I've been somewhat shocked at how many clients
compliment me on answering my email in a timely manner! Clients seem to
understand almost any mistake you can make if you are upfront about it and
work with them to solve the problem and don't disappear. Though, I definitely
agree on being very very careful about code that charges money (or sends email
for that manner).

------
nickjj
I've been remote freelancing for ~20 years. Some good advice in that post but
I would add in:

1\. You definitely don't need to form an LLC. I'm still a sole proprietor all
this time and it's working out fine.

2\. Personally, I'd hold back 35%+ of your income for taxes and expect to pay
taxes every quarter.

3\. 2 months of savings seems really low. People are wired different but I
know a lot of people (myself included) who can't function with less than 6
months of runway when being self employed. It's not fun being in a position to
take on low quality work because you absolutely need it.

4\. Billing style really depends on the job you're doing. A lot of my work is
billed hourly due to the nature of what I'm asked to do.

~~~
maratd
> 1\. You definitely don't need to form an LLC. I'm still a sole proprietor
> all this time and it's working out fine.

I did this for a while, but it starts to hurt around tax season. There are
advantages to being incorporated and then hiring yourself as an employee for a
minimal wage. With the way you're doing it, you're paying employment taxes on
your entire income. With an LLC, you can pass the majority of it through
without paying that.

> 2\. Personally, I'd hold back 35%+ of your income for taxes and expect to
> pay taxes every quarter.

That would be the responsible thing to do. I just end up paying yearly, paying
the interest penalty, and using January+February+March for taxes. Probably
should get my house in order at some point.

> 3\. 2 months of savings seems really low.

Agreed.

> 4\. Billing style really depends on the job you're doing. A lot of my work
> is billed hourly due to the nature of what I'm asked to do.

Yes, but I do pretty much everything I'm able to not bill hourly. Fixed Budget
> Monthly Rate > Bi-Weekly Rate > Weekly Rate > Daily Rate > Hourly.

~~~
rsweeney21
> I did this for a while, but it starts to hurt around tax season. There are
> advantages to being incorporated and then hiring yourself as an employee for
> a minimal wage. With the way you're doing it, you're paying employment taxes
> on your entire income. With an LLC, you can pass the majority of it through
> without paying that.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but LLCs are pass through entities
for tax purposes. That means your tax treatment is the same for an LLC as it
would be if you were a sole proprietor without an LLC.

The reason to create an LLC is to separate your personal assets from your
business assets and to protect you from liability for your employees actions.
If your LLC signs the contract, in most cases the client can only go after the
business, not you personally.

However, almost all lenders require a personal guarantee and an LLC doesn't
protect you from your own negligence. Only from the negligence of your
employees.

So basically - LLCs are unnecessary if you are the only employee.

See: [https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/limited-liability-
pr...](https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/limited-liability-protection-
llcs-a-50-state-guide.html)

~~~
tfehring
The tax benefits come from electing to be treated as an S corp for tax
purposes, not from establishing an LLC _per se_. But as far as I'm aware, you
need to establish an LLC or other corporate entity in order to be taxed as an
S corp.

It's true that creditors can come after your personal assets if you personally
guarantee a corporate entity's debt. But establishing an LLC does limit your
personal liability in any instance where you don't provide a personal
guarantee. I suspect that many individual freelancers who establish LLCs never
take on debt or other liabilities that require personal guarantees.

------
chiefalchemist
> "Take your finely-calculated estimate and 3x it, both in time and money.

You should get really comfortable with “no”; Both saying “no” to bad fits, and
hearing “no” from clients who can’t afford you."

Two quick thoughts:

1) "It always costs twice as much and takes twice as long" is a benchmark that
has never failed me. 3x? Probably could have helped 25% of the time.

2) The key to freelancing or even being an agency is...avoid the time sucks,
the bad clients. It's not finding grand slams or hat tricks. Sure those are
good to have. But the killer is the bad ones, the really bad ones.

------
RegBarclay
Not a freelancer, but I've worked remotely...

> It gets pretty dang lonely sometimes, particularly if you’re working
> remotely. I don’t care if you’re an introvert or extrovert, it’ll affect you
> either way.

I'm an introvert. I was lonely. It does affect you.

> But for maximum productivity, your routine should involve getting dressed,
> brushing your teeth, and treating it like a “real job”.

I had to do this. If I wasn't wearing street shoes, I wasn't "at work."

~~~
cm2012
I think it helps to be married. I can honestly say I'm never lonely as a
freelancer (2 years now, I almost never see clients).

~~~
andy_adams
FWIW, I've been married the whole time I've been a freelancer, and the
loneliness didn't settle in until year 5 or so. Your spouse will probably not
want to talk shop all the time, and those types of conversations (tech,
business, etc) were what I missed the most. But maybe I'm just excessively
sensitive!

~~~
Cymen
I've found tech meetups scratch that itch a little bit but I'm 2 years into
remote (with a wife and 2 kids) so maybe more is coming... Just curious if you
tried that and if it worked or not for you?

~~~
andy_adams
I've only started going to tech meetups recently, as an attempt to socialize.
It's definitely helped! I basically avoided it for the first 6 years, so I'd
recommend it very much.

------
thisisdallas
Really good post.

The main thing that sticks out is that the author mentions how referrals are
the number one source of leads for basically every freelancer. The problem is
that he only mentions it. Ok, that's great. How do I get referrals? The issue
is that none of the other stuff matters if you don't know how to get
referrals.

The author did a good job with the post, but I can't express how important it
is to be a people person when freelancing. In order to get referrals you have
to get projects. In order to get projects, you have to leave your house and
meet other local business owners. That's very hard for freelancers to do and I
think the post would be 100 times better if the author spent a little more
time on that aspect of freelancing.

~~~
balfirevic
> In order to get projects, you have to leave your house and meet other local
> business owners.

And so we come to one thing that rarely gets explicitly discussed in articles
like this - the location. I don't blame authors for that, your environment is
usually something you take for granted.

But if I were to go and talk to local business owners where I live (eastern
Europe) they would invariably fall in the category of extremely-and-then-some-
price-sensitive.

So most of the contracting around these parts is done under the umbrella of
various agencies or Toptal. These have ongoing relationships with foreign
clients and take advantage of the fact that local market prices for IT folk
are nothing compared to western Europe and (especially) US. Not a bad deal,
but not as good as fostering relationships with the clients yourself (and
these clients are usually at least moderately price sensitive, as otherwise
they would probably hire contractors at their location).

I'm sure there are plenty of people that freelance without middlemen where I
live, it just seems a lot less prominent than in better developed economies. I
know maybe one or two.

~~~
andy_adams
Sure, the article is applicable primarily to US-based freelancers. YMMV in
other places.

If it's any consolation, I live in a tiny town in the US and have rarely met
my clients in person. Many of them have no idea where I work from or that I
occasionally wear pajama pants on video calls, because my webcam is from the
waist up.

~~~
thisisdallas
> I live in a tiny town in the US and have rarely met my clients in person

This is awesome. I feel like it's more of the exception than the rule though.
Just out of curiosity, I assume you primarily work off of referrals now, but
how did you get your first few clients? Or I guess a better way of asking is
how did you get enough clients to where you had enough referrals coming in?

~~~
andy_adams
2 places:

1\. Premium job boards. AuthenticJobs used to carry much more freelance work,
but basically I'd find places where people had paid to post a job, and I'd do
my darndest to impress them with my opening email.

2\. My professional network. A couple of old contacts referred me to excellent
agencies. Those connections still pay dividends today.

Hope that helps. These comments are giving me ideas for "Everything I know,
part 2".

~~~
OJFord
'Everything I didn't realise I knew' :)

------
rsweeney21
Really good article filled with excellent advice! I actually started out down
a similar path after leaving Netflix. For me, the biggest challenge for
software engineers that want to go freelance will always be finding work (aka
sales). It's just really scary to know that if you don't find another gig, you
don't get paid.

Shameless plug: I ended up starting a company[0] to help
freelancers/contractors with this. We are the sales and collections team for
you. We focus on high-quality clients that can afford to pay for senior
engineers. You pick jobs that appeal to you. We currently have way more
openings for contract + remote jobs than we can fill and the clients are good
(Vizio, Disney, Colliers). It's a great way to transition from full-time to
consulting.

[0] [https://www.facetdev.com](https://www.facetdev.com)

~~~
tempaccount8512
Thanks for facet, it looks promising. Although it's limited to US candidates
only?

~~~
rsweeney21
US and Canada only right now - gotta start somewhere. But we plan to expand
outside as soon as we are ready. If you are interested, but outside US and
Canada, you can sign up and we'll put you on a waitlist.

~~~
benkaiser
This would be great. Highly considering a move back to Australia from the US
and would be great if I could use my Microsoft experience to help fetch
freelance work.

------
MLWithPhil
Great content. I've been doing freelance machine learning work for a while,
and it's hit or miss. Some clients are great, others are a complete pain.

Most recent gig I had, the client cut hours and then rates... all due to the
fact that the CEO didn't manage the project properly from the outset, and they
were hemorrhaging cash. That fell squarely into the "not my problem" category,
so I quit.

It's a tough business, and one I've not completely figured out yet.

~~~
misiti3780
I have been a freelancer for 10 years now, and I noticed that machine learning
gigs are a bit harder to find because they is usually proprietary info and
they want to keep the "models" in house.

Has that been your experience ?

~~~
MLWithPhil
Gigs seem to fall into a couple categories: one group of clients has heard all
the buzz and wants to get in on the action, without really knowing much about
it.

The more serious types are indeed protective of their data, intellectual
property, and processes. I have even seen paranoia around leveraging open
source frameworks (Tensorflow, Pytorch) out of fear of their sponsor
corporations coming for the client... not sure I see the logic on that one,
but whatever.

Whenever I don't have much success in a venture, I try to look inward to see
what I'm doing wrong. I suspect that there is a fair amount I have to learn
about getting good gigs and being successful in the freelance game.
Unfortunately, it's one of those "have to learn the hard way" type of things.

------
Felger
Been a freelancer since 2003, working from home, introvert living alone, not
affected by loneliness. Darn, I must not like people !

Will try the shoes trick.

------
mythrwy
"If a client previously posted their projects to Fiverr or UpWork, it’s a
signal they don’t value expertise."

I disagree with this. Some clients just don't have any idea where to get
something done other than a "site" they heard about or found on the internet.

But these clients usually are fairly technically clueless and require a lot of
hand holding and/or have unrealistic expectations. Come to think of it I sort
of have to agree with the authors basic point... not a great signal (although
for different reasons).

~~~
jvagner
You've gotta know how to filter on Upwork.

I hire a lot on Upwork, and have found excellent talent, with extensive
experience, for my projects.

I've learned how to qualify candidates with a minimal process that has weeded
out the "waste of time" people that I sunk a bit of time into when I first
went there.

So count me as someone who's posting there that counts on expertise, and has
been very happy with what I've found. That said, _my_ clients would probably
not know how to use Upwork effectively. Hence, me.

~~~
akor
Would love to hear what strategies you use to qualify candidates.

~~~
jvagner
Some basics, and it varies a bit depending on whether you're hiring in India
versus Europe/Eastern-Europe. I have found that a certain subset of candidates
in India will be very aggressive with the frequency and obtuseness of
communication. European and east-europeans candidates, in my experience, will
often disqualify themselves by being presumptive about requirements or
solutions, or dismissive about confounding aspects. I'm not generalizing
overall, but in first/second interactions with remote freelancers on Upwork.
This has been very consistent.

(I'm in North America, but have lived and worked in 3+ Western European
countries).

Beyond basic technical qualifications, these additional steps have helped me
onboard a good sized team of part-time and full-time freelancers around the
globe:

* Include 1 very broad, and 1 very specific question in the job posting (don't make them required -- see who answers them of their own volition). You'll get a sense of reading comprehension, and the care someone will use in responding. The questions should not require an essay in response, but neither can they be fulfilled by a templated response.

* For higher level candidates, offer to get on a 5 minute video call and share a calendly/youcanbookme link. Ask for a problem synopsis and see how complete it is, and check how many unclear potentialities get called out in response.

* For lower level candidates, look for 5, hire and onboard 3. In a slack documentation channel, include an on-boarding document with 3-5 steps (update avatar, include available hours in spacetime, post a hello and basic introduction in #general, add themselves to #somechannel, etc). All my keepers very faithfully followed really basic requests. The people who most vociferously wasted my time could've been disqualified at this stage of the game.

For this last step, pay for their time and set a 1 or 2 hour max budget at the
start. Don't train or lead anyone through this process. That's not a road you
want to spend any time on, because it will become an expansive sinkhole.

I've found that there are plenty of talented professionals out there, but
those who can be useful, engaged, remote resources are a special breed. You
want conscientious forthrightness.

~~~
akor
Thank you that is helpful! A lot of our hires have been short term and I
suspect that doesn't help the situation.

------
mikenguyen101
Well, it's definitely helpful. Let me tell my story, I had been working as a
freelancer for 2 years. I mainly worked on Upwork. Most of the clients are
cheap and micromanagement. And most of the jobs are short term. I think the
big problem is how to find a good client? If you are an American, you may have
networking. Your friends can refer you a good job. Or you can go to the
events, and try to sell your business. But if you are not an American, you may
struggle to find a good client. So I think this post is for those who are
living in developed countries, not developing countries ( third world )

------
gotduped
As a new freelancer, this is so good!

> "If a client gives you a design to implement, make your implementation
> pixel-perfect. It’s crazy how sloppy some developers are; the client put
> together that PSD for a reason."

Shamefully have to admit this was me when I started -- my mind says "the tool
does the thing!" and the client says "it looks nothing like my design". Can't
be afraid to charge for CSS.

~~~
GVIrish
I would first evaluate how much work would be involved with making their
design pixel perfect. There are some platforms where making certain things
pixel perfect is _extremely_ difficult (Sharepoint customization for example).

I would also give my customer feedback on whether the UI helps them achieve
their goals. Sometimes people zero in on a visual design that has poor
usability, and all you're doing is taking them further down a bad road.

~~~
andy_adams
Yes! If you see a problem with the design, share your expertise (politics
carefully navigated). This is how you become even more valuable to your
client. But if you've settled on a design and you're the implementer, make it
look like the specs you got!

------
pier25
> Take your finely-calculated estimate and 3x it, both in time and money.

This is so true.

~~~
Felger
In the nuclear power field, the usual multiplicator applied to project cost is
Pi.

------
jolmg
> Don’t work on promises. Get projects down on paper with clear terms, and
> have your clients sign. Until you do so, all the talk in the world is
> worthless.

I wish it expanded more on this. Some questions:

\- when you're remote, do you print the contract, sign it, scan it, send it,
and have the client do the same? or do you send 2 physical copies via DHL or
something? or do you just rely on a "looks good!" reply to an email detailing
the terms?

\- what's the typical practice in the freelance market on using contracts? I
mean, when you're working remote from a country different from your client's,
I imagine it's pretty difficult to write good enforceable contracts since they
involve 2 very different jurisdictions. Do people typically bother trying to
make good quality contracts, or are they used on the assumption that both
parties will act in good-faith?

\- when you're just starting out and can't really afford the services of a
lawyer that can write international contracts, how do write such things on
your own? some tips?

\- are there standard clauses in these contracts that people expect or are
they really diverse?

It would have also been cool if this talked a bit about how the interactions
typically are between a freelancer and a client. I mean, I imagine there's a
general protocol, right? I imagine the freelancer should guide the
interactions, but what are clients' expectations? For example, what's
typically used for communication? skype? plain email? Are there some etiquette
rules specific to freelancing?

~~~
andy_adams
In the US, email agreements can be enforceable contracts, but I always take
the step of getting an eSignature.

My take on international contracts: Working internationally, it's pretty much
all based on trust. Once you get to the point where you have a large enough
contract, sure, hire lawyers then. But how is someone going to pursue, for
example, a Romanian developer for $10,000? It's just not worth it.

So, if you're unsure of the client and you have no way of enforcing a
contract, you could "ramp up" your agreement: Get 50% up front, do a small
project or 2, break larger projects into smaller chunks paid incrementally,
etc.

I've never dealt with a large client flaking, so this is all speculation from
me. I hope it helps.

~~~
jolmg
Wow. Thanks for the prompt reply. Since it's been a day, I didn't have much
hope of this getting one. Thanks for the blog post, too!

------
rubinelli
> If a potential client tells you how something should be implemented, they
> don’t want you to think too much and don’t value your expertise.

Not necessarily. My team has recently inherited a system developed by an
outside contractor that has absolutely nothing to do with our stack, and
taking over its operation ended up taking much more time than if we had
developed the functionality from scratch.

~~~
mtberatwork
Yes, if you are going to work as a contractor and the company is telling you
precisely what stack or technologies you need to be working with, that's not a
red flag.

------
alex_suzuki
Great article, Andy! I really enjoyed reading it. I wrote a similar piece
about going freelance as a software engineer a while ago, perhaps you’ll like
it: [https://blog.classycode.com/going-freelance-as-a-software-
en...](https://blog.classycode.com/going-freelance-as-a-software-engineer-
some-advice-13c4064c72ce)

------
jscholes
To me this was a well written, no bullshit, super helpful piece. My thanks to
the author, from someone relatively new to freelancing. I feel extremely lucky
to have landed an 80-hour monthly retainer as one of my first gigs, but this
article gives me plenty of ideas on how (and how not) to make sure things are
going in the right direction over the next few years.

------
motsmanish
I have experienced almost each and every point listed on your blog in my 9
years of freelancing. Learned a few today. :-) Thank you for keeping track of
all those points/experiences and summarising for all the freelancer buddies
out there.

------
iovrthoughtthis
Reminded me that it’s ok that clients say no to working with me because cost.

------
emddudley
The author is concise and writes with humility--very nice to read!

------
Cicada2026
Thanks for sharing this, I'm thinking of freelancing for a while and there
were great tips, especially the part about setting up your rates.

------
miguelmota
Good list. I recently started being an independent contractor and a lot of the
material resonated and there were some good tips in there.

------
pythonbase
Great write-up and a lot of practical advice.

I am freelancing for some time now and the hardest part is to score and retain
clients.

