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Comment by andy_adams | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for sharing.

1. I'd be terrified to run as a sole proprietor for anything more than getting started. I work on medical software, and if someone dies during a procedure - even if it's not my software's fault - I don't want my personal assets to be liable.

2. I started at 35%, and moved back once I saw what I was actually paying. Depends on your state in life, state within the US, and charitable giving state-ments.

3. Yep, 2 months is low. Just enough to weather a storm, but more = better.

4. Funnily enough, I'm switching to hourly billing for much of my work. But I think many freelancers (particularly US-based) don't even realize "day rates" are a thing - we're fixed on hourly pay, for some reason.

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If you are a one man LLC, most likely just having an LLC will not protect your personal assets.

https://info.legalzoom.com/owners-liable-llc-3298.html

> Members can also be held personally liable for court judgments against the LLC if the member has personally and directly injured someone or caused financial loss in the course of business, or has knowingly done something illegal or reckless.

> ...

> Courts usually require three elements to be present before they will allow the veil to be pierced and a member to be held liable for the financial losses of an LLC. First, the person bringing the lawsuit (the plaintiff) must show that the LLC was controlled and dominated so completely by the member in question that the LLC was a mere instrument of that person and indistinct from her. The plaintiff must then show that a breach of duty occurred -- for example, that the member committed fraud or failed to keep adequate records. The final element is that the control and the breach of duty must have caused injury or loss to the plaintiff.

Those aren't very high standards if a successful lawsuit is lobbed your way for software you have been contracted to right.

Edit: Not that using an LLC isn't a good idea, I just think the "legal shield" benefits are often overstated and misunderstood.

The "breach of duty" condition as defined there seems awfully ambiguous given that that article doesn't detail what duty is owed. Nolo [0] restates the same condition as:

> The company's actions were wrongful or fraudulent.

which seems like a fairly stringent requirement. Though it also notes [1]:

> [Single member LLCs] are also susceptible to "piercing the corporate veil," which occurs when the courts find that the entity and the owner are not really separate and thus the owner is personally responsible for the business’s debts. The easiest way an opposing party can prove this is by demonstrating a lack of adherence to the LLC operating agreement or that the operating agreement is riddled with errors.

which seems like a more significant concern for well-intentioned freelancers.

[0] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/personal-liability-p...

[1] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/single-member-llcs.h...

What does "day rate" usually imply in US, 8 hours?

You get my productive output for normal working hours, typically an 8-9 hour range, but I'm not tracking time spent on potty breaks, eating lunch, or taking a walk outside.

I think this shows the fixation on hourly rates. Why does there need to be a translation to hours.

A day is a day. When I was freelance I just billed a day rate. The point for me is that I simply don't count the hours. It just meant I would spend the day working on that clients project only. Typically I'd do something like around 9-17:30, with around an hour for lunch. So that works at 7h30. But sometimes I stopped earlier. Sometimes I worked later. I still billed the same.

I never pro-rated the invoices for partial days. My minimum billing increment was half a day on the odd occasion I needed to run an errand that was going to require less than a full day off.

I'm asking because I'm thinking about how working part time fits into this scheme. Half-day billing seems like it would be a good match.

That is what I do. Have a daily rate, but can bill half a day.

I don't really do classic 'projects', I'm more an ops guy having seen/experienced the dev side too, and profiled myself as being a bridge between those 2 sides that don't always fully understand each other. At a client I'm usually involved in multiple projects and 'the bigger picture'.

You cannot place an estimate on 'fixing' stuff like that, and it also hugely depends on the internal politics. My contracts are usually for 3-months, and can be extended 3 months at a time, which define a daily rate, state a day is 8 hours, and I can bill a maximum of 40 hours/week. Contractually I cannot terminate the contract, only the client can - but I can simply decide to stop working for a client, and simply don't bill them until the contract expires.

This allows me the flexibility to work for multiple clients, bill half days, work when I want, and can stop working for someone if I decide it's not working out for some reason.

From 4 to 8 hours depending on someone's productivity on a given day.

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