
Ask HN: Australian freelancers, how're you doing? - panjaro
Interested to know the freelancing scenario in Australia, mainly in Melbourne. I&#x27;m planning to leave a full time office job to do freelancing. Not sure how to go about finding clients and if it&#x27;s possible to actually do it full time.
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dos4gw
I've just made the leap myself, leaving my agency job on Feb 10th to start my
own consulting and contracting company. I'm a UX designer specialising in
product design and interaction design for web apps and mobile. I've worked in
UX for 12 years, consulting, agency, startups and enterprise - always wanted
to run my own shop, and I'm finally making it happen. Woohoo!

I found a startup client who I have a small monthly retainer with, and who I'm
doing some short (1 week-ish) contracts for on an ad-hoc basis. The money is
good for the work involved, and the business gets to pay probably about half
the usual cash for a senior UX brain that retains context around their
business. It's win-win at the moment. I'm working hard to make sure I provide
value for them because I know that I'm new to this game.

Finding clients so far has been all about activating my network. I haven't
been able to do outwardly facing marketing stuff while still technically
working at the agency, so once Feb 10 rolls around, I'm kicking that off.

Also, I saw in the comments that you're in Ivanhoe - I'm in Heidelberg
Heights! We'll have to catch up for a beer some time to shoot the shit. ^_^

~~~
panjaro
Ahh Heidelberg, We should definitely catch-up for a beer or two.

~~~
dos4gw
Hit me if you want to connect, hugo@25th.co !

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apapli
If you're looking to go freelancing but aren't yet ready for the jump, perhaps
try asking your employer if you can go part time so you can slowly build up
your client base, rather than suddenly hitting $0 income from day one.

I'm in melbourne and the market seems pretty healthy, however you need to be
fairly specialised. Anything generic (web sites, online stores etc) is totally
saturated, so it's a race to the bottom on hourly rates with Upwork if you
cannot differentiate. I agree with the comments below - get specialised in
something and then leverage those vendors to build your customer base.

As an aside - I'm on the other side of the equation compared with many of the
replies below. I'm a sales & marketing person first up, and a developer by
necessity secondly (PHP & RoR). I have a micro-business on the side which is
gaining more traction than I would like, and think I will need some folk to
help with delivery in the next 2-3 months.

So, if you have some PHP experience and know how to hit APIs with JSON and XML
then perhaps shoot me an email we can keep in touch, as I might be able to
find you a day a week in a couple of months time if you do totally go "cold
turkey" and resign.

~~~
panjaro
My Major Skills are .NET, MS SQL, mainly backend with APIs - comfortable with
JSON and XML - I'll certainly shoot you an email once I'm ready. Thanks a lot
for some hope.

Cheers !

~~~
apapli
Cool. .NET would be good. I just hadn't taught myself that, but I'll need
those skills....

Look forward to hearing from you

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danieltrembath
I've been freelancing in Melbourne almost full time since 2002.

As others have said, the first year or two is very tough and I nearly went
bankrupt. But once you get past that, assuming your work is good, you'll find
enough repeat customers to keep you comfortable.

If you can get some kind of cushy project (say some work from your previous
employer) to help transition then that's a big win.

I would be earning significantly more in a traditional position, but I live a
good life. If I were more business savvy maybe I would be making more than a
normal job.

The quality of life is exceptional. Being your own boss, being in control of
your daily schedule, being able to nip out any time to solve life stuff,
that's all a huge win. I'm 15 years in and very happy, have a strong customer
base, and looking at kids soon it will let me be a stay at home dad.

If you're ever over Hawthorn way I'd be happy to have a coffee with you and
discuss.

~~~
flashman
Just on the SAHD point: make sure you can get blocks of guaranteed
uninterrupted working time. My experience of working at home is that it's
very, very difficult to achieve anything when switching between Dad and Worker
roles, and kids don't understand that at all.

~~~
CyberFonic
On the SAHD score: even more dangerous are stay at home mothers who might hit
on you for some company. Getting roped into various kindy / school related
activities, etc.

Unless you can manage with very little sleep, your productivity is in dire
danger from disruptions.

------
mceoin
Hey Panjaro,

Aussie who runs a dev shop in SF here. Speaking directly about "how to go
about finding clients", here's some things to think about when starting out:

* Portfolio: Everyone is going to ask you for your portfolio, so have that organized before you start doing outreach as this will increase your success rate when doing outbound "marketing". You'll be including this in all first touch correspondence.

* Activate Your Network: Most of the freelancers I speak to find work within their network. It's a nice inbound flow, although a little unpredictable, but the key here is to make sure that everyone who knows you can code (I'm assuming you're a programmer here) knows you're available for work. When you first start, make sure to go out of your way to message your friends, start a conversation, and make sure they know you're in the marketplace. It can be strange marketing to your friends, but getting over that feeling will increase your work pipeline.

* Positioning: We have found that while we can do a whole bunch of stuff (Ruby, Rails, Node, Python, Angular, React, Backbone, etc, etc.), this doesn't position ourself as the first point of call when a friend-of-a-friend is asking for freelancers. More effective for us is to position as specialists in a certain skill (React/Node) so that way we're the go-to for whenever someone is asking for around that skill set. (Note: I have anecdotal evidence to support this, but others may have a different experience)

* Outbound: While effectively all our pipeline is inbound now, in the early days I emailed effectively every design and dev shop in the bay and this generated some contracts. Effort to reward ratio was quite high. Just make sure you have your portfolio included in the email to minimize the back-and-forth. If you have boxes of business cards lying around, put them to work!

Overall, I have found consulting to be a well-paid, mostly unfulfilling line
of employment that allows our team to maximize their time _not_ working.

Good luck!

~~~
panjaro
Very good points, thanks for taking time to write this. Always good to know an
Aussie making progress overseas ! Cheers !

------
pictureperfect
I've found work on the monthly 'Who's Hiring' posts on HN, and from reading
articles posted here by various companies that then had 'we're hiring' links
at the bottom.

Thanks to the low Aussie dollar, and having clients in the US, I currently
work half the hours and get double the pay I was getting in a full-time
development position in Melb.

My advice is to try and find remote work from the US rather than locally. It's
a bit more work, and it you might need to spend some effort convincing the
company you're worth hiring, but if you have the skills it's not too
difficult.

The benefit is that you'll get a much higher rate.

The time differences work out well too if your clients are on the US west-
coast (e.g. Silicon Valley). There's an overlap of a few hours in the
Melbourne morning with the Californian afternoon. This means I can speak with
clients in the morning to provide them with an overview and an update, as well
as get feedback and direction on tasks for the day, then I work while they're
asleep and send status reports/updates at the end of the day. Then while I'm
sleeping, they check out my work and provide any feedback on that, and on next
tasks, which is then ready for me first thing in the morning, and so the
process repeats.

You do have the worry about finding clients, but if you are reliable and do
good work then you can start to build up a regular client base.

You'll also want to have a good Internet connection for video calls and screen
sharing. If you're 3 zones away from an exchange, and/or have a connection
that drops out in the rain it'll make connecting with customers much more
difficult.

~~~
joshschreuder
How does the taxation work if you're earning foreign money? Do you get income
taxed in the US and Australia or just Australia? Sorry for the noobish
question, but I am curious.

~~~
pictureperfect
Australia and the US have tax agreements to avoid double taxation.

So, I have a Pty Ltd company, of which I am the sole director/employee (you
can start one of these for a few hundred AUD, and it can all be done online).

For each US client, I fill out and sign a W-8BEN-E form
([https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw8bene.pdf](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-
pdf/fw8bene.pdf)) which means I don't need a US SSN and the client does not
need to withhold any tax from my payments.

Each month, I then bill my US clients for hours worked, which they pay in USD
via a foreign exchange broker (I use OFX), which then converts the USD to AUD
and deposits it in my company's Australian bank account (this works out much
better than an international bank transfer as the exchange rates offered by
the broker are far better, and can result in a difference of a few hundred AUD
a month).

This AUD gets lodged as income for the company.

Although the company is registered for GST, because the work is for overseas
clients, I don't need to charge or collect GST from them.

I then pay myself a salary in AUD, plus the appropriate amount of super. The
company deducts the appropriate amount of Australian PAYG tax based on that
salary, which is sent to the ATO once a quarter.

The company is then taxed on any profit it makes - but that's typically
low/none, because the salary paid to me is an expense for the business, and I
can control the amount I get paid so I make sure that income - expenses = 0.

~~~
CyberFonic
You have to be very wary of Personal Services Income provisions under the ATO
rules. You might need some professional advice to make sure you don't get
caught out on that score. Lots of one person Pty Ltds get caught out.

~~~
solresol
I think the poster would be OK, actually. It sounds like they have income
coming from several unrelated entities, have the right of refusal for work and
a few other things like that. The only things that indicate PSI are: they
probably get paid when for fixing a bug that they created; they are probably
paid on submission of a timesheet. But overall, it sounds more like a
consulting business than an employment arrangement.

------
solresol
I've been freelancing since 1999, but I tend to do very tiny projects (one to
two weeks). Last year I took a three month contract for a bit of a change.
Based on how things have gone in January, this year is looking better than
previous years, but I'd like to think that's because I've got my act together
better.

Finding clients is always tough. I find I need to be a serious expert in two
or three things and then attach myself to companies that sell those things but
don't have a lot of experience in them. It's a model that works well for them
and for me.

Remember that whatever it is you don't like about your full-time job now, at
least you are mostly doing what you like. As a freelancer, you will now be
spending a large portion of your time on sales and marketing, which you
probably have little experience or aptitude for if you are a techie.

------
jondubois
I think taking 6-12 months on-site contracts is the best approach. The
contract environment is pretty good in Sydney and Melbourne.

Contract work pays very well, you get to invoice a full 40 hours each week,
you meet lots of smart/cunning people, you learn stuff, you build connections
with big companies (not small startups who might go bankrupt in a year or
two). Also, I find that 6 months is optimal for learning and self-improvement
(useful if you want to become a manager down the line).

On top of all this, it is often less stressful than working for small clients
who don't have much money and have tight deadlines.

The main issue is that the barrier to entry is higher - They're not just going
to hire anyone. For the rates they're paying, they want people who have
experience/achievements under their belt. Open source work is a good way to
get your foot in the door.

~~~
holografix
Any personal experiences around Python/Django or Python/Datascience or CRM
type contracting work? I'd be keen to know!

------
rrrhys
I'm in (outer, outer) Sydney, have been freelancing FT for 8 months, and find
it's 75% sales and 25% 'work'.

I'm thinking about entering the job market again just so I can get away from
being a sales person and get back to 'working'.

To offer some legitimate advice, I'd say if you haven't spent much of your
career learning sales and networking, get started a year or two before you
make the jump.

~~~
panjaro
Where about in (outer, outer) Sydney ?

So you mean its difficult to find projects?

~~~
rrrhys
Southern Highlands.

The projects are easy enough to come by - freelancing means a disproportionate
amount of my time ends up on boilerplate tasks that are both important to
clients and difficult to charge for.

On-site meetings, catchups, what-if conversations can fill up a good chunk of
the week. As the 'do-er' in my previous roles, I find this part of freelancing
exhausting.

~~~
imron
_On-site meetings, catchups, what-if conversations can fill up a good chunk of
the week_

These are exactly the things you should be charging for - otherwise your
clients won't respect your time.

------
CyberFonic
I have worked in both Sydney and Melbourne. The most lucrative gigs were
through agencies or working as a sub-contractor to vendors / systems
integrators. Of course, you need to have some specific mad skillz to get the
best gigs.

Freelancing requires sales, marketing and bookkeeping effort (sometimes that's
like 30% of the time) You need to consider that some clients are slow to pay
or even balk at paying. Typical gambit is that they pay as you go along, then
suddenly they start nit picking and holding back payments. Having contracts,
etc is often met with "I didn't understand what you meant! I thought it was
..." Chasing payments and taking action through small claims court takes a
toll in both time and emotionally. That is, more lost income.

The other trap is that if you need to borrow money, e.g. for buying a house,
the banks need far more documentation than for full-time employees and even
then will often charge a premium on the interest rate. They call it "non-
conforming" loans. If you are planning to borrow money, then stay in a full-
time job until you secure the loan and then make the jump. But of course,
having to meet repayments is a further source of stress.

As many other HNers point out, in addition to technical chops, you need some
measure of confidence in your sales, marketing and negotiating skills.

~~~
panjaro
Wow, wasn't thinking about that part. Freelancing does comes with a cost.

------
jacques_chester
I did it for a while.

You'll learn what everyone else learns: yes, the money is great. But it has to
be, because you don't know when there will be money.

Now I work for Pivotal Labs in NYC. I get to see a lot of different projects
and someone else worries about how to find them.

If you're just bored, then as an Australian you have a golden ticket. The E3
visa lets you work in the USA with very little fuss. The market here for
engineers is nuts. Like being a tradie in Perth circa 2010.

Obligatory: email me if you want me to refer you into our recruiters.

~~~
marcoalfonso
Hi, that sounds encouraging for aussies. Are you working remotely or in NYC?
Would like to hear of Pivotal.

~~~
jacques_chester
I live and work in NYC. There are about 10 Australians in this office. Pivotal
has been ahead of the curve in hiring through the E3 visa.

Have a look at the ad I posted today:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11012160](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11012160)

------
PhilWright
I work full time in Melbourne. There are casual/contract positions (you can
find both terms used in the adverts) available but they are just like being a
regular employee in that you report to a boss and work in the office just like
everyone else at the company. They are for a fixed duration but often get
extended if it works out well. The pay is 20% higher than the same full time
position to compensate for no paid vacation and no paid sick leave. You can
search www.seek.com.au for jobs in Melbourne and you will see the fixed
duration ones are advertised as casual/contract. There is little benefit over
being a regular full timer unless you want to keep switching for variety.

If you want to be a one man business and have clients then that is a different
ball game. You need to get clients the same way any small business does. Ask
around your network of contacts, have a website advertising your services,
cold call potential customers etc.

~~~
peteretep
That's interesting, the contract market in London (in the same sense you're
describing) tends to offer a 100% premium on permanenet staff remuneration.

~~~
PhilWright
Exactly right. I was a contractor in the UK from 1997-2001 and I used to get
double the full time rate. Then the dot com boom busted and the market for
contracting collapsed for a while. When I emigrated to OZ I hoped to find the
same kind of market but it doesn't really exist in the same way.

------
Rodeoclash
I have a small side project,
[http://cavalryfreelancers.com/](http://cavalryfreelancers.com/), which is a
newsletter going out to a few agencies and startups around Melbourne. Feel
free to ping me through the site with your details if you want to get added.

~~~
Rodeoclash
Sorry, should mention, this is only in Melbourne.

------
jms
I'm doing OK :).

I've got one large client who I basically subcontract for, then a handful of
other clients I work on a less regular basis. About a 50/50 split between the
large client and the rest.

I earn less than when I was working full time, but love the freedom to spend
my time as I like, and to have the time to work on my own startup projects.
I'd earn more if I took the freelancing more seriously and made an effort at
sales and marketing, but as it is I'm thinking of scaling back to concentrate
on my own projects more.

Retainers or any other regular monthly income are gold.

------
drethemadrapper
@Danieltrembath: Sounds like you work (@leisure) with the Hackerspace in
Hawthorn. I used to come there before I moved to Perth.

@All: Perth is quite dull for IT jobs. I only get calls from Melbourne/Sydney,
most notably from the Progressive People recruiter. I am desperately looking
for an opportunity in AU. I am happy to test waters in the other states.
Fortunately, I am an OSS guy (anti-MS). I do a lot of web engineering works -
browser extension dev., JS-based app/SPAs, OTT services (Telecom over the web)
and so on.

------
pm
I can't complain. Admittedly, I think it's a little thin on the ground at the
moment (I'm in Adelaide). What's your focus?

~~~
panjaro
.NET, MS SQL, mostly web development - backend, not getting much time from
full time work to learn and update skills, so hoping freelancing will provide
that opportunity

------
joshschreuder
I don't have anything to offer (sorry!), but I am curious on this too. It's
something I'd like to try out one day.

~~~
imron
It's a great thing to try, just make sure you have enough runway when you
start.

First you need to start tracking your expenses - not just roughly, but keep a
spreadsheet (or use an app) that keeps track of all your daily/weekly/monthly
expenses and use it religiously for at least 6 months (preferably 12, so as to
account for both winter/summer spending).

Once you start to get an accurate picture of your spending habits you can then
figure out how much you'll need to save in order to have a decent runway after
quitting your job. By tracking your expenses accurately, you'll probably also
find out all the ridiculous ways you spend money and figure out ways to cut
down on frivolous spending. $4 here and $3 there doesn't seem much, but
accumulated daily over the course of a year it can total in to over a thousand
dollars.

Then you can look at how much money you currently have saved, how much you are
currently able to save each month and from there figure out how many months
you need to work before you have enough savings to have an X-month runway.

When doing this, always be pessimistic about your expenses (round up rather
than down, assume higher prices rather than lower prices etc) and also allow
yourself an emergency buffer on top of everything.

When I left my office job, I had saved up enough to give myself a runway of 1
year and was then able to work on a mix of my own projects and freelance work
without too much worry about running out of funds.

The other thing I would advise when doing freelance/contract work is to bill
hourly rather than on a project-by-project basis.

Even if you are in the position where you can accurately estimate (to the
hour) the time required to complete a task (e.g. you are doing boring and
repetitive work you have already done a hundred times before), your clients
will respect your time much more when they have to pay for it and this will
help you avoid all manner of rubbish that you don't want to have to deal with.

