What kind of work do freelance RoR programmers get? | Hacker News Reader

What kind of work do freelance RoR programmers get?

8 pointstiramisucode9 comments

What kind of clients do freelance Ruby on Rails programmers usually get? I guess this question can be rephrased as "I can't design. I can only make web apps. Who would hire me?"

The only kind of clients that I can imagine are small local businesses who would like a website for their store. I can't imagine them hiring me to make a website with no design. Heck, to them, the web design IS the website! What kind of clients would only need the web app, and not the design?

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Don't be a freelancer. Be a consultant.

Talk to big companies (they have money!). Learn how to discover their problems and then sell them solutions.

Don't sell them on Rails apps or even on web apps. Find problems that are taking money out of their pockets and sell solutions to those problems.

Find problems that your customer doesn't even realize can be solved with a simple web app. Once you get outside the programmer world, virtually everyone you meet is less skilled at solving problems with web apps than you are.

Charge accordingly. (For rush projects, I've quoted prices that worked out to over $1000/hr for me, and the customer didn't blink.)

They pay you $X, and in return you make them software that causes them to save (or earn) $X * 10. Everybody is happy.

When you're at this level, design doesn't matter. The app is probably an internal thing and uncustomized Twitter Bootstrap is the fanciest thing they'll have ever seen. And even if fancy design is required for the project, the budget will be large enough that you can just take that part of the project to an agency.

My team at large megacorp has 2 Bootstrap designed products, one I created, and one an intern created after I showed him Bootstrap. Everyone thinks it's some of the best design they've seen out of an internal project in a while. None of them have ever heard of Bootstrap, and none of them care that it looks like other Bootstrap websites.

This happened exactly to me as well...fresh new idea with a few tweaks with a Bootstrap theme for a few internet projects and they were ecstatic.

This is the way to go. It took me a while to realize that "normal" people don't really care about visual appeal as long as you're solving their problem and making them money.

Start with something like Zurb or Bootstrap and fix their problem -- it's very likely already heads and shoulders above their hacked up Excel solution. If you're finding you're hitting this problem a lot, make friends with designers that you can share the love with.

I would like to find business problems to solve for companies, but how would I figure out what those are? What are some things I can do to discover those problems?

Also, I have read few of your past comments, and was wondering if you could be my mentor of some sort? I would love to become a consultant, but don't know how to start.

I love building software and serving people but don't like giving up my IP and doing the same work over and over again, so I'm actually shifting out of consulting and into product development.

But if I were starting over, this is what I'd do:

Call them up and ask them. Seriously! Yeah, I know, maybe 8 or 9 out of 10 calls will be dead ends, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. If you feel really awkward about this, you can say at first that you're doing a research study, or you're interested in their industry and want to learn about it, or whatever pretense you feel comfortable with. Just have a casual conversation, get some rapport, and find out what the person does on a day to day basis and what kind of things they hate doing or wish they didn't have to.

Do this enough times, refine your methods, and you'll get really good at identifying business problems that you can solve with technology.

Don't waste your time with struggling small businesses; call people who have money. Find people who are superstars in their industry. Or if you really want to work with small businesses, get into the business of teaching them how to be good at sales and marketing (so that they'll have money :) ).

A great question (once you have rapport) is: "Think about the last 10 or 20 emails you dealt with today. What were they about? What did you have to do?"

Once you find pain, lock onto it like a heat-seeking missile and dig deep to find out what's causing it, what the effects are on the bottom line, and what the emotional impact is on the person you're talking to. Is this something so painful that it's affecting their relationship with their family? Solve that one for them and they'll start treating you like family!

You only really need to do this once or twice before you start getting referrals from deliriously happy customers. You suddenly become the "go-to" guy. Raise your rates.

Everything I've said can be applied to creating a product business, too. The change is that you need to interview many people in the same industry (or profession) and get them on board with a product idea that will solve their common problem (i.e. validate the idea before you build it). I'm in the process of doing this right now within a certain service industry niche.

My email address is in my profile here, and of course I'm happy to answer questions or point you to helpful resources.

What do you mean giving up your IP? I am also planning on eventually starting a SaaS, but I have this desire to try out consulting for at least an year to mainly develop my soft skills. I eventually want to become one of the greatest marketers there ever was!

So you just, call them? My first thought was how awkward that might be, but then I used to think knocking on doors to sell honey was awkward until I actually did it (for charity). So I guess it's one of those things that seem awkward when you haven't done it yourself, but is actually the norm for people who are involved in business (I hope!).

I also agree with your statement that you should not waste time with small businesses who are struggling, as they tend to be more price conscious. This is as opposed to big corp who have plenty budget who won't blink at your "high" price.

I don't like to put things off. I will call two businesses today and come back with experience to base off my next set of questions for you. I have no idea what I am doing, and I am not sure how to open, but whatever, I will learn eventually!

Thank you for your help. I truly appreciate your willingness to talk to other hopeful entrepreneurs!

Regarding giving up IP, all of my consulting clients have wanted to own the copyright for the software I write for them and keep it as secret sauce. And I've written some amazingly good stuff over the years that I wish I could reuse for other clients or for myself.

Software is an asset. I don't like getting paid to create assets for other people. I want to create my own assets and leverage them to get paid. This is the route to wealth creation.

Cold calling is really awkward, yeah. I don't enjoy it, and probably wouldn't do it again unless there was no other way. It is possible, though. It's much easier if you have "warm" leads from an email campaign or via a LinkedIn group or something. Ultimately, it's a numbers game.

For phone sales skills, learn from the late, great Chet Holmes: http://vimeo.com/46164281

Don't contact people trying to sell them something; just try to learn about their problems. If you find one that's painful enough and get them into an emotional state about it, they'll beg you to fix it for them.

Read "SPIN Selling" for sure, and put it into practice. After I read that book and started putting it into practice, I went from spending weeks chasing deals (and often losing them) to closing them in a single phone call.

Medium sized companies in niche industries often don't have a web presence and desire one. These companies often have existing branding or an in-house marketing team that would work with you to design their web-app.

That said, having some design skills significantly increases your pool of potential freelance candidates, and there are plenty of ways to learn something about it.

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