
Ask HN: What is stopping you from becoming a freelancer? - blohs
Hi HN&#x27;ers,<p>I am creating a course on ‘freelancing for developers’. I would like to know from aspiring freelancers here what is stopping you from becoming a freelancer?<p>Thank you so much for your time.
======
beeskneecaps
Competing on those freelance bidding war sites that are full of lowballing
spammers has been a major barrier to entry. It is so much easier to get a fte
job.

------
ddelt
These are just my opinions from a (probably naive and uneducated) glace:

1) Those who come from full-time employment jobs usually have obligations,
families, bills, etc, and would like to do freelancing if they were reasonably
sure they could make just as much or more as their current work. However, I
haven't seen many stop-gap solutions which can bridge the time between when
you are making above-average salaried income -> making practically nothing
with high uncertainty while you build a client-base -> making good freelancing
money. It's another way of saying "this is the same mental hurdle which
prevents full-time people from starting their own business".

2) Part-time freelancing or moonlighting is an attractive option, but most of
the freelancing opportunities I've encountered do not offer flexible timing;
i.e. they seem to be a replacement 30+ hour per week commitment with no
benefits that you would typically get from full-time employment. So the
question here would be - how do people optimally find these sorts of
engagements, while, as @beeskneecaps stated, not "competing on those freelance
bidding war sites that are full of lowballing spammers".

3) Whether you are already employed or seeking freelancing from the start, how
best to market yourself and find your first real clients? When I say real, I
don't mean a $5 job where you update someone's resume, but I mean, like, how
do you find a legitimate corporate entity or person(s) who will work with you
closely to write a contract for a legitimate body of work, avoid legal
potholes, and deliver, by yourself?

As it's probably obvious from my posts (my point of view is from someone
working in FTE), how can you make the transition into freelancing 'actually
make sense' for folks in FTE?

~~~
scarface74
All of those problems can easily be solved if you have marketable skills, live
in a major metroplitsn city (not necessarily SV) and a strong network of
trusted recruiters.

I don’t worry about “marketing”. I send an email out to 10-12 recruiters and
they find jobs for me relatively fast at market rates. Most give you the
choice of working for them either as Corp-2-Corp at a higher rate or as a W2
employee and they take care of employment taxes (the employees half of FICA),
you can get insurance through them etc.

The real advantage of W2 contracting over FTE is that you actually get paid
for every hour you work and you can “job hop” without being considered a job
hopper.

