
Want To Be A Freelancer? Just Punch Yourself In The Face, Instead - jamesbritt
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2010/09/07/want-to-be-a-freelancer-just-punch-yourself-in-the-face-instead/
======
InclinedPlane
Just for once I'd like someone to write something about X without using the
conceit that all instances of X will be immensely similar to the author's
immediate experience with X.

Everybody is different, significantly so even. They have different
personalities, different educations, different ways of working, different
skillsets, different passions, etc. That's why people have different jobs,
different hobbies, different friends, different ways of living, and why people
do their jobs in different ways. Saying "freelancing will be like _THIS_ " is
about as silly as saying that if one were to start painting their experiences
would be identical to Van Gogh's, or Michaelangelo's, the likelihood is
comparable. I've seen people of equivalent intelligence, equivalent education,
equivalent cultural backgrounds doing the same exact job for the same exact
salary and having experiences as different as imaginable. Working in
completely different ways, generating completely different results, taking
completely different degrees of personal satisfaction from their work, working
different hours, and having completely different levels of work-related
stress.

That's humanity for you. There's a huge degree of diversity out there, and
that's true in every career path, don't insult us by pretending that
freelancing or working a cubicle or any other human experience can be summed
up in one tidy little package with minimal deviation.

~~~
trigger
You're absolutely right but like all opinion pieces I don't think it's meant
to be taken as "advice". While some of it touches on real problems it's really
just a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun.

Leaving aside the subject I really like the writing in this post. He created
some great imagery. Good Friday reading.

------
jdietrich
There is no such thing as freelancing. I mean it. There are insecure, short-
term jobs and there are businesses. Freelancers are neither fish nor fowl.
They don't have the security and legal protection of an employee, nor the
efficiency and delegation of a business. If you consider yourself a
freelancer, stop. If you have the inclination and the ability to delegate and
manage, take on an assistant and start acting like a business. It is insane
for a $100/hr worker to spend their time doing menial administration.If you
just want to do a job of work without worrying about that stuff, you'll almost
certainly be better off on a permanent contract with all the benefits that
come with it.

~~~
jseliger
This is a good post and accurate one; it also describes how my family's
business basically runs -- as a business. We do grant writing for nonprofit
and public agencies (<http://blog.seliger.com/about/>), and most of our
clients and more than half of our revenue comes from shortish (6 to 8 week)
clients. But it's run... like a business.

However, one thing I'd point out is that most businesses don't have the
immediate cashflow to hire an assistant right out the gate, and many
businesses that eventually charge $100+ / hour don't start that way as they
try to acquire clients and get some amount of money going. When I was a little
kid and my parents were starting the firm, my Dad routinely worked 80 – 90
hour weeks -- and that is not an exaggeration. He _couldn't_ have hired
someone else to do the scut work at the time.

I think there are two lessons to take from this, which isn't to discount your
observation -- as soon as you _can_ afford someone in a secretary / office
manager type role, get them, but you might not be able to --

1) Do anything it takes to survive. pg calls this "maximizing your runway" and
so forth, but that's the basic idea.

2) Do something that, ideally, everyone else _isn't_ doing. We're basically
the only non-specialist grant writing firm in the country. No one else works
the way we do, from what I can tell. If you're a freelance writer for
magazines and so forth... every third person in Brooklyn works the way you do.
(That's one reason I never tried to be one, tempting though it was; I'm
probably better suited for journalism than grad school, but here I am). If
you're trying to be a freelancer, the competition is, to my mind, insanely
fierce.

------
Unosolo
Common freelancer mistake is not charging enough or trying to compete with
large companies on commodity markerts where margins are just too low. Not
generating enough revenue is the direct cause of not being able to afford
holidays, time off because of sickness, training, seminars or being worried
about periods when work stream peters out.

It's hard for a freelancer to employ the economies of scale and hence they
need to specialise n a niche where they can outdo big players and charge
bigger premium to pay for overheads and cover the risks.

A freelancer carries more risks than even a small size company that aren't
pooled: sickness, a spot of weak demand for a specific product, not getting
paid. Certain overheads are also higher per "head": sales, bookkeeping, legal.

One need to charge a top buck and keep overheads low to maintain a sustainable
freelance operation. I saw so many freelancers going back to permanent after
2-3 years just because they were not charging enough to compensate for the
risks, extra work and flexibility of the service they were providing.

------
Encosia
I'm an independent consultant.

I live within my means and never worry about money, much less have cash flow
problems. Considering I get to do what I love in the process, every day is
like Christmas when I put it in perspective.

I have health insurance. It's actually cheaper than what my contribution was
the last time I had it "provided" as a benefit, for about the same coverage.
Being part of a big risk pool is nice, but at least hedging against
catastrophe with "self employed" insurance is too cheap/easy not to take
advantage of.

If you don't make time, you'll never have time. The author seems to be falling
into the all-too-common trap of equating long hours with productivity. You can
find yourself on that soul-crushing treadmill regardless of whether you drink
your morning coffee at a cafe or in a cubicle.

~~~
nadam
"If you don't make time, you'll never have time. The author seems to be
falling into the all-too-common trap of equating long hours with
productivity."

Not necessarily. It probably depends on the market you are in. The author is a
writer: maybe it is a bit harder for him than for a software consultant: maybe
he has to work more to earn enough money. Also I have a freelancer friend who
is very productive just somehow he is trapped into a market where there is not
too much money. (He (and I) lives in Eastern Europe, and works for not too
big/rich companies.)

~~~
Encosia
For what it's worth, paid writing projects are a non-trivial portion of my
income. I've found time management and hard negotiation to be even _more_
important in that area than in software development.

------
listic
It's not the first time that I hear health insurance mentioned in stories I
read on Hacker News. As a person living far away from USA I'm afraid I'm not
getting the situation, and they don't seem to write about this sort of stuff
often on the Net - because that's the way things are, except I think they are
different in different countries.

For example, here in Russia every citizen including unemployed (which I am
now) and retired has health insurance. It's of the basic type, you don't
actually expect to get much good out of it, but at least you won't have to pay
for a visit to physician. When you get a job, you receive health insurance
from your company. It will be issued by different insurance company than when
you are unemployed, but unless your company cares to provide you with extra
health benefits, you will get the same benefits as unemployed person. I never
worked at such a company though, and I started to think that maybe I should
choose as my new job a company that provides a good health insurance end
exercise some of those nice health benefits. Maybe pass some thorough medical
examinations for free and receive whatever treatment needed (I have some
issues with my health, but nothing that I can put my finger at and it nothing
too serious to warrant the bother, up to this point). When I told about this
to a doctor acquaintance, she said that in her opinion it is always wiser to
get a high paying job and pay in cash instead, because that's the only way you
can motivate doctors to treat you[sic]. So I keep wondering: do we have the
situation so very backwards? I have really few information to compare.

Where can I read up on how health insurance works in the USA? Information
about other countries is also welcome as well.

Why is the option of buying health insurance for a freelancer not even
considered?

~~~
zavulon
(I'm also from Russia)

The doctors here are much better and don't need "motivation" in a Russian
sense of this word.. They will give you their best treatment, if you have
insurance. For this reason, insurance here is very expensive. There's a lot of
poor people here that don't have _any_ kind of insurance.

The cheapest insurance in NY, for example is ~ $300/m, but you also pay up a
large amount if you require serious treatment($5-10,000), and every time you
come to see a doctor ($25-50). There are many other options for insurance -
the larger the monthly payment amount (premium), the less you pay out of
pocket for visits and other things.

A best situation you can have here is a company paying for you. To buy the
same insurance that I used to have when worked for a financial company here
would be $500-600/month.

So it's a big issue for freelancers and everybody who doesn't work for
companies that provide it.

It's going to change in 2013 though after new legislation that Obama just
passed this year, but there are different opinions here what the effects will
be exactly (that's a different topic entirely though)

~~~
gaius
_To buy the same insurance that I used to have when worked for a financial
company here would be $500-600/month._

To put that in perspective, I pay a comparable amount of National Insurance
every month in the UK, deducted from salary.

No such thing as "free healthcare".

~~~
moxiemk1
Beyond that amount, however, in the US, we also all have to pay Medicare and
Medicade taxes. Also, that health insurance at $500-$600 also almost certainly
includes a deductible. And copays.

And, as a sister comment points out, National Insurance also includes
government pension. I don't know if this is true, but if it is, also include
our Social Security taxes in the cost.

All of these together makes our equivalent cost thousands a month.

------
jacquesm
> All life is work

So better make sure you enjoy your work! Otherwise doing more of it is going
to make you feel miserable. Just like there are employees that are unhappy in
their jobs because of the nature of the job so it happens that in freelancing
if you don't like your job you're going to feel bad. Especially if you are
doing more of it...

> The hunter lives in a hard world

Yes, but when you are kicked out, laid off, fired then work divorces you.
Employment is paper-thin security, you are basically living at the whim of
someone else. As a freelancer if you are not 'pipelining' your work you are
doing it wrong. You need to set up your rates so you can afford some slack
(you are that good are you?), and then you need to push a little bit too much
work in to the pipeline working prospects and turning them in to customers.
Over time you will find yourself with a portfolio of customers. Periodically
you review them and you raise your rate in those cases that you'd rather be
doing something else. As a freelancer that is good, work finds you.

> weekly paychecks are a luxury

Yep. So a freelancer _saves_. If you don't have the attitude that will let you
save half of your income on the spot for taxes and rainy days freelancing is
not for you. Suggest you get a dayjob in stead until you close the hole in
your hand and you can plan ahead a couple of months to a year.

> Also a luxury: heartburn meds and that spleen transplant you really need

I have been self employed for as long as I care to remember and have on
occasion paid cash for an operation I needed, but now have state required
mandatory health insurance. Things actually got cheaper for me. This will vary
country to country, and in some places it's really hard to find decent health
coverage as a freelancer. But there are ways around that. Incorporate a
company, hire yourself and your spouse as employees and sign up for a package
with some health insurance provider.

> Hey good luck with that mortgage

Freelancing requires you to be in control of your own funds to a much larger
extent than a day job will give you, and banks have learned the hard way that
lots of freelancers can't do that. So don't look at a bank to provide you with
a mortgage until you have a solid track record. Meanwhile, nothing will stop
you from working a bit harder, saving a bit more and buying that house cash in
3 to 5 years time, staying in as cheap a place as you can get away with for
the intermediate period.

> oh, and nobody else will get it either

So what. Who are you doing this for? Some audience? What do you care what
other people think about you not having a 'job'?

> You might as well paint a face on a volleyball

Freelancing is the opposite of a lonely life for me! I've met more people than
I would ever meet in a regular job. Freelancing has taken me all over the
planet, caused me to meet some of the most interesting people. It's maybe time
that you 'don't make money', but I've set my rates to compensate for that and
am in enough demand that that still works out well. A bit of passive income
doesn't hurt either, which is how a smart and savvy freelancers spends his
'idle time'. That way that time will still make you money in the future. $20
per day in passive income is definitely doable on a very low budget in terms
of time invested. Much more than that will require you to work hard at a
project for well over a year but that's something you will not be able to do
in the beginning. Freelancing is a stepping stone to being independent
completely, I think of it as a way to make money that has more freedom than a
job will ever give you.

> So why do it? Because it's awesome

Then why bitch about it? I think the author should go back to a day job for a
couple of weeks. Because if you really think it is awesome then any and all of
the above is either 'speedbump' variety or lack of success.

Oh, btw, I did get that mortagage. Maybe find a better bank? The tax break
made it worthwhile, otherwise I would have saved just a bit longer.

~~~
daleharvey
I dont think the author needs your advice, the post was half written as advice
and half I expect a cathartic "bitch", at least thats how it came off for me.

people can enjoy something immensely and still feel the need to bitch about it
once in a while, I think thats fairly healthy.

~~~
jacquesm
If he meant what he wrote he should get a job, seriously.

I _love_ the freedom that being a freelancer gives me and I could write about
the hard times but I'd still do it without a bitter aftertaste like this.

Of course everything has its good and its bad sides but this sounds like
someone that is very frustrated but that has found nothing better than what
he's doing.

Also I notice he's a writer, now writing code and writing books are completely
different for the 'average' level. An average coder can bring in quite a bit
of money if they play their cards smart (look at me ;)), but an average writer
would have a very hard time to make ends meet.

Writing books is more like making music than it is to writing code. And music
can be tough too, as long as you don't make it in the 'big league'.

Freelance writing is tough from a financial point of view, and that's
something that you presumably know before you pick that particular poison.

I find this piece much more negative than just the facts presented, the
undertone is such that I hope people do not take this as the 'average' outlook
of freelancers on their work and their work environment as well as their
financial situation. It is not representative as far as my experience and the
free-lancers that I work with are concerned.

You can't negate the tone of that article with a single line of 'because it's
awesome, duh' at the end.

~~~
daleharvey
the first few paragraphs are all about how much he loves his work, It sounds
exactly like someone who loves what they are doing but wants to point out that
it isnt all sunshine and roses for people thinking about doing the same thing.

he is obviously a very good creative writer, you probably need to read it a
little less literally.

when I first seen the title I remembers pg's quote straight away "doing a
startup is like being punched in the face repeatedly, but a 9-5 job is like
being waterboarded"

~~~
jacquesm
Doing a startup is much more like running a marathon than it is like being
punched in the face.

It's for people with stamina, and the will to fight back.

I've been doing this for many years now and the times that I got 'punched in
the face' are relatively small, and most of the times they were simply
setbacks that if I had thought a bit longer and had been a bit smarter I could
have avoided. Being punched in the face repeatedly suggests that third parties
are actively trying to hurt you as an individual, and I can only find two
instances of that over the last 15 years, and in both those cases the counter-
punch was a k.o., so I don't expect to see repeat performances from that
corner.

Entrepreneurs as a rule are not from the soft side of life, they know the
value of standing up for themselves.

Going out for funding and being turned down for instance is not being punched
in the face, it is a learning experience that tells you that something about
you, your product or your presentation needs work, or that the investors
you've been talking to are simply wrong.

So you improve and you try again, such is the nature of entrepreneurship _and_
the nature of life in general.

If you can't handle disappointment well then entrepreneurship may not be for
you. Think of it as character building.

edit: the disagree by downmod crowd has it today it seems.

~~~
daleharvey
I feel compelled to mention that similarly to the OP, I am not having an
existential crisis.

Its probably a cultural issue, At least personally I think if you cant have a
proper bitch about something, you probably dont love it enough. Same as the
british idiom that says you arent friends with someone until you can call them
a [Insert crude insult]

------
edw519
OP has a big problem and it's not freelancing. Just look at what he has
written...

He talks about his office, his coffee, his pants, his computer, his commute,
even his tax deductions. He talks about what he can do, what he wants to do,
how he can structure his day, what he feels like, how he'd like to feel.

He talks about everything except his customers.

I don't care if you're a freelancer, a consultant, an employee, a founder, or
a volunteer, it's _not about you_. It's about your work and the people you're
doing it for. That's it. Everything else is just a detail.

Once you start thinking about what you give instead of what you receive, your
begin to focus on the task at hand instead of the whine of the day. OP oughta
try it sometime.

~~~
jrwoodruff
Geez, it was a light-hearted glimpse into the difficulties of freelancing. Not
a tutorial, a how-to or documentary, just a slice of what daily life is like
as a freelancer. Dry spells, unpaid 'vacation', no clocking out.

I for one enjoyed it.

------
gexla
One item I disagree with. You are a freelancer, but you are also a company.
You are employed under whatever name you are doing business as. If you don't
have a business name, then it's just your own name as a sole proprietor. You
can give yourself a real work history and paychecks, just like you would be
receiving by working for any other company. Whatever is left over after your
regular paychecks you can give yourself as a periodic bonus. Of course, if you
don't make enough money to give yourself regular paychecks, or those paychecks
are small, then you aren't making enough to convince a bank to give you a loan
for a house.

~~~
rwhitman
You can't put yourself on salary unless the business entity is a corporation
or an LLC taxed as a corporation. Even if you do payroll for yourself you
still have to file a 1099 and a schedule c. For a freelancer a Corp is a bit
overkill and you get taxed twice.

~~~
larrywright
That depends on what you're doing. If you're a developer or a sysadmin or
something, you need to set up a corporation to provide you some level of
liability protection. I'm not a lawyer/tax expert, but my understanding is
that this is not something you could do without at least an LLC in place.

If I'm wrong about this, someone please correct me.

~~~
rada
You do need an LLC for liability protection but you don't need to pay yourself
a salary. Instead, you take whatever you want as pass-through income
distribution.

~~~
larrywright
Ah, ok. That makes sense. Can you only pass through a portion? In other words,
keeping some back for expenses like computers, cell phones, hosting, whatever?

~~~
gexla
Yes you would keep a certain amount of money in the company accounts for
expenses. The company expenses would have to be paid by the company (as
opposed to your personal income which is passed through to you) for these
expenses to be tax deductible (right? I'm not a tax guru either.)

@rwhitman I wasn't necessarily referring to a salary. I know that you can't
pay yourself a salary as an employee when you are the owner of the sole
proprietorship. As the owner in such a case, essentially you are the company,
not an employee.

As I mentioned in my other reply. I'm thinking that giving yourself regular
payments from your business account would be a better way of showing a regular
and steady income than showing the more crazy activity of the business account

I think the biggest problem is that he simply couldn't give a straight answer
to questions. He could only say he is a freelancer and he works for himself.
He could have said that he is a sole proprietor and that his company name is
x.

------
nadam
There was a time when I thought freelancing means freedom. I no longer think
that. In my experience the difference between a day-job and freelancing is
much smaller than the difference between freelancing and starting a startup.
Freelancing and day-job are almost the same for me: work for other people to
earn money from month to month to support my family. Starting a startup (or
doing a side project) is different. It is more about dreams, creativity and
'unlimited' possibilities.

~~~
josefresco
Just wait until that startup starts feeling like a real job. Then come back
and comment on how different it is. Personally I have found working for myself
to be quite different then doing the same thing for someone else. I have to
find the work, I collect 100% of the revenue and as a result the preverbal
buck stops at my desk. I sleep well.

~~~
nadam
I don't know, maybe the problem is that my perception on freelancing is based
on a non representative sample: For example I've browsed rentacoder.com for a
while: my impression was that the market is extremely saturated, most of the
tasks are quite boring, time consuming, low-payed and not much fun. Did not
seem to be better than a day job. Being a well-recognized, top freelancer with
special skills and good connections: that's good. But being an average
freelancer does not seem to be very appealing. On the other hand at my startup
I can create things which my bosses and customers did not even think of. Most
fun software problems are not eceonomical to solve in very high quality for
one client, but it is economical to solve if you can sell it as a product to
lots of clients. This possibility of 'scale' makes startups very different. On
the other hand the success rate it much lower. I have failed projects behind
me, I know what failure is, but I've learned a lot from them, and still I try
again (beside my day-job).

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Rentacoder and elance are the absolute worst places a decent freelancer should
look for work. Even craigslist is head and shoulders above them. I've found
lots of $75 - 100 / hr gigs on Craigslist, but they'd laugh me out of
Rentacoder for those rates.

------
prawn
One way to bring about a modest, regular payment is to not consistently
withdraw almost everything you're bringing in. If you're getting paid to a
business account, set up a small, regular transfer (even just $100 or $200/wk)
when you're starting out and make that your dependable payment rather than
getting $2k one day and nothing for the next couple of months.

Renting a desk in a shared office space can always help give you regular
hours, social interaction, some networking opportunities, etc. (I currently
rent a desk to a freelancer and have another space free - Adelaide, if
anyone's interested.)

The rest is not unlike that stated. You have the freedom to get away for a
holiday, but there'll be no one running the show while you're away. If you're
big enough to have a couple of staff, but not big enough to have someone doing
your accounts, prepare to get bogged down with tax, super, billing, etc - it's
hell.

------
rwhitman
Yup. Everything he says is true. I've been self employed for 10 years and it
never gets easier. I'd even say it gets harder every year. And I don't have a
family or a mortgage to deal with, I can't even fathom trying to support a
family as a freelancer.

Oh and try applying for a job after only ever being self-employed. That one is
fun

~~~
ryanwaggoner
What? What kind of freelance do you do? I've been doing this for just over
three years and it's gotten easier every year. I can't imagine going back to a
job, though I get offers every week (literally). Just curious why my
experience is polar opposite yours :-/

~~~
rwhitman
Honestly 3 years in, everything was fantastic for me too.

I'm a web developer / project lead. Its hard to explain why things have been
negative for me lately, there are a number of compound factors over time. I
got too comfortable relying on certain clients. Credit cards are pure evil.
Basically any prolonged reliance on debt can snowball. At some point you jack
up your rate and its hard to knock it down when you start competing on price.

But the biggest pitfall - its very easy to splurge on business overhead when
you are doing well. Nice office, bookkeepers, outsourcing basic tasks, top
notch CPA, lawyers, furniture, fancy computers, memberships, travel expenses
etc. This stuff puts you into awful debt when the work volume shrinks.
Basically when you are feeling happy and comfortable, save money like crazy
and don't splurge on anything. It doesn't last.

~~~
mgkimsal
Aha - it seems you've been able to find your issues, and those have far less
to do with freelancing specifically as they do with life/money management
overall. I know plenty of people with regular f/t jobs that have gotten in
debt to dangerous levels, faced layoffs, crises, etc. Freelancing seems to
have little to do with it.

As for going back to a f/t job, freelancing for X years might be problematic
for _some_ employers, but certainly not all. I get approached on a fairly
regular basis, and while I never say never, I've not had a serious offer
that's been even remotely compelling, either from a responsibility or
financial angle.

Gentle plug: these sorts of topics will be explored in more detail at
<http://indieconf.com>

------
fierarul
A must read for any would-be freelancer. Freelancing doesn't mean just sitting
in a Starbucks with your MacBook Pro.

~~~
jacquesm
Neither is it a litany of misery.

~~~
fierarul
I didn't see it that way. It was a bit negative but in a relaxed manner. I
certainly didn't read it as a litany of misery. If you also read the comments
you might find yourself laughing a bit or at least finding common patterns
with your own experiences.

The reason I've said people should read stuff like this is because I see too
much accent being put on the positive side of freelancing / startups and very
little on the hard part.

------
jlees
A lot of this essay reminds me of the beginning of a startup. When days are
long and sleep is optional and sparks are flying and people expect you to have
cleaned the toilet because you've been in all day. (Except you've been
sleeping, because you were up til 10am coding.)

The difference is the endless hand-to-mouth treadmilly cashflow problem
transforms into something... well, similar and yet different, but I found it a
lot more palatable than the idea of constantly writing blog posts for
Calacanis^W^W^W^W^W chasing clients for tuppence a time.

------
Tichy
Once you have some savings in the bank, it is a lot less stressful. For me
then, a time without contracts is not a loss. I have enough other things to
do, like working on my own projects that hopefully will eventually get me out
of the consulting circle for good.

I also think as a freelancer it is easier to meet a lot of people. For one
thing, you typically see more different companies. But there is also more
incentive to go to technology meetups and networking events.

------
Aqua_Geek
Wow. This pretty accurately describes my feelings as an "independent
contractor."

"A vacation day is a day you’re making zero money." For anyone looking into
becoming a freelancer/independent contractor/consultant/whatever you want to
call it, I cannot emphasize this enough. I've been doing this for a little
over a year now, and I cannot even begin to describe the feeling of "Hey, a
day off! Wait, that means I'm making a big fat 0 today." Yes, you need to
unplug and get away every once and a while, but vacation time starts looking
very different when put in that context.

That being said, if you want to be your own boss, live by your own schedule,
not be beholden to anyone else, etc start a business where you can make money
when you're NOT at your desk.

------
kthxbye
If you have to work around the clock, can't take a vacation, and can't afford
medical insurande, doesn't that mean your business idea is shit and doesn't
hold?

Easier to bash the whole concept of starting your own business, instead of
admitting failure I suppose...

------
petercooper
Seems a bit ranty, but I'll agree that the mortgage thing is a bit of a PITA.
I went through a broker and only needed to show 3 years of tax returns but I
know of self employed people who've set up companies, employed themselves,
then filtered their savings through the company as paychecks to qualify for
mortgages. (The only downside being you end up paying taxes again on the money
"earned" in this new employment in order to keep it legal.)

Why a few tax returns can't suffice is beyond me. A few years of working for
yourself and making a decent income looks a lot better on paper than having
held a job for 3 months to me.

