If you do decide to go the freelance route, do what I did:
Get yourself a backup/recurring income project. I had a client who started a new "bad debt tracing" company. The final quote came to around $20k for the development of a pretty large management system (it would track all open cases, mail clients when the trace was successful, and figure out which employee is slacking off - among other things).
She said she cannot pay that money right now, so I made her a deal: I'll write the entire system and take 15% of each case handled via my management system. At the moment, that 15% generates enough money to cover my rent and utilities, so if I have a slow freelancing month, I won't get into trouble.
If you go this route I must warn you - people will try to take shortcuts. Don't trust anyone. My rule is - all code is protected by an encrypted key which contains an expiry date. I always send them a new key at the beginning of the month which gives them another month of use. They don't pay me = their system goes down. (And yes they tested me on this one, and yes they were down for 3 whole days. Now they pay on the 1st like clockwork).
Also, don't fall for the "15% partnership/shares in the company" crap, otherwise they start asking all sorts of favours (the printer isn't printing, you're the only one we know, please come fix). Structure the deal in such a way that they pay you a "rental" fee for your code, make sure you state that the code remains your property until they buy it out for the full price.
Overall this has worked very well for me. If they now call me and ask for a feature, I'm more than happy to code it - it is in my vested interest to make sure the employees get access to information as quickly as possible. The quicker they work, the more money I get. So no backwards and forwards with project spec v2.1233, I just code it and get it over and done with.
Of course this also comes with pitfalls - you could do this for a client and then their business never takes off. Try to find out as much as you can about the company (read their mission statement, ask them questions about their marketing plans, contingency plans, etc, etc). Two words: Due diligence!!
Get yourself a backup/recurring income project. I had a client who started a new "bad debt tracing" company. The final quote came to around $20k for the development of a pretty large management system (it would track all open cases, mail clients when the trace was successful, and figure out which employee is slacking off - among other things).
She said she cannot pay that money right now, so I made her a deal: I'll write the entire system and take 15% of each case handled via my management system. At the moment, that 15% generates enough money to cover my rent and utilities, so if I have a slow freelancing month, I won't get into trouble.
If you go this route I must warn you - people will try to take shortcuts. Don't trust anyone. My rule is - all code is protected by an encrypted key which contains an expiry date. I always send them a new key at the beginning of the month which gives them another month of use. They don't pay me = their system goes down. (And yes they tested me on this one, and yes they were down for 3 whole days. Now they pay on the 1st like clockwork).
Also, don't fall for the "15% partnership/shares in the company" crap, otherwise they start asking all sorts of favours (the printer isn't printing, you're the only one we know, please come fix). Structure the deal in such a way that they pay you a "rental" fee for your code, make sure you state that the code remains your property until they buy it out for the full price.
Overall this has worked very well for me. If they now call me and ask for a feature, I'm more than happy to code it - it is in my vested interest to make sure the employees get access to information as quickly as possible. The quicker they work, the more money I get. So no backwards and forwards with project spec v2.1233, I just code it and get it over and done with.
Of course this also comes with pitfalls - you could do this for a client and then their business never takes off. Try to find out as much as you can about the company (read their mission statement, ask them questions about their marketing plans, contingency plans, etc, etc). Two words: Due diligence!!
Hope this helps.