
I’ve been a self-employed independent creator for 10 years - imartin2k
https://medium.com/@kadavy/ive-been-a-self-employed-independent-creator-for-10-years-i-don-t-recommend-it-a2ecc92d81a9
======
dejv
I am in my 11th year as a fulltime freelancer. It is nice ride, interestingly
I haven't had problem with things all wannabe freelancers expecting: all of my
invoices get paid (with 99,9% of them on time), I was always able to cover my
monthly costs with money coming from last month billing and I always found
good clients.

During last decade I was able to do all the stereotypical things people
imagine to do when they don't have to go to the office: waking late, spending
year wasting time in SE Asia, traveling around the world, working from coffee
shops, coworking places and even in my bed, I also started a startup (or
five), had numerous side projects and whatnot.

So far so good, that digital nomad-remote freelancing thingy actually exists
and it is actually quite easy to get into this lifestyle. The dark side of
freelancing is that you usually get into quite boring and not that interesting
kind of work: writing CRUD apps, maintaining old software and basically doing
stuff that don't require a tons of deep expertise and continuous effort of
highly skilled team of people.

For some people it doesn't matter, but if you ever want to work on some high
tech stuff be worry, it is very hard to get back into game after years of
freelancing, you might be destined to sling some basic apps for the rest of
your life (which is actually what majority of devs do in their jobs anyway).

~~~
nightski
I've had a very similar experience. While I do agree that you end up with a
lot of boring work, it really isn't tough to keep skills sharp either. It's
probably worth setting time a specific amount of time for this very purpose.
Establishing a 20% time concept is much easier when you are in control of your
own hours.

I've found that as a freelancer while I haven't been working on cutting edge
tech as much my social, project management, and business skills have all
improved by leaps and bounds. This may be even more important than being
familiar with the cutting edge js frameworks or slinging around some deep
neural network models.

~~~
dejv
Well it depends on what you consider being interesting: finding work that let
you use latest javascript framework or architecting micro services? Easy.
Finding work that will let you spend years and years perfecting the way how to
make query engine of specialised embedded database run faster? (my old job)
Less likely.

It depends on your ambitions, lot of people would be happy to work on regular
apps for rest of their professional life, some not. People just have to think
about it as coming back into that "hardcore" sector is not easy after years of
writing crud apps.

------
cryoshon
>“I just want to read about things that interest me, have conversations, use
it all to inform my understanding of the world, and share what I’ve learned.”

yep, this sums up my wants as well. the thing is, people don't pay for that
unless you're already established or the thing you want to learn and talk
about is hot. and hot things cool, so you'll need to find new interests that
people find hot to learn about. etc.

but there's a huge upshot to self employment as i see it that the author
didn't mention: you don't have to hide.

you don't have to hide your time from your bosses.

you don't have to hide your interviewing with other places.

you don't have to hide your sense of humor to avoid offending coworkers.

you don't have to hide your wisdom or knowledge for fear of messing up the
office political situation.

you don't have to hide your true values anymore; you don't have to pretend to
care about the company.

sure, you lose some stability, but who cares. stability is too often another
word for stagnation.

~~~
rubidium
Sounds like you've only worked for bad managers and companies, which
admittedly isn't too hard to do in one's career.

There are employers that give the best of both worlds.

~~~
cryoshon
>There are employers that give the best of both worlds.

sure, i believe it. i may have even worked for one at some point.

but (straying from the original discussion substantially) that just trips
other red flags for me, like selling your labor for a pittance while the
company gets a disproportionate share of the value from your time spent with
them.

------
dood
Interesting read but the title is unnecessarily clickbaity since the
conclusion is, "If you are looking for security or reassurance, I do not
recommend this line of work" \- which everybody knew already. In fact,
contrary to the title, he does recommend it so long as you aren't looking for
security and reassurance.

~~~
kadavy
Oh boy, HN.

~~~
dood
I enjoyed the post, but think I would've gotten more out of it if the title
was more congruent with the content. I was expecting a lament or postmortem
(which hooked me in), but the story was more like an exultation. Congrats on
your success, I hope your upcoming book will help more people fruitfully
pursue their dreams.

~~~
kadavy
Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I guess I figured admitting I was scared on a
regular basis, and wondering whether doing this might kill me would be
considered somewhat a lament.

But of course I think I'm doing the right thing – after all, I've put
everything I have into it. If I felt like I had a choice, I'd probably do
something differently.

------
vinceguidry
I've never understood the irrational desire to quit your job.

Jobs are wonderful, magical things and I've been thankful to have every single
one of them, even the ones that sucked, like that time I worked 12 hour shifts
in a warehouse doing product assembly. Or when I had to deal with father as an
electrical apprentice. Or when I was on the shit list in the military.

I guess it's because every job I've had, I've subjected to an intense inquiry
on exactly what I'm getting out of the job. I'm very intentional about my
work. For the warehouse job, I was saving up for a move. I knew exactly what I
was doing and why.

When I see people with these crazy flights of fancy throwing away perfectly
good opportunities to work and build incrementally to their dream lives, it
makes me a little sad.

The very irrationality of his thought processes caused him to utterly fail to
learn how to market his services, making him piss away a decade of what could
have been fortunate prosperity.

Sure, he never starved. There was always some money coming in the pike. But he
purposefully did not shoot for any more.

It's almost like these people hate money for some reason. He finally comes to
his big life realization and then sees his path.

And when I read his big life realization, I was immensely struck by the fact
that I want exactly what he wants. A nice, comfy lifestyle where I can have
conversations, share what I know, and learn.

My job is the perfect tool to allow me to do that. I get all my money from
_one place_. And I can have conversations, share what I know, and learn _at
work_.

~~~
pdonis
_> A nice, comfy lifestyle where I can have conversations, share what I know,
and learn._

Yes, and you, unlike the author of this piece, appear to grasp the basic fact
that _nobody will pay you for this_. So you have to make a living some other
way, and use the leisure you earn to do this nice thing that you want to do.

~~~
dv_dt
Aren't there a whole range of media jobs that do just this, from blogger, to
journalists, youtube hosts, or documentary makers, etc. It may be very
difficult/risky to get to an independent financially sustaining position doing
this, but it's not an impossible aspiration. I do think the author is
downplaying the difficulty to even himself though.

~~~
pdonis
The problem with all media jobs like this is that you are beholden to the
media. You aren't self-employed in the sense the author of the piece is using
that term; you don't have sole control over what you say, what you
investigate, etc.

~~~
dv_dt
Even if you're self employed, you're beholden to your customers. With Patreon,
you're beholden to your collective patrons. But maybe that was your original
point that I misunderstood.

Still, I'd say in many of those jobs you have the self-determination to choose
any topic. You just can't guarantee that there won't be any blowback of you
pick some topic of controversy.

~~~
pdonis
_> maybe that was your original point that I misunderstood._

Sort of. If you're a journalist working for a media company, from the
viewpoint of the media company, the value you're producing isn't your content,
except indirectly. The direct value you produce is in attracting eyeballs, and
hence ad revenue. So if your goal is to produce value with your content and
get paid for that, you're not going to achieve that goal working for a media
company, except as a lucky side effect.

If you're self-employed and being supported by your readers (say, by Patreon
contributions), then you are producing value with your content, directly. That
was my understanding of the goal of the author of the article.

 _> I'd say in many of those jobs you have the self-determination to choose
any topic. You just can't guarantee that there won't be any blowback of you
pick some topic of controversy._

You can't guarantee no blowback if you pick a controversial topic no matter
how you are getting paid. The difference is in how that plays out. If you work
for a media company, your future depends on the people running the media
company and whether they will support you. If you work for yourself, your
future depends on your readers and whether they will support you.

------
Sorry_Rum_Ham
His thesis statement is entirely misleading. He absolutely recommends it. The
entire article reiterates several times how happy he was and continues to be
that he passed up more secure opportunities again and again over the years.

Not sure why the clickbaity title was necessary.

~~~
kadavy
How is it that you think I recommend it? It's a pretty genuine warning that
it's a hard way to make a living.

~~~
quilliellis
I expected it to be about how you regret your choice and you would recommend
this path to almost no one. This seemed to be what other readers expected too.
But, instead, you talked about how happy you were with the choice. Also, you
hedged your anti-recommendation quite a bit:

> "If you are looking for security or reassurance, I do not recommend this
> line of work."

I don't think people proudly believe they want "reassurance", in many cases.

> "However, if you are burning with curiosity — if your heart and intuition
> lead you to do things that don’t make sense—well, then you don’t really have
> a choice in the matter, do you?"

I think people would much rather think of themselves as "burning with
curiosity".

(Isn't curiosity cooler than reassurance/security? At least in the HN
audience?)

I interpreted your closing statements, very roughly, as ~"Careful, don't do
what I did if you're _normal_. Only do what I did if you're _cool_." So it was
actually a recommendation, in my mind.

~~~
kadavy
Ah, thanks for the explanation. I found the "clickbait" bit to be a leap
(though you weren't the only person to say so). This is how I really feel
about it. I wish I felt like I had enough of a choice in the matter to say "oh
well, that was a mistake." If I felt like I did have a choice, no, I wouldn't
recommend it.

------
nnd
My main issue with freelancing is the quality of the most of the gigs. Sure,
you can land a gig which would allow you to use your most favorite trendy JS
framework, but in the end you’d likely end up building some variation of a
CRUD app. It’s extremely hard to land a project which would allow you to work
in cutting-edge technological problems.

An issue which I commonly see in these threads is the black-and-white
antogonization of “working for the man” and being a “free man”. It’s almost
like you are either a mindless 9-to-5 drone or you “escaped the system”, and
working for yourself, even though you might be scraping bahts eating ramen in
Chiang Mai.

------
swayvil
Does the "making things" thing ever get you down?

Getting intimate and sensitive with a dead dead medium, dead stuff that you
try to arrange into something pretty.

Obsession as lifestyle, deforming your soul.

Pandering to moneyed children to pay your bills.

I have some experience with this and I gotta say it gets me down. Do you
relate?

~~~
taway_1212
I share this sentiment as well - when I work for a bank, at least I get a
sense that I'm working towards something meaningful (matching investors with
opportunities). On the other hand, working on another video game or novel that
no one wants or needs sounds depressing.

------
tcbawo
This sentiment may be unpopular here, but I think it is probably difficult to
pull this off and have a family simultaneously. Having the luxury of following
your interests comes from someone putting a roof over your head and food on
your plate during your formative years. Quite likely, your parents made it
possible (through their sacrifice) for you to receive an education and give
you access to the social network that put you where you are today. If you do
follow your dreams while having children, I hope you are able to provide them
with a foundation for their future success.

------
barsonme
I have to say I'm a bit surprised he moved to Colombia. My aunt lived through
her teenage years in Colombia, and even though she has family there she
absolutely refuses to go visit because of how horrible it was.

I'm sure it's changed since she lived there, but it's not like she's been
isolated from the country's happenings the last 30-some years. (I mean, she
has family and friends she can call or message.)

~~~
etiene
The healthcare situation in the US is horrible enough for this. Mind, I'm from
Brazil and even though we're a shitty third world piece of crap sometimes, we
still got free universal health care and great 100% free public universities.
It baffles me that a country as wealthy as the US does not provide such basic
things to its citizens. I guess it's a matter of the mindset on priorities?
War > Health? I went to Cuba once, where people are objectively very poor, and
still I had no issues being seen by a doctor at a local clinic for free when I
had an eye emergency even though I was just a tourist. I live in Europe now,
where general quality of life is much better than where I lived in Brazil and
it terrifies me that other Brazilians often look to the US as something to
strive for rather than Europe in our next developments. I've heard of multiple
cases before of people with bad health who simply had to flee the US and move
somewhere else more social so they wouldn't die or because they had already
gone bankrupt paying for health services. It's a shame, really, the US
definitely has enough money and would be able to provide their citizens more
humane care, but this is not an unsurprising story. :(

------
Aloha
It takes a certain kind of person to be a freelance anything. If you're not
that kind of person, you're likely not to be a success.

------
nickjj
I've been creating content for a few years, but I've been self employed for a
really long time.

The author's comments on Louis CK was very relatable. I've had the same exact
thought processes and conclusions.

I haven't hit that point where things start to grow exponentially but I really
feel like that's how it goes. Unfortunately it's ultra dangerous in the tech
field because creating a course on XYZ will be outdated by the time you "make
it" (and to create content like that might be 3-4 months of ~80 hour weeks).

My plan is to keep creating content until something sticks.

------
anotheryou
I'm sure it's easier for me to find a part-time job than living from my
art/curiosity. Better 1/2 the week lost to work, than all the art lost to
comercial compromises with little pay.

I will do full time for a year or so to get some credability and save some
money. I'm just not sure yet how to find an ok 2-day job that pays ok. Maybe
consulting would be worth an attempt, but I guess I'd need to network a lot
for that.

------
tonyedgecombe
I sometimes wonder if a better solution to this is to accept a less demanding
job and fill your free time with your creative endeavors.

