
Ask HN: Lined up clients, gave 2 weeks, offered double salary - corpshackles
I got myself into a predicament, I&#x27;ve been with my current employer just shy of 2 years, and have strongly felt undervalued the last ~10 months. I make just over 6-figures at my w2 and lined up 2 clients to effectively bump my take home to $150k.<p>I gave my employer my two weeks, and their first counter was a supposed title&#x2F;salary bump I was apparently due for, still less than what I&#x27;d lined up. I respectfully declined. Now I&#x27;m staring down a counter-offer that&#x27;s near double my current salary and worth almost $50k more than what my contracts will pay..<p>I know counters should really never be accepted, but even if only for 3 months, it&#x27;s a lot of money. I certainly feel I&#x27;ve contributed enough to command the salary, and can always pickup more clients.<p>Which bridge do I burn?<p>Doing my own thing is enticing, but cash is cash is cash.
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brudgers
When evaluating a consulting pipeline, the expected revenue is the ideal
revenue discounted for projects that don't happen, for projects that start but
are abandoned, for clients that don't pay by design or economic changes, for
projects that get delayed, for projects that get stalled, for projects that go
to someone else, and so on.

If the target revenue is $100k/year, then the dollar value in the pipeline
must be some multiple of that...probably at least three or four and often five
or ten or more depending on competition, economics, client business models,
client corporate structure and many other factors outside the consultant's
control.

A _potential_ client is not a client. A client is an organization with a
signed contract and checks that don't bounce. Asking for a retainer to start
the work is one way to separate clients from _potential_ clients.

One last thing, a consultant is not their own boss. A consultant has at least
as many bosses as they have client's and there's no hierarchy. None of them
care what the other said or needs or wants when it comes to bossing you
around.

Good luck.

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chrisbennet
Since you have 2 clients lined up, I assume you are working direct and not
through an agency. If you are in the US, $150K 1099 will probably end up being
less than $100K W2 (working for an employer) situation.

Here’s some data points:

1099 status means you pay all of the SS/FICA (~15%) deduction instead of half
you pay as an employee.

Health insurance costs are insane and are getting worse. My health insurance
is going from $800/mo to $1600/mo next month for 2 people. My bottom of the
line health insurance will have ~$10K deductible next year if I keep the same
plan. If your wife/husband has health insurance through work, the situation is
a lot easier.

You can only charge for work you do for the client. Printer died? You can’t
charge for the time it takes going to OfficeMax and getting another. I work
about 5 billable hours a day. You will get paid for a lot less hours than you
spend in the office. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you will get paid for
2000 hours a year.

When the contract ends you stop getting paid until you line up another gig.
Being a “man of leisure” as I call it, can cut into you income a lot.
Contracting involves assuming lots of risk and you need to charge for assuming
that risk.

I am absolutely not trying to scare you out of contracting but you do probably
need to recalibrate your costs and bill accordingly. You should bill at least
$100/hr.

As for the “not having a boss” thing; it depends on your attitude. Like a
lawyer, I provide a service to my clients. I dont think a lawyer feels like
his clients are his bosses and I don’t either. It’s an attitude thing. Picking
good clients is a good skill to develop. Raise your prices and you’ll get
better clients.

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digitaltrees
Can you hire someone to handle the client work? If so, use part of or all of
the salary increase to cover payroll. Stay in your job, do well in the role to
be fair to your existing employer but get 4 more clients. Then when you’re at
6 clients, leave. Treat the salary increase as your seed capital to build a
business.

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Mz
As a rule of thumb, consulting work needs to pay twice as much as a salaried
job. Salaried jobs include benefits and you typically have an hour of unpaid
work for every hour of paid work when you go it alone.

So, your clients need to be paying you $400k to be worth as much as a $200k
salaried position.

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BjoernKW
If they can double that kind of salary that easily there's something off.
Assuming you're not the world's worst negotiator, why couldn't they afford to
pay you more before? $100k is a lot of money. Doubling that without so much as
a thought seems pretty frivolous to me but it doesn't necessarily mean they
suddenly value your work more.

If you take their offer in the best case the deal will amount to golden
handcuffs. Worst case, they'll try to extract all the domain-specific
knowledge you have and you'll be let go on the next possible occasion.

Assuming your prospective consulting / contracting deals are more or less
certain then you have a fairly safe platform to start a consulting business
from. You'll have revenue right from the start, distributed among 2 clients,
which significantly reduces your risk. Most importantly, with 2 clients lining
up you already have the promising foundations for a potentially prosperous
network, which arguably is worth a lot more than the money alone.

If you deliver high quality results and continue to expand your network and
market your business $150k certainly isn't the ceiling for what you can
achieve with a consulting business (while $200k in your current job might be).

Finally, depending on your location and on how close-knit your particular
industry is burning bridges with those 2 clients might very well mean you'll
have a much harder time starting your own consulting business later on.

Oh, and doing something for the money alone, particularly something shady like
accepting and then moving on after 3 months anyway, is never a good idea.

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dozzie
If you decide to turn down the new job(s), you could ask them if they will top
the counteroffer. If they don't, well, you were going to turn them down
anyway.

Then: are you happy where you are? Will you be happy continuing in the same
setting and in the same role doing the same tasks? (I would at my current
position, as I still have too many ideas left to try.) Or is it a good time
for a change in your environment and maybe see and learn something new and
fresh? (I was in such a position before, and I didn't realize at the time that
this was the case, so my changing jobs was just a lucky choice.)

One more thing. Do you earn enough for you not to care about finances? It
won't be long before you forget about how much you bring home, but if you
choose the job that's not satisfying, you'll feel it every day.

~~~
corpshackles
I'm content where I am. I earn enough now to generally not have to worry about
ordinary day to day expenses. But I've got young kids, college funds to grow,
and a future I'm planning for.

I see myself going at it alone eventually, but the safety of a job, even if
only short-term, is comforting.

~~~
le-mark
Take the counter, keep the contracts, and find a sub contractor. I’m available
for some (full stack java) work, email in profile.

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briandoll
Leave. You'll line up lots more clients, and if they want you badly, they can
hire you back, as a consultant, at your given rate, on your time schedule.

~~~
corpshackles
Agreed. But I'm thinking in terms of hours worked. It's easy to find another
$100k/yr job or more clients that will do $75/hr.

But does that mean more hours worked in a day? I don't think I can charge
significantly more hourly and find clients as easily. I see that as equally
challenging if not impossible as finding another $200k/yr job.

~~~
meric
It's morally good to fulfil promises - why not do contracting for these two
clients - see how you like it, after a while figure out if you want to and can
find a way expand the business, or find another w2? You could tell your
current employer you promised these guys, so you want to do it for a while,
and ask if the $200k can be delayed 6 months? You can ask your employer -
Surely they aren't wanting to pay you money to break people's trust?

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asidiali
Do both. Hire cheaper devs than yourself from Upwork or the likes to help
build out the contract work. Execute and collect!

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jaclaz
What do you mean by "lined up" the two clients?

I mean, do these people expect you to start working for them (because you made
them believe that _somehow_ )?

If this is the case, I don't see how you can tell them "Hmmm, sorry, I changed
my mind, I am not going to leave my current employment anymore." and get away
with it.

Still supposing that the two clients (wishing to give you combined 150K per
year) are in the industry, most probably in an executive role.

On the other hand, putting for a moment aside the actual amount of money your
current employer offered you, it is a 50% raise, it may happen that they
_somehow_ undervalued by accident your contributions, but 50% seems a bit too
much to be an oversight.

Such a huge difference would undermine the (IMHO needed) fiduciary
relationship with them.

~~~
corpshackles
Yep pretty much. I said I was going to burn bridges..

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jotjotzzz
Taking the counter and leaving in 3 months = burning bridges. They expect you
to stay for the long haul. However, as stated, they can also hire you back as
a consultant. They are doing all of this so they can cover their a __with
replacing you. If you stay, you may end up being let go later on. Ask yourself
if you are staying for the long haul or not. If you are, then the offer might
be valid. But don 't leave after 3 months.

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canterburry
Find a way to do both! It's how companies get started.

For your clients, do ONLY what YOU have to do and outsource the rest. Maybe
all YOU really need to do for them is project management, requirements, UX
specs etc... Do you really need to write everything yourself? Implement code
review to check on your contractors.

Be the face but you don't have to be the muscle.

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atsaloli
Nice work! (Good problem to have.)

How long are the two clients for? (6 months contract? 12 months?) I am
wondering if you couldn't do both if you hired a personal assistant to help
with things like laundry, shopping, driving, etc. =) (Too bad they can't sleep
for you!)

What do you want to do?

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chrisbennet
If you can, make you current employer your 3rd client. I would not take the
counter offer. They didn’t value you before...

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saluki
y, take the money and keep your day job.

Make sure you have a new contract (or your old one) that allows you to do your
own thing on your own time, that being products, a SaaS or consulting.

Consulting is hard work generating 6 figures on your own, even at $75 to
$100/hour. So I think you would bank more with less stress at your $200k/yr
day job.

Instead of consulting I would plan to do products (info) or SaaS in the
future.

Check out Rob Walling's stair step approach.

StartUpsForTheRestOfUs.com

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sharemywin
Have you signed anything with the clients? If you have you might want to look
into "breach of contract" with a lawyer.

~~~
sharemywin
a bad independent contracting agreement could have consequences.

[https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/it-
consultant/independent-...](https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/it-
consultant/independent-contractors-make-sure-your-contract-protects-your-
interests/)

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akulbe
OP: What kind of work would you be doing for the new clients?

