
My first month freelancing - Alan01252
http://alanhollis.com/first-month-freelancing/
======
tptacek
_People want to pay you hourly/per project, convince them it’s better for both
you and them to pay you daily. I’ll explain why in a future post._

I've burned many thousands of words here arguing the same point and will
hopefully be able to spare you all a retread, so let me just say that I think
a _lot_ of good habits and useful dynamics emerge organically from this one
decision.

If you make no other careful strategic decisions about your consulting
business, make this one: bill daily.

~~~
marcamillion
Do you mean 'quoting' daily, or 'billing' daily?

There is a major difference. The main one being that if 'bill daily' you are
putting a burden on your client to have to think about paying you every single
day. At some point, it becomes annoying.

Thoughts?

~~~
patio11
Quoted daily ("Work is on a time and materials basis. Rate: $2,000 per day.").
Invoices will typically cover a few weeks of work, depending on the tempo of
your engagements, your relationship with a customer, etc.

~~~
ams6110
This has to be regionally dependent. Around here there is no way you would get
$2,000 day for web development. Best I have ever gotten is half that, for a
one-day "emergency" engagement (i.e. drop everything and help me).

~~~
patio11
I just plucked a number out of the air, rather than picking a number which I
felt was representative of web development.

Also, I've harped on this a time or two, but there are people who get $2,000 a
day for something which is indistinguishable from web development in terms of
activities performed but which is sold as accomplishing business goals
("making lots of money") with incidental reference to programming.

P.S. Charge more for emergency engagements. The business stopping for a day is
worth more than $1,000 even if the business is a taco truck. Don't do
professional work for taco trucks.

~~~
Alan01252
patio11, I'd like to say much of my stance on negotiating rates with people
has come directly from reading comments you've made on hacker news in the
past. Thank you!

If anything I still think I'm too lenient but this I'm sure will grow as my
confidence dealing with clients grows.

------
nohup
Great to hear about your progress.

I have been freelancing for the past 4 years and have done so for 6 years in
my programming life of 11 years. All said and done, I find doing a honest job
in estimation, no over billing and writing code to the best of your ability is
the key to success.

Documenting your own knowledge helps a _lot_. Knowing what is the latest and
greatest, even if you have never tried it helps in keeping your client
informed about their choices.

Not living in your comfort zone is the best thing you can do to yourself. What
I mean is, don't give your clients what you know, give them what is good for
them even if that means you have to learn a new tool/trick/language.

Maintain a healthy pipeline, it helps in keeping the stress down.

On a day to day basis freelancing is more stressful then a regular job, but on
an average over a month or quarter you will find it to be more relaxing and it
lets have more time for yourself.

Best of luck.

------
stevejalim
Shameless, shameless plug alert: if you found Alan's post interesting, you may
also like the book I've almost finished writing. Check out
<http://freelancedeveloperbook.com>

The plan is to ship it before the end of June - am publishing via leanpub.com
(great experience so far) and it'll be a paid-for book to cover the (many,
many, _many_) hours I've put into it.

When it's ready, I'll make a sample available so you can try before you buy,
and will be pulling out a dozen names from the early-sign-up hat for a free
copy.

So, if you're interested, please do sign up.

~~~
philjones88
Signed up too. I kind of started freelance work but like Alan's post, the c#
freelance world was either "contract" or "permi".

Found some good guys to do work with now on a kind of "per project" approach
which is good.

Interested to read the book as I found my weaknesses to be:

1\. Charging for my work. I still find I undercharge as I enjoy the work and
feel awkward asking for large amounts per billable hour. I'm now kind of
trapped on low billable hours with my initial clients...

2\. Finances. I've learnt enough and in the UK you can survive for the first 6
months without an accountant. I'm probably going to get one soon to handle the
more complex tax/pay stuff.

3\. Work out a proper hourly rate. Don't use the same broken formula I did
thinking I can work 7 billable hours per day. I end up with about 4.5. I
didn't account for the gaps between work. I now understand why freelancers
have high rates.

~~~
stevejalim
Thanks Phil. That's exactly the kind of stuff I'm including in the book,
although - as this thread proves - there is no cut-and-dried answer to
rates/billing, so my approach is to set out a sensible baseline for stuff, to
help people get up and running. As time goes on and feedback comes in, version
1.x of the book will probably take that further and provide more detail where
people are asking for it. Because I'm publishing via leanpub.com, updates will
be pushed to owners of 1.0 for free.

------
throwaway1979
I'm impressed with your persistance! For the activities you list in "How I
found work" ... did you start these before the first month? I'm curious how
long it takes to get work flowing through the pipeline.

The blog seems interesting and I wish you the best of luck. I think I hit a
bug though ... When I make the font larger/smaller, the different elements of
the screen move around and reposition themselves for a few seconds after.
Also, the code samples disappear in an hap hazard manner. Am using Chrome on a
MacBook Pro.

~~~
Alan01252
Absolutely everything was started from April 21'st. Which is the date I
returned from 8 months travelling. It took me a few weeks to get into a
routine again and see friends, family etc. The first blog post was published
on 2012/05/03 which is when I started really hunting for work, so it has been
just over a month in total.

Thanks for the bug reports. I'll investigate as soon as the site calms down a
bit. :)

~~~
benholmen
I tried to subscribe to your site in Google Reader but it could not detect
your feed. Since you're running Wordpress I was able to locate
<http://alanhollis.com/feed/> but you should probably add some link tags in
your header that indicate the location of your RSS feed.

I'm eager to hear more about your progress. Good luck!

~~~
Alan01252
Thanks benholmen. I'll put this under the 'things to learn banner'. I don't
use rss so didn't even think about it. I'll be getting it sorted asap.

edit: Subtle button now under the post :)

~~~
voltagex_
I think there should also be an RSS tag somewhere in the markup to let Google
Reader et al find your feed automagically.

~~~
Alan01252
Done. Thank you.

------
vitomd
I am a freelancer too, and this podcast it's really good.
<http://rubyfreelancers.com> . For getting more clients ask your current
client for referrals, if you made a good work they will be happy to help you.
And use social media to maintan contact and reach other clients and
freelancers (They too can send you some work )

------
alinajaf
Great post. I'm in London and started freelancing a few months ago and I'd
agree with everything you've said. Only things I would suggest:

* Contracts. Watch this talk by Obie Fernandez[1] and take a look at his Master Services Agreement + Statement of Work bundle (paid for, but totally worth it). Not only does it protect you to some extent legally but you come across as a lot more professional to clients.

* Charge more. I have a comparable amount of experience and I'm charging around double what you've listed on your price card. Many good things fall out of charging more. Even if you don't intend to charge a higher rate, I would at least quote higher on your price card page for more negotiation room.

Good hunting!

[1] [http://www.infoq.com/presentations/fernandez-sales-do-the-
hu...](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/fernandez-sales-do-the-hustle)

~~~
Alan01252
Thanks for this alinajaf.

Pricing is tricky. I've already been turned down by a few companies at my
current rate because I was too expensive. This put me off raising it higher.
I'm still unsure as to whether having pricing on the website is a good thing
or not, it's always tricky to know what to sell yourself for.

~~~
alinajaf
> I've already been turned down by a few companies at my current rate because
> I was too expensive.

In this market, you really, really _really_ are not too expensive.

Some concrete sources for PHP work:

* <http://hackerjobs.co.uk/> \- Quality of clients that advertise there is generally high.

* If you don't mind dealing with recruiters, cwjobs.co.uk will happily email you a steady stream of PHP contracts at the £350+/day range.

* The big publishing companies seemed to be hiring both fulltime and contract staff in perpetuity. I'd follow up at PHP London, as they seem to hang around there.

You should be going to PHP London anyway, with business cards (side rant: not
a single freelance developer I've met at a meetup has had a business card on
hand. The same developers complain about how hard it is to find work. Don't be
one of these developers).

> This put me off raising it higher

I know the feeling. There are clients in the world that can afford higher
rates, but it's hard to remember this if you get turned down a few times in a
row.

If you're nervous about raising your rates, I would suggest that you try
raising the quote by £50 at every interview you go to. If it's too expensive
for the client and you really need the work, you can always invite
negotiation.

Other than that just stick to your guns, and remember that there are economic
situations that clients can be in such they can afford to pay quadruple your
daily rate without raising an eyebrow.

If you'd like to grab a beverage sometime and talk shop, details are on my
profile :)

~~~
Alan01252
Thanks! I looked on your site was hoping for a skype link but couldn't find
anything but an email address.

I'm gong to try and make the next PHP London event, hope to see you there.
I'll make sure I bring business cards :).

------
marcamillion
I will ask a question here that I wrote on the original link, because I think
it may be useful for others here.

I recently started freelancing (the last 12 - 18months) also, and one thing I
did - to generate new business - was wrote a script that sends me a bunch of
leads. Right now, it's primarily from Craigslist, but I will add other
sources.

I showed it to a friend and fellow web dev and he loved it. So that made me
start wondering if others would find a service like that useful.

Would you pay, say $9/mo, to get a handful of curated Craigslist leads (5 -
10) sent to your inbox every weekday?

Thanks.

P.S. The reason I would sell access to these leads is because I can't manage
everything. There are some leads that want someone local, there are some that
want say an iPhone or FB App developer - none of which I do.

~~~
freshfey
Count me in, I'd love to see what you came up with.

~~~
marcamillion
I wish I had a URL that you go to immediately and put in your email address.

Ok, will try and get that up asap =)

------
xiaoma
I've been job searching since moving to SF last month. As a junior-mid level
guy with a pretty generalist background (non-web ruby, iOS, JS, even some
flash games), I've gotten a ton of feelers from recruiters and companies
alike, but most are looking for and even desperate for more senior people.

With a sense of impending doom, I got onto oDesk to do some consulting myself.
What a humbling experience that has been! I must have gotten outbid on the
first 10 jobs I went for, and finally had to take one at ~ $10/hour. With that
experience it became easier to get a 2nd. I find myself a lot more impressed
with the OP's first month than I would have before my own experience looking
for freelance work.

~~~
Alan01252
Thanks Xioma,

It's interesting really as to when you start classifying yourself as senior? I
didn't really think too much about it when I started applying for roles as I
had gained that confidence in my own ability.

That being said, I was almost put off working for one company because I
thought at the time I might not be experienced enough. This turned out not to
be the case at all and I'm so thankful I rode it out rather than letting my
own self doubt influence my decision.

There are going to be companies out there with people in "senior" positions
with less experience/skills and talent than you. In some cases considerably
less. Don't sell yourself short because of a label you've given yourself.

~~~
xiaoma
Thanks for the encouragement! In some cases there are pretty hard HR filters
that look at my LinkedIn and see I only have 1 years as dev and was a pure
business guy before that. In others, I truly don't have experience with all
the stuff in their stack.

Where possible, I'll avoid the term junior for here on out.

------
wilhelm
> Get the specification of work nailed down as thoroughly as you can, it’s
> mutually beneficial to you and your customers.

I hate specs.

You won't know how to solve a problem before you've already solved it, so your
spec will be wrong.

My customers pay for my time. Together, through an iterative process involving
myself, the designers and the customer, we find good technical solutions to
the problems they need solved.

I can tell them “this solution is difficult” or “this solution is trivial”,
and they can judge the cost-benefit ratios along the way.

You've paid for 300 hours of my time. Let's make the most of that.

------
moystard
I keep the thought in my head of freelancing in the future, and whether I will
do it or not, it is always nice to read about the starting of the business.

I will follow your blog to see if you give more details about how you found
your initial contracts, why should you ask to be paid daily, and how your
enterprise will evolve on the mid-term.

Thank you anyway for sharing these details.

------
Killswitch
Nice post... I used to do freelance a few years ago, now I am building my own
stuff. Thought about doing freelance again so I can leave my day job, but I'm
iffy on it as it's not stable reliable income.

------
scottmkroberts
Sounds good are you enjoying it so far, compared to full time work? I am just
starting up this month freelancing/contracting for iOS apps so hopefully I can
find some work.

~~~
Alan01252
It's going well so far, I've had some really down days, just sending out
emails and getting no responses. Or getting close to a project starting and it
not happening. Fortunately it's all worked itself out in the end. I've been
lucky!

~~~
superprime
it sounds like you've also been persistent.

------
startupstella
I'm actually working on a project that would help freelancers get qualified
leads by doing all the scopework/qualifying for them.

I've chatted with a few of you HNers about what you'd like to see, but I'd
appreciate any more opinions for matchist.com in this quick survey:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFI4cjQ...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFI4cjQxQmRFR3FoUlNZRzVVRkJWeUE6MQ)

------
garagemc2
Speaking as person that hires freelance developers it would probably be
helpful if, on your blog, you mentioned what languages and frameworks you can
develop in.

~~~
Alan01252
Hi garagemc2. Where specifically were you looking so I can improve?

<http://alanhollis.com/> has an overview of my skills.
<http://alanhollis.com/cv/> has more details of my experience.

------
nollidge
Looked at another article on your blog [0] and the Crayon plugin acts really
strangely in Chrome/Win7. As I mouse over a code block it keeps disappearing
and reappearing.

EDIT: Also...where's the RSS link? If I just follow on Twitter, I'll probably
miss any updates.

[0] [http://alanhollis.com/silicon-milkroundabout-coding-
competit...](http://alanhollis.com/silicon-milkroundabout-coding-competition-
getting-started/)

------
HyprMusic
As someone who used to rely solely on freelance income, but having wound up
freelancing full time at a consultancy company, it's refreshing to hear your
experiences. I often dream of going back to freelancing and working on my own
side-projects, but I fear that I won't have as much luck as I did before in
getting new work.

------
c250d07
I know a few others doing freelance design work, and they're also pretty good.
They are doing very well, but I think the market for freelance programmers is
a different story right now.

------
jere
>There are a lot of failed companies with legacy code which now needs to be
maintained.

If they were failed companies, they _wouldn't_ need you to manage legacy code.

~~~
greyboy
What he's saying is that there are plenty of companies who have purchased
software from companies that have since folded. Obviously, any support from
that defunct company would then also be gone.

------
ilija139
So you actually only worked for 7 days? (£1,785.25 / 250 ~ 7)

Also you say you entered a programming competition, can you share which and
why you chose that one?

~~~
Alan01252
A bit more than than that, unfortunately I haven't got exactly £250 from every
client so far. And finding work, is work ;). I have had to negotiate as it's
early days, and work for a reduced rate is better than no work. I haven't yet
taken the first offer any company has offered me though, hence my advice in
the post to negotiate.

I entered a competition ran by a company supporting
<http://siliconmilkroundabout.com/>, purely because the competition appealed
to me, I had some free time, and I thought it would be a good way of promoting
myself before the event. Unfortunately the competition wasn't as successful as
I hoped it would be (very few entries). I came second overall, it's another
example of work on my github profile, and I got to play with Python for the
fist time, so it was a positive experience.

------
smoyer
I think there's really only one thing to say when you've got such a short time
under your belt:

Don't give up and your persistence will pay off. Good luck!

