Ask HN: What is stopping you from becoming a freelancer? - putnam
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gt_
After freelancing for 3 years, the most difficult part for me was getting paid
for my work.

Communicating job requirements was not always difficult. I even enjoyed the
process and the challenge. But, I learned there was no way to charge for the
work I did both accurately _and_ ethically. This resulted in constantly taking
one for the team and doing a ton of extra free work. That extra work also made
transitions between jobs require scheduling days or weeks of _just in case_
time.

Checks arrived late about 9 out of times. 2 weeks late was the norm but up to
3 months late is what I learned to expect. There was apparently nothing I
could do about this. I used a PO box to isolate issues with paper checks and
communicated electronic payment info on all invoices.

I didn’t like the varying levels of quality demanded and the terms of
negotiating them. I really like doing great work, but almost more importantly,
I _needed_ to do great work for my portfolio. I would make sacrifices for
projects that would help me get more work. So, I would take the job with an
agreement to do that, and later be told “we decided we just need something
quick. spend as little time as possible” due surprise money/time constraints.
This led to work of significantly quality lower than what was already in my
portfolio, unless I did more extra free work to make it good.

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collyw
Clients. I do mainly backend work which ends up in house and doesn't give you
much of a portfolio to show off, so its difficult to get clients without
having something to show off your work. Front end stuff seems more likely to
get you freelance stuff but Javascript isn't a nice ecosystem.

~~~
BjoernKW
Don't worry so much about technologies or gaudy, showy stuff.

What are the business problems you could solve for potential clients? Make a
portfolio of those.

~~~
Maultasche
This is good advice. Most clients don't care what you use as long as you can
solve their business problems. You could use toothpicks and duct tape, and as
long as their business problems get solved, they are happy.

Also, they care more about the value of the solution to them than how many
hours you spend doing it. If you spend an hour doing something that increases
their revenue by $500k a year, they'd generally be quite happy handing over
$20k for that hour's worth of work.

You may find some that are extremely fussy and try to negotiate
unrealistically low prices that would have you working for long hours. Those
people do not understand the value of your work, and aren't worth working for.

Focus on what results you can achieve rather than exactly how you will achieve
them. When I want my pipe leak fixed, I don't care what tools or parts the
plumber uses as long as it gets fixed.

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afarrell
I don't know how to estimate the length of time it takes to build a piece of
software if I've never built something like it. I don't know where to learn
this skill. I don't know how to go about researching where to learn this
skill.

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myinitialsaretk
I've worked as a freelancer for extended periods of time. Always get fed up
with:

1\. Networking and selling myself as a freelancer. 2\. Getting paid in a
timely manner.

Any marketplace I've found is a race to the bottom in terms of quality and
price.

~~~
BjoernKW
> 1\. Networking and selling myself as a freelancer.

That's the best part of it. Networking and sales done properly means giving
away some value for free so potential clients consider it beneficial to work
with you for additional value.

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tytytytytytytyt
Don't know where to get work that's worth it and my day job keeps me
comfortable. It sounds like it'd be great working on some lucrative govt
contracts, though, like that one to replace CA's Social Security system?, that
was so insanely overpriced people were coming out of the woodwork offering to
do it for far lower prices.

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zcrackerz
It seems difficult to get into unless you know the right people. All of the
freelancing sites are filled with listings looking for very specific
technologies. Many have ridiculously small budgets or tons of bids that are
impossible to compete with.

~~~
BjoernKW
If you don't know the right people you'll never know the right people. In
other words: If you don't try to meet those people chances are you never will.

A successful freelancing career in the software industry can be built on
personal expertise, effort and on gradually building up a personal network.
Existing contacts certainly help but they're by no means necessary.

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twobyfour
Been there before. Didn't like the part of the work commonly referred to as
account management. Hated always having to be selling and closing.

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mant
Health Insurance

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goblins
My general lack of any skill

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SirLJ
it's too much work, e.g. time spent to look for clients...

~~~
putnam
Tell me more

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lafar6502
General shittiness of such work

