

Ask HN: How do you know when you're ready to start freelancing? - showsover

I got fired last week, and have since been looking for work.
Being fired shook some of my confidence, which is why I&#x27;m asking here.<p>I&#x27;m a pretty standard PHP &#x2F; MySql kinda guy, with some experience in JS (jQuery and Angular, together with some Nodejs) and knowledge about Java and C# and Linux.<p>My experience spans about 2 - 3 years.<p>How do I know the time&#x27;s right (for me) to start freelancing? Either locally or remote?
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specialdragon
It's going to relate to you as a person, whether you're 'right' for
freelancing.

I'm not a freelancer, but I have some experience of helping set up other
companies, so perhaps questions to help you decide for yourself (and the
reasoning behind asking them).

1\. Can you relate to people? Are you happy in a social environment? Can you
'market' yourself? Part of freelancing is you're going to need to find work
for yourself. If you're happy cold calling and asking a company if they need
work done then it'll work out, but you need to be able to sell yourself.

2\. Are you self motivated? It's all very well getting out of bed to travel to
somewhere you /have/ to work, but actually doing it for yourself when you
could just hit that snooze button until midday, and then play some of that new
game you just got...

3\. Are you good with numbers? Starting out, you're probably going to be doing
your own taxes, it's dire, and something that is frequently put off until the
last minute. However, you're going to need to balance your own books, or hire
an accountant ( which increases the initial money you need to earn ).

4\. What capital do you have? If you get no money at all for the next 6
months, can you still survive? People throw figures around all the time, but
the one that (for some unknown reason), has stuck with me is 1 year. Do you
have enough in the bank to survive for a year without work, scraping by?

I can't answer the 'local or remote' part. It'll be related to what you know,
what you want to be programming/doing, where in the world you are. Essentially
- the opportunities around you.

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Communitivity
I used to be a freelancer, and plan to be one again someday. The thing about
freelancing is risk vs reward. If you are good enough at selling, delivery,
and juggling then the money you can make is astounding, especially if you can
travel to wherever you need to go (client pays travel costs). This potential
reward comes with a pretty high risk. There will be weeks where you have no
income, if you hit a bad spot in the economy maybe even a month with no
income. Having periods without income is not just a possibility, but happens
to just about everyone at some point.

This means you'll need self discipline. Until you get enough squirreled to
survive just on your bank account for 3mos you must squirrel away every cent
you can.

It also means that 3mos is just the bare bones parachute. You need to save
money for medical emergencies, car emergencies, relative visits, conferences,
etc.

You also might be thinking, well I made $100k at my last job, I can make that
freelancing. Problem is you are now covering your own medical insurance, and a
host of other things that were cheaper or paid by the company when you
collected a paycheck. As an average figure you will need 1.6 times your salary
to have the equivalent standard of living. So you'd need $160k. As an aside,
your company probably bills you out at a 2x - 3x multiple, so this is not as
much of a cost to corporations as it sounds. Of course, when you start you may
be working for smaller companies who can't hire the big firms like where you
used to work, so it might be big to them.

You'll also work much harder as a freelancer if you are going to succeed.
You'll need to spend between 40-60 hours a week on client work to keep clients
happy (more like 30-40 once you get fully established, get a rhythm, and get
regular repeat clients), then an additional 20-30 hours marketing yourself.
The good news is that you're your own boss. Except...you're not. The clients
now become your bosses, until you are established enough that you are turning
down work, or better yet farming it out to trusted freelancer friends for a 7%
cut of the work.

Marketing yourself is key. You asked how you can tell you are ready. If you're
reputation is not such that you are getting at least one unsolicited query a
week asking to talk to you about a job opportunity, then you're going to have
to work hard on marketing, very hard. I'd recommend you find a corporate job
in that case, and work on building your reputation: speak at conferences for
free, contribute to open source projects, blog, participate on the
professional social sites (quora, LinkedIn, stack overflow,reddit for
starters). I get several unsolicited queries a week, and I don't feel my
reputation is where I want it to be yet to go back into freelancing.

On risk there is always the legal risk, and you can protect yourself
better...incorporate before any consulting as an S or C, and get liability
insurance. Std caveat: I am not a lawyer, and no part of this post is legal
advice in any way, merely an expression of personal opinion. Have I scared you
yet? If so, good. Freelancing is a roller-coaster ride full of risk, where you
work harder for mostly the same std of living. If you are good, and lucky, you
can make much more money than you ever would at a salary and grow your
consulting into a lifestyle business. Just remember that for every 100 there
convinced they are the lucky ones, one of them will make it. Don't become a
freelancer as a way to get rich, the optimal approach for that is to be a hard
working corporate person at a company, ideally a B-Series startup. Want more
risk and potential reward? Then join a startup. For me being a freelancer is
about freedom. I get to do the work I want to do (as long as money is not
tight), have freedom on when to do it (as long as client deadlines are met),
and do it the way I want to do it.

Some of you may have noticed...I said I was a freelancer, and plan to be one
again. I got married, had a child, had several illnesses in the older
generation of my family, and needed something with less risk. I'm now getting
back to the point of freelancing/a software company and when I do, I will let
you know how it goes.

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Disruptive_Dave
I've been freelancing for 3 years now, on the back-end of a 10-year agency
stint. (Note - I'm a marketing/growth hacking guy.) Here's what I've learned:

\- You gotta love the hustle. Not "be able to" hustle. LOVE the hustle.
Otherwise you're set up for misery, and we don't freelance to be unhappy - you
can do that in a cubicle farm. What do I mean by hustle? Self promotion,
client follow-up, content creation, book keeping, socializing, skill
development, and so on. \- Your core skills don't matter. There are a million
out there like you. I've seen many many great developers, engineers, and
designers fail at the freelance game simply b/c they didn't appreciate how
much sales is involved. \- On that note, find a way to stand out. We don't
freelance to fit in with the industry standards. This is your chance to be you
and find clients who appreciate that. My first website had "Kick Ass" as the
first thing you see. I've since progressed to using the "F" word a bit more. I
can get away with it. And furthermore, I don't want to work for someone who
sees a curse word or nontraditional self-branding and gets uppity about it.
Not for me. \- Money. Learn to manage it. Learn to let go of the anxiety.
Learn the difference between taking a less-than-desirable job to put food on
the table and selling your happiness out of fear.

This turned into a bit of "Freelance Starter Kit". Sorry. But, if you can
mentally own the areas I described above, you can do it. Learn as you go,
pivot, move and shake.

Good luck, Dave -

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wikwocket
Here are some thoughts about whether the time is right for you to start
freelancing:

\- Technical ability: I wouldn't worry here; if you have the skills you
mention, then you probably have the ability to solve meaningful business
problems with them.

\- Business ability: This is much more important. Are you able and willing to
get out there and network? Can you talk with people and find pain points you
can solve? Would you be comfortable constantly working to fill your pipeline,
while delivering projects?

\- Family state: Are you supporting a spouse or children? Do you need
comprehensive health insurance, or are you a twenty-something who is basically
invincible?

\- Financial state: Do you have some savings that you can use as a runway for
ramping up? What yearly income would you need to make to maintain your
standard of living?

These are just some discussion-starters, but hopefully they are helpful.

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akamaka
I've made several attempts at switching to freelance so far, and always gave
up out of extreme frustration with my clients.

My advice is to look at this from a totally different angle: optimize for
learning. If you're under 40, you're still early in your career and the
knowledge you pick up now will pay off in the long run. Take the most
interesting work you can find. Often, bigger projects with bigger teams are
going to teach you more. If not, grab whatever freelance work is available.
When an interesting corporate job comes up, ditch the freelance at once and
jump in and learn as much as you can!

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johnjlocke
If you don't mind answering, what were your frustrations with clients, and
could there have been a way to avoid those pitfalls?

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embro
Put yourself into a mindset that the best thing that happened in 2013 was you
getting fired.

Good luck!

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stevejalim
Sorry to hear about you being fired. Hit me up directly (email in profile) and
I'll ping you a copy of a guide to going freelance I wrote

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stevejalim
Thanks for getting in touch showsover. Hope the info helps you decide.

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showsover
And thank you for reaching out.

I hope it will!

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davidsmith8900
\- 1st of all, I want to apologize for getting fired but still I dont think
that should shake up your confidence. But in regards to freelancing, its all
about marketing and executing. No matter how good you are, if you don't market
yourself well, you'll never get a break because it is very competitive.
However, if you not good at executing but you are good at marketing, people
will love to give you a try. Especially at a cheap rate.

