Suggestions On Freelancing

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John Cartwright
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by John Cartwright »

Jonah Bron wrote:Preferably, I'd like to work with companies as a contractor, and less working with people/small businesses. Does the condition of being a freelancer improve under those circumstances?
I would say the smaller the business, the cheaper they are looking to go. Small business generally do not have the same budget allocated for development purposes. Most "larger" companies won't even deal with individuals unless they are incorporated. Not to mention you are moving your legal liabilities to your company, and not yourself as the individual.

However, small businesses are a great place to start and build your portfolio out, plus they are generally repeat customers.
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by Jade »

Thought I'd throw my two cents in here.

I started doing freelance work when I was 15. The first thing I learned is that you don't tell people your age, especially if you're a minor. Contract law dictates (I believe in all of the US but it may vary for your state) that any contract made with a minor are valid but legally unenforceable against the minor. That means you'll have people who won't work with you because if they get upset (which happens from time to time) they don't have an option to sue but you on the other hand would have a case to sue them. If you're capable of doing the job there's no reason they need to know how old you are.

Going freelance takes a certain type of personality. If you're not willing to work hard and do a bit of everything (account, marketing, programming, taxes, you name it) to bring in the clients then ultimately you suffer in the long run. If you're not self-motivated and driven I wouldn't recommend going freelance. On top of that it's a hard position to be in. Clients ask for things they don't need, don't really want, aren't possible to do, and add stuff at the last minute expecting you to deliver regardless.

My best piece of advice to you is set boundaries with your clients. Don't let them walk all over you. Be okay with telling someone "No" or "That's outside the scope of this project." If you don't then you'll become overwhelmed with the amount of BS you have to put up with on a weekly basis.
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by Jonah Bron »

Jade wrote:Contract law dictates (I believe in all of the US but it may vary for your state) that any contract made with a minor are valid but legally unenforceable against the minor. That means you'll have people who won't work with you because if they get upset (which happens from time to time) they don't have an option to sue but you on the other hand would have a case to sue them.
That's definitely good to know.
Jade wrote:My best piece of advice to you is set boundaries with your clients. Don't let them walk all over you. Be okay with telling someone "No" or "That's outside the scope of this project." If you don't then you'll become overwhelmed with the amount of BS you have to put up with on a weekly basis.
I've been very bad about that :) Up until now I've only done small websites for other people (other people, mind you, plenty of bigger stuff for myself or OSS).
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by flying_circus »

Jonah Bron wrote:
Jade wrote:My best piece of advice to you is set boundaries with your clients. Don't let them walk all over you. Be okay with telling someone "No" or "That's outside the scope of this project." If you don't then you'll become overwhelmed with the amount of BS you have to put up with on a weekly basis.
I've been very bad about that :) Up until now I've only done small websites for other people (other people, mind you, plenty of bigger stuff for myself or OSS).
I think that is one of the biggest points to stick to your guns on... feature creep. When you bid on a project, make sure that you are very precise in what is and isnt included in the bid, and make sure the client understands exactly what it is they are getting. It also helps to take a deposit. 50% down before any work is actually done, and 50% due before delivery. It is important that you have a "public" test environment so you can show the customer the final product but not upload it to their server (i.e. maintain control over it).

Adopt your own policy and STICK TO IT. For example, on design work, I will make 1 major change and 2 minor changes before the customer is charged extra. Whatever you decide, be up front about it with your customer, it benefits everybody. And as Jade said, don't be affraid to say NO.
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by Jonah Bron »

flying_circus wrote:It is important that you have a "public" test environment so you can show the customer the final product but not upload it to their server (i.e. maintain control over it).
That's something I need to set up. I suppose I could upload it to my site... shared host though, with 20MB :( Need to get a VPS sometime.
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by Jonah Bron »

flying_circus wrote:It also helps to take a deposit. 50% down before any work is actually done, and 50% due before delivery.
I actually bid projects in segments, and require payment after each step is complete. Examples include the initial design mockup, special features, etc..

I send them an archive containing everything done after each step: is that spectacular/good/okay/bad/terrible?
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by flying_circus »

Jonah Bron wrote:
flying_circus wrote:It also helps to take a deposit. 50% down before any work is actually done, and 50% due before delivery.
I actually bid projects in segments, and require payment after each step is complete. Examples include the initial design mockup, special features, etc..

I send them an archive containing everything done after each step: is that spectacular/good/okay/bad/terrible?
That's fine too, just make sure the steps arent too broad. Take it from me, it really REALLY sucks to spend a lot of time on a project, cross the finish line, and then the customer says "Oh, We've changed our mind." I guess the point I am trying to make is one of risk management. If you take a loss (and you will), just make sure you dont lose it all. That is the nature of a very small business.
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by flying_circus »

Jonah Bron wrote:
flying_circus wrote:It is important that you have a "public" test environment so you can show the customer the final product but not upload it to their server (i.e. maintain control over it).
That's something I need to set up. I suppose I could upload it to my site... shared host though, with 20MB :( Need to get a VPS sometime.
I have a bluehost account. Its something like 6 or 7 bucks a month and unlimited storage. I just use: http://staging.example.org/myProject so the client can touch and feel the final product before delivery. But yes, IF you are going to do enough projects, there is a point where it becomes profitable to purchase a server and resell hosting (and domain names, and SSL certs). Generally the client doesnt know what those things are when they come to you and say "I want a website." I generally factor that stuff into the bid, if they know what it is and already have a host, they know to subtract those line items.
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by Jonah Bron »

When I'm making a bid or just charging hourly, my rate is $45/hr. Is that reasonable?
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by flying_circus »

Jonah Bron wrote:When I'm making a bid or just charging hourly, my rate is $45/hr. Is that reasonable?
Ah, the golden question. Charge as much as you can as long as someone is willing to pay for it, but, there often comes a time in an entrepreneurs life when the cupboards are bare and you have to find a way to put food on the table.

Just be sure not to undervalue your product, it hurts everyone, and it wont change the bottom line.
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by alex.barylski »

When I'm making a bid or just charging hourly, my rate is $45/hr. Is that reasonable?
If you can charge $45/hour your doing very well for yourself. I start new developers at about $15-18/hour and raise to $20-25 after 3-5 years of experience with the same company. Until your managing a team of developers, you plateau at about 48-50K/year.

As a freelancer you are going to want to charge a bit more, perhaps, because benefits, sick pay, etc are not typically included in temporary employment, but that is only about 15-20% of your hourly rate, depending on how good you expect benefits to be.

I've been in this field for a long time, my hourly pay at work is less than $25/hour - freelance I charge $40/hour - but being gainlfully employed I am allowed to be selective but don't always get the gig either.

If you apply to contract work with small agencies (bigger agencies likely won't take independent contractors unless you are highly recognized or a small firm yourself) I think you will find many unwilling to pay anything above $20/hour for an entry level developer. I have worked for several agencies stateside, in Canada, UK and Australia and even before recession, that was about the best hourly rate. I lost more contracts when I bumped the price until I started promoting project management, quality assurance, etc as a skillset.

Try for $45/hour - if you land a gig we need to talk cause thats damn good money where I'm from - which is far cheaper than most cities in North American in terms of cost of living but still. :D

Cheers,
Alex
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by Jonah Bron »

alex.barylski wrote:If you apply to contract work with small agencies (bigger agencies likely won't take independent contractors unless you are highly recognized or a small firm yourself) I think you will find many unwilling to pay anything above $20/hour for an entry level developer. I have worked for several agencies stateside, in Canada, UK and Australia and even before recession, that was about the best hourly rate. I lost more contracts when I bumped the price until I started promoting project management, quality assurance, etc as a skillset.
What do you mean by "agencies"?
alex.barylski wrote:Try for $45/hour - if you land a gig we need to talk cause thats damn good money where I'm from - which is far cheaper than most cities in North American in terms of cost of living but still. :D
What am I now, the industry guinea pig? :)

I remember somebody around here saying he charged $125/hour. Don't remember who it was though...
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by matthijs »

It's a difficult question. My first thought: $45 is not much. However, as with many things, it depends. Some random thoughts:

- It's all about providing value to clients. A client doesn't (or at least shouldn't) care whether you charge 45 or 145. What matters is what value he/she gets. The investment returns. If a $100/hr developer does 3 times a "better" job then a $50/hr guy, the first one is much more valuable. What is "better" can mean many things of course: faster, higher quality, a nicer personality to work with, better communication skills, etc.

- There is even the question if hourly rate is important at all. There are lots of discussions going on between different schools of thinking about pricing services. Should you be a code monkey being hired to work for X hours for rate Y? Or are you a party delivering a product X for fixed price Y? Maybe you can even charge differently based on the value you provide for different clients. With that last thing I mean: building a website for a small client you charge 3k, building the exact same website for a fortune-100 client you charge 300k.

- What and how you charge can differ between clients/projects. Some clients want to "hire" you and pay by the hour. Others just want their project done and want to know in advance how much it will cost (1k, 3k, 10k?). Personally, I used to give my hourly rate with every offer I made and with the invoices I sent. However, lately I have stopped doing that. I just state: "building this website will cost $2700" or "I can build that form for $200", for example. Only when people want to let me do open-ended work ("just bill me the hours you do work for me"), do I provide them with my hourly rate (by the way, about $80/hr, which is still quite low I think).

- It's also about positioning yourself in the market. What I mean with that is that if you give yourself a very high hourly rate, you aim for different clients then when you set your hourly rate very low. That's a choice. Do you want to compete on price by bidding on projects on getacheapfreelancerslave dot com? Or do you aim high and get the higher-paying jobs through other channels? For example, if your uncle knows someone rich at the golf club who might need a web project done, telling them you're very cheap at $20/hr will certainly not get you the job. However telling them you are very good at what you do (and by the way, the rate is $120/hr), might get you the job.
In my six or seven years of doing this, with the projects I did not get, in 90% of the cases the reason was not that I was too expensive compared to the others. In most cases it was because the other party seemed to be better (maybe they were specialized in the job at offer), I didn't have a chance to talk to the right stakeholders, sometimes I was perceived as to being too cheap even, etc.
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by Bill H »

any contract made with a minor are valid but legally unenforceable against the minor.
In some states contracts with a minor are automatically void. Check the laws in your state.

I think there's an ethical thing here, too. If the contract is enforceable against your client but not against you, then you would be legally okay engaging in it, but I for one would be concerned about the ethics involved with that. A contract should protect both parties equally.
It also helps to take a deposit. 50% down before any work is actually done, and 50% due before delivery.
Some states have laws against this, limiting the amount that may be collected prior to work being performed.
Some states totally prohibit requiring prepayment.
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Re: Suggestions On Freelancing

Post by Jonah Bron »

Thanks for that meaty post, Matt. Lots of good information. Christopher and I chatted for a little while, and he said a lot of things that you did, most notably your second point.
Bill H wrote:In some states contracts with a minor are automatically void. Check the laws in your state.
Do you know where I could go to look that up?
Bill H wrote:I think there's an ethical thing here, too. If the contract is enforceable against your client but not against you, then you would be legally okay engaging in it, but I for one would be concerned about the ethics involved with that. A contract should protect both parties equally.
Yeah. Huh, if somebody is worried about the ethics, they're probably not about to rip anyone off. If they do rip someone off, they're obviously not worried about the ethics :) .
Bill H wrote:Some states have laws against this, limiting the amount that may be collected prior to work being performed.
Some states totally prohibit requiring prepayment.
My dad has worked for himself for his entire life (in a different field, of course). He's advised me to require pre-payment on individual segments of the job breakdown. So pay-work-pay-work-pay-work-∞. That way if the client decides to take off at any point, you're covered.
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