
Downsides of Freelancing - wallflower
https://www.vanschneider.com/the-downsides-of-freelancing
======
mrhappyunhappy
It’s been said many times on HN, but if you freelance and in case you missed
it: 1. Double or triple your rates (if you are fairly new to this you’re
likely not charging enough. 2. You are now a consultant. You don’t provide a
service, you provide solutions (if you are not sure what you are solving,
figure it out). Forget the term freelance and anything associated with it. 3.
Stop charging hourly. Try day rate, week rate, bi-weekly. Experiment. 4. Be
picky. Fire clients if you have to. You are not a tool, you are a business,
act the part.

~~~
pacomerh
Yes it's been said many times and they make it sound so easy, yet its not!

>> "You are now a consultant" <\- this kills me.

there are so many steps and effort before rising your rates, and becoming a
consultant This is so similar to the "how to draw an owl" meme

~~~
frlnc_throwaway
I heard that advice from HN when I started freelance out of university at age
23.

I ended up embarassing myself a couple of times, by either:

\- asking for a high day rate when I lacked experience (e.g., for freelance
Rails work, when I kinda knew Rails but lacked experience with most of the
tooling, testing frameworks, etc)

\- trying to sell "consulting" work when I had only a vague idea how
consulting worked.

So, yeah, while "charge more!!!" might be a useful message for underconfident
programmers who don't know their own value, it's too simplistic and it omits
many essential steps.

My takeway: if you plan to freelance long-term, you should treat it as a
business, and plan to build a specialism. Once you've built a specialised
skillset, and demonstrated credibility, then you should start systematically
looking for higher-paying clients, and be confident in asking for what you are
worth. But you have to know you are worth it, first. Once you've done that for
a while, then you can start thinking about business-level problems and doing
something higher level (which requires nailing a whole bunch of soft skills,
too).

Another factor to consider is that if you're in a major city, there are
probably other programmers doing freelance/contract work in your skillset,
which you can use to gauge what a sensible rate would be, and what knowledge
you need to gain.

Oh and - there's also the factor that as a newbie freelancer you often find
the really crappy low-end clients that have a fixed budget and high
expectations (e.g., small local businesses. I have nothing against small local
businesses, but they're not good clients for freelance coding work). I went
through a lot of stress working on such projects. Working for more high-
paying, professional clients (digital agencies, banks that hire a lot of
contractors, etc) is ironically a lot less stressful.

~~~
frlnc_throwaway
And finally - I never ended up doing freelance work for that long. It was only
something I ended up doing in-between other stuff. I realised that it was not
a career path I wanted to pursue -- if you are a very ambitious person, doing
client work can become a grind after a few years. However, if you want to run
a nice small business, starting off as a freelancer and growing into a small
consultancy or digital agency can be a very good path to take. You will not
become a billionaire, but plenty of people become millionaires that way.

------
rokhayakebe
Be a gatherer & not a hunter. In other words, find clients you can put on a
monthly retainer instead of big projects that pay you once and force you to
look for work for 5 months when done.

~~~
zikzak
I have done this by working for a single employer. I got tired of the
uncertainty of contracting and like the steady pay and benefits. Some people
might think I'm a sucker but a feel like I sleep better these days (for the
last decade, I guess).

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Doing your own thing is not for everyone.

~~~
thisacctforreal
Are you saying parent is not doing his own thing, or that the people who think
he's a sucker aren't doing their own thing?

I agree with the latter :)

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
There’s nothing wrong to work for an employer if it’s easier on your life.
Some people prefer solo for whatever reason - whatever works for you ya
know...

------
paulpauper
a lot of obvious stuff and it reads like an advertisement

 _When I first moved to Amsterdam, I gave myself a 3-month "trial period" to
figure out if I could find work and if I wanted to stay. This sounded then
like a good amount of time, but it goes by much quicker than you think. I only
started to contact people when I arrived and looking back now, I probably
should’ve started much earlier. Building a network is a slow process, so you
have to start before you quit your job._

it's slow and hard? who knew. How does someone with no experience move in one
of the most expensive cities and suddenly have a good living? Yeah a lot of
stuff does not add up.

~~~
save_ferris
I gave up here:

> I must admit that I’ve also never worked with a contract and that I don’t
> have any other form of terms and conditions for clients to sign.

I'm not a freelancer, but this sounds pretty unprofessional to me.

~~~
mobilemidget
Yes and no, but there are still people that can be honest to each other
without contracts and nasty clauses and so on.

A job description though, that both parties know what to expect from each
other. (When the work is done and payment is due) can be done in an email.

~~~
geezerjay
> Yes and no, but there are still people that can be honest to each other
> without contracts and nasty clauses and so on.

Contracts are not about honesty. They are a way to avoid having to negotiate
how to act when predictable problems occur by setting the conditions (i.e.,
what to do when something happens) on paper.

If a project stays permanently on its happy path then you don't need safeguard
clauses, but often it doesn't and having to decide how to proceed after
problems occur is not easy or enjoyable for any part, because someone's ideal
solution may not be aligned with someone else's best interests.

~~~
mobilemidget
I meant that some people will not be honest and fair if things aren’t 100% in
writing with signatures, and that’s on both sides

------
AlexTWithBeard
With working from home and unlimited vacations becoming more and more
widespread, I wonder are there any upsides left in freelancing?

~~~
seanwilson
Quite a lot I think - setting your own hours, picking what you work on,
picking who you work with, picking how you work (tools, meetings, 100% remote
etc.), being able to work on side projects you can profit from without them
being owned by your employer, potential to earn a lot more since you're
working directly with clients, not having a boss to answer to (you have to
answer to clients but not in the same way especially since you have multiple
clients) and lots of freedom around vacations (which I'm guessing is closer to
"unlimited vacations" than you'd get from an employer).

Unstable income, having to market yourself and more means it isn't for
everyone though.

~~~
seba_dos1
> being able to work on side projects you can profit from without them being
> owned by your employer

Is not being able to even legal? I'm pretty sure employer can't put anything
like that in the work contract where I live. My spare time is _my_ time. Sure
one can sign a non-competing clause, but employer owning your side projects
sounds just insane.

~~~
xfitm3
Discussion on this from 2011:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056)

------
payne92
A big surprise many run into: the amount of time it takes to find and sign up
new work (“sales”).

It can be incredibly time-consuming, leads to a bunch of stress and
uncertainty, and you can’t really bill for it.

