The other side of working for yourself | Hacker News Reader

The other side of working for yourself

thehodge.co.uk

70 pointsthehodge36 comments

Over the last 10 years I've done a mix of freelance development, developed my own products and also been a salaried employee.

I can honestly say on reflection that the overall stress level is about the same, but what stresses the self-employed (income variation) is different to what stresses the salaried (deadlines and dependence on others to get things done). I've come to the conclusion that a persons stress level is something in their nature and there are deeper questions to answer if you're feeling stressed.

Having been on all sides of the fence, I can definitely say that none of them have the greenest grass, but all the grass is eaten in a different way.

Freedom is awesome and liberating, but that type of freedom denotes a level of success (and lifestyle/workload design). It's also a slippery beast to capture. Because if you fall short and end up working for bad clients on short deadlines for not enough cash, then you're going to be twice as stressed as a salaried employee getting ridden by their boss for TPS reports.

What's it all mean? Don't do anything without looking at it seriously, and don't assume the other guy is having a great time of it.

And don't get into too much debt, regardless of your circumstance.

For me running my own development business gives me the problem of; 1) finding the work, 2) doing the work, 3) manage meta stuff like tax etc.

I'm not a sales guys so for me finding the work is really something that is out of my comfort zone. However, when I finally do get the work it's usually heads down because this client want's it yesterday. So while you're heads down there is no finding work being done. This can become problematic and a downward spiral if you don't actively conscious of it.

I want to write about this in another post, but previously I spent a lot of time going to events like barcamps and meetups and even though I wasn't going with the express intention of selling myself, I'm still getting leads and emails today from those meet ups.

There is so much of 'not what you know, who you know' and a lot of work these days that I get is through recommendations, I'd highly recommend taking some time each week to go to local meetups (not so much business related ones) as not only will you find people in a similar situation, you might find you can work with some of them later

However, when I finally do get the work it's usually heads down because this client want's it yesterday

This is down to managing expectations. You're doing the work, you tell them how long it's going to take. If you think it'll take a week, tell them two. Don't let them hound you into feeling bad for doing work for them. "Well it's not going to be done yesterday, it's as simple as that."

Of course this is how it would be in a perfect world. We don't live there. Managing expectations is certainly important, but it is nowhere near as easy, efficient, or effective as you seem to believe.

It's just one small part of a very large and complex picture full of things that never quite happen the way they should, mostly because what programmers like us expect to do does not line up with what our clients want or, more accurately, how they perceive what they want.

The "I need it yesterday" attitude is unreasonable by definition.

mostly because what programmers like us expect to do does not line up with what our clients want or, more accurately, how they perceive what they want.

This is exactly the problem that expectations management solves, but it requires actually saying the words.

Hey HN, I'm still not sure why I wrote this but I get asked a lot about 'how to set up a business' and 'what is it like working for yourself', I just wanted to write about some of the real things that I feel and go through working in startups and building things

Having to beg employers for time off is one of those things that strike me as very humiliating.

Yes. I would trade 20-30% of my income to have more no-strings days off.

12 years I've been on my own and this is still the best part.

Well, that, and just-walk-away-from-bullshit. That's pretty nice too.

You can't watch TV and code. You're always doing one or the other. I think it's probably worth separating those two things into separate blocks.

I tend to put stuff on that I've already seen, that way I don't have to concentrate on things, partly it's there to have something to stop it being quiet

I use music for that. Jazz24 is a good stream.

IMHO the key to happiness as an independent is to minimize your fixed expenses to the point where you're not at all worried about cashflow. If it's a busy month, great. You can sock away some extra cash. If it's a slow month, awesome. Go camping, go skiing, spend time with your family. Keep some irons in the fire, and work will surface again.

Seems like an excellent work/life balance to me.

It seems like a lot of this has to do with how much you charge. Everything I've heard about freelancing is that you should continually raise your rate and never sell yourself short. So if you're doing that, why would you ever run into a tight financial situation?

Based on the date, I thought this might be related to the pain of writing a gigantic check to the US government for your estimated taxes. Just wrote my first one and the amount you're paying hits you a lot harder when you watch it come out of your bank account. ;)

I've been freelancing for 4 months now and I definitely miss the human contact of having a "real job". Working from my apartment, I mostly only get water cooler talk from my pets. I'm looking into coworking spaces in SF to try to get more connected with the community.

If you've already setup a corporate entity of some sort, I recommend using a payroll service to take care of this stuff for you. This way you can set a salary to pay out of the company and leave extra cash in there for downtime or expenses and pay any extra out occasionally as a bonus. They will withhold all of the appropriate taxes and you can set up retirement structures etc.

I've heard good things about these folks:

http://www.surepayroll.com/

Surepayroll was acquired by Paychecx (and their customer service was pretty bad before they were acquired).

Try ZenPayroll. Nothing but good things to say: https://zenpayroll.com/

I've always thought that if everyone had to write out a tax check 4 times a year, there would be a lot more pressure on the politicians to be more responsible with the money.

The government isn't silly though, that's why they get first cut at the paypacket. They know they'd be forever chasing tax arrears.

Still, having the government beg for the money instead of just pinching it up front would rebalance the equation nicely in my humble opinion.

This is one of the few posts I've come across that doesn't just focus on the self-congratulatory aspect of self-employment.

I've been self-employed for the past 8 months and I have struggled to find a balance between work, play, personal relationships, and health. It's nice to know that I'm not just terrible at this and other people have similar problems.

If you're lonely working from home and missing human contact, co-working might be suitable. It does come at a cost compared to working from home entirely, but it does help remove some of the loneliness.

If you're in London, there are a few places that offer co-working arrangements - you can even do it part-time, rather than having a full-time desk.

He didn't mention trying to find health insurance, probably because he is a country that provides it to everyone.

We can find it. Paying for it is another issue. It's our #1 expense, well above our mortgage.

Definitely feel the same as you, but I feel I'm more healthy now than at a 9-5 salaried job. I can get go for run anytime I feel like it, 2pm run for 2 hours? Why not?

The downsides are definitely there though. Trying now to build a product that generates passive income to stay sane during the times in between contracts.

thehodge is on a crazy schedule. (I'm working a regular job, doing foolish hours and harming my health too :/) My personal optimal schedule is 4 hours in the morning, 90 minute break, 2-3 more hours in the afternoon. Then take care of business. 5 or 6 hours of billable work, an hour of work communications just to stay sane :), and 1-2 hours of other stuff.

Last time I went solo, I learned I needed to hire a bookkeeper (at least) and a sales agent of some kind. If you're not good at it, outsource it to someone who is better.

How did you find your sales agent?

I didn't. I was doing my own calling and networking, and came across a regular job, and took it. I was sick of managing clients and finding new ones.

Not sure about the freedom part, personally ever since starting bootstrapping my startup I feel I don't have time for anything, and when I do, it's hard to justify spending time and/or money on yourself when both things are running against you. I used to be a gamer, for instance, but I don't remember anymore when was the last time I touched a videogame. I know it's my choice, and I'll stick with it; I just secretly think I'd have more time for the little things if I were working for somebody else.

Going freelance for me is a combination of aspects:

- A Project (or more than one, but sufficient to provide you a minimal budget); - Motivation; - Discipline; - Detachment by routine.

Discipline is the hard one.

Exactly! It is very easy to think oh, I'll do this now and carry on later, then later get distracted with things.

At home especially, dishes to wash, rooms to clean, always something that could be done but separation is a must

Funnily enough, today there was a piece on Jezebel (I know, it's my guilty pleasure) "We’ve Seen the Future, and You’re Freelancing" http://jezebel.com/5993227/weve-seen-the-future-and-youre-fr...

Wake up at 10 am? I do more web surfing in bed on my smartphone by 7 am than you do all day.

Do you also go to bed at 4am? I also don't consider web surfing on my smartphone actually work. I was about to go to bed now actually, it's 2am and I've an 8am train but here I am, web surfing, Puzzled by your comment really, not sure if your just trolling or just saw the fact that I get up at 10am and commented.

It was my quirky way of saying I get up early every morning. Its surprising how emo people are on HN.

Good to know that you get up early every morning. Perhaps some other people will chime in with what time they like to get up and a selection of other irrelevancies.

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