
The startup freelancer - vassvdm
http://vassvdm.ghost.io/the-startup-freelancer/
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eldavido
Startups are cash-poor, prone to bankruptcy, and full of insane deadlines
requiring people to pull small miracles just to make payroll.

Would love to hear more about what makes them ideal freelance clients. As a
former contractor/freelancer, I specifically made a point of staying far, far
away from these kinds of clients.

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kleinsch
I've been doing this full-time for the last year. It's worked well for me in
the SF area because it's a lot easier to get in the door for new
companies/products than with established companies that already have dev
teams. I also like working on brand new products and technologies and startups
are great for that. :)

The main lesson I've learned working with startups is that consulting is
always easier working for people that are spending other people's money. The
guy who spent the last year saving $10K of his personal earnings to build his
genius daily deals for big data social mobile app? He's going to try to
squeeze you for everything he can get. The startup that raised a $1.5MM series
A? Going to treat dealings like a business negotiation and probably be less
emotional to deal with.

That being said, you still want to manage risk based on who you're dealing
with. If I'm consulting for a company with $50MM in revenues and 200
employees, I'm not worried about them going under tomorrow, so I'll let them
pay me monthly net-30. If I'm consulting for a 5 person startup that's
operating on a seed round, I'll usually require weekly net-7 or net-15. I've
started avoiding companies that seem sketchy or are operating off personal
savings, but if I was going to work with those types of clients in the future,
I'd do a prepaid retainer.

Of course, this varies on a case-by-case basis so YMMV.

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skrebbel
what does "net-7" mean?

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emiliobumachar
I don't know, but I infer that it should mean getting paid on the end of each
week. If the startup suddenly goes bankrupt, you only lost a week.

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bjterry
Technically "net 7" would mean payment in full within 7 days of completing
work (or invoicing) rather than at the end of each week.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_30](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_30)

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j4pe
I am in the exact same line of work as the author. I can't imagine working the
way he describes.

It's great that he's made this lifestyle work for him, but I'm not convinced
I'd like to be one of his clients. A technology company with a developer on
staff one day per week? Coordinating a project is difficult enough when
everybody is full-time. ("Sure thing, I'll tackle that bug in six days" is not
a recipe for a functional sprint.)

My solution has been to charge hard at whatever milestone I've committed to,
working as a de facto team member, and then taking the next month off. This
works well with my lifestyle, since I try to take each project in a new city
and I live cheaply.

What I would say to the author: you want fulfilling? Participate in the
optimistic urgency of a new tech venture fully - then take your time off when
you've finished. If you can't afford to spend that much time away from
developing your startup, then how can you expect your clients to wait while
you take time off from theirs?

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vassvdm
I agree that the way I work is definitely not for everyone, and I only accept
projects where I am confident that the client sees eye to eye with me. It
wouldn't work if I was the only developer working on the project. There are
several other, more junior developers on the team who work more hours than I
do.

The client is very happy with the arrangement because it ends up costing much
less than if I was on the team full-time and he is sure that every day I work
is a day where things actually move forward significantly. He rather gets
frustrated when freelancers charge several days of work and little progress
seems to occur. There is at least a perception of lesser waste of time/money
when work is concentrated over a small period of time, and I would argue that
there is less actual waste.

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krmmalik
I think startups are a viable option for many types of freelancers now.

I've been freelancing in mentoring start-ups for the last 6 months. Everyone
told me startups have no money and that it's a fruitless pursuit but here i am
talking to 1 new startup almost every single day.

I always give them the first session free (no time limit) and more than two-
thirds come back for a paid session.

I've mentored around 60 startups in the last 3 months alone (all around the
globe).

Most fun i've ever heard. Incredibly rewarding. In fact, i'm now working on
building an actual mentoring platform.

I spend the rest of my time consulting small to medium size companies.

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danieltillett
I am amazed that you can get by on 10 hours of work per week.

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vassvdm
Well, my own startup is also making a little money, and I resort to a couple
of life hacks to get extra income and reduce costs. I'll write another post
about that soon.

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twfarland
Would you be willing to detail said life hacks a bit?

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ejain
I'm also thinking about doing some freelance work right now.

One thing I'm unsure about is if it's wise to do consulting in the same space
my startup is in (fitness & health data aggregation and analysis), or if I
should stick to unrelated technical work (java, elasticsearch, angularjs), to
avoid potential trouble with non-compete agreements and such.

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evolve2k
Go unrelated, conflicts do your head in.

Client: 'What should we do now?' You: We'll I've thought on this for ages,
here's the answer but it's hard one knowledge from my startup, how much do I
share?

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kclay
I've been doing this for the past 7 years, from big data to social sites, to
single page apps to chat/video applications and more. I have to say its been
the best way to learn about different technology and to solve new problems.
Also the fast pace environment is something I like.

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ntaso
Do you also restrict your time to, say, 10 hours per week as OP? How long do
you work on a single client/project?

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kclay
Depending on my workload sometimes I do that.If the client has more then
enough work to keep me busy I wont hesitate to make room from them. As for how
long, some have been short as a few months, others 4-6months+ the longest was
around 2 years.

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lazyatom
(You may wish to remove the 'Welcome to Ghost' post on your blog)

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vassvdm
Thanks, fixed.

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raphinou
How do you find these clients? I ve done this kind of work arrangement, and
like it, but replicating this kind of arrangement doesnt seem to be so easy,
at least to me.

