The startup freelancer

If you're in it for the money, early stage startups are not the way to go as far as clients go. As I mentioned in the post I do it because I love startups and working on MVPs specifically. It also lets me get my mind off my own startup and see how others do things differently.

That's why joining an early-stage startup as an employee is often not attractive. But building MVPs for "startups" isn't necessarily unattractive. Obviously, you want to stay away from broke "seeking co-founder" types, but there are plenty of people out there capable and willing to invest $xx,xxx in their new businesses.

As an example, I believe Kevin Rose took his savings ($10,000 if I remember correctly) and paid a freelancer he found on Elance to build the first version of Digg.

I've been doing this full-time for the last year. It's worked well for me in the SF area because it's a lot easier to get in the door for new companies/products than with established companies that already have dev teams. I also like working on brand new products and technologies and startups are great for that. :)

The main lesson I've learned working with startups is that consulting is always easier working for people that are spending other people's money. The guy who spent the last year saving $10K of his personal earnings to build his genius daily deals for big data social mobile app? He's going to try to squeeze you for everything he can get. The startup that raised a $1.5MM series A? Going to treat dealings like a business negotiation and probably be less emotional to deal with.

That being said, you still want to manage risk based on who you're dealing with. If I'm consulting for a company with $50MM in revenues and 200 employees, I'm not worried about them going under tomorrow, so I'll let them pay me monthly net-30. If I'm consulting for a 5 person startup that's operating on a seed round, I'll usually require weekly net-7 or net-15. I've started avoiding companies that seem sketchy or are operating off personal savings, but if I was going to work with those types of clients in the future, I'd do a prepaid retainer.

Of course, this varies on a case-by-case basis so YMMV.

The work is interesting. I've been consulting for a few startups doing MVP development and it was a lot of fun getting those first few decisions off the ground and doing a bunch of product as well as code work. It depends on the length/terms of the deal, of course. I wouldn't do it as a full-time career but it was great to fill a few months of creative time while I was working on my own projects and deciding what the hell to do next. I ended up joining one of the startups I was consulting for :)

As Thomas has mentioned, if you can budget an employee, you can budget a consultant. There certainly exist cash-poor startups who don't know where their next bowl of ramen is coming from, but there also exist startups with dozens or hundreds of employees.

I am currently working full-time remotely on the MVP of an interesting start-up. I get paid relatively low fees and some equity (the discussions are on). I am doing this because I like being in 100% control of the development process and deeply involved with the creation of the product itself. It's a great learning opportunity that can come in handy when you get around to working on your own product someday.

I'm a full-time freelance programmer, and over the last 4 years I've done several projects for clients like these, though generally I do work for agencies/shops.

For reference, typical projects include a product matching software to link buyers at large chain stores with product (spectacular failure, by the way) and yet another professional certification automation site.

First and foremost, it's interesting, typically greenfield work where I don't have to come up to speed on old code.

Second, I'm am earlier in my career, and it has been a really good way of getting relevant, larger-scale projects into my CV.

Third, I can charge the same rate as I do with my agency clients and that makes them super happy because they aren't paying the agency but, at the same time, there are a lot of issues that I don't have when dealing directly with a typical agency client: generally, they feel more inclined/involved, get back to me quickly, have strong (usually well formed) opinions.

And while I can't really get a whole lot of money out of these clients, generally I get more than I would as a subcontractor on the project, which is quite a bit.

There are indeed bad projects in the space... I worked briefly on part of an optimizely clone where although I personally liked the principles and thought they had an interesting product, they were very unorganized and generally hard to work with... but that's true of any space and at least I don't have an agency pressuring me to do the project even thought I think it is bad situation.... which, in the end is the best reason: I can walk away from these things if they don't go well, having been paid well, but less than they would have spent on an employee or hired a firm.

Thinking about it maybe that bit of risk management indicates that it's not so much that these are "ideal" freelance clients, but rather than being a freelance is a better kind of relationship for both sides in terms of managing risk.

I agree that the way I work is definitely not for everyone, and I only accept projects where I am confident that the client sees eye to eye with me. It wouldn't work if I was the only developer working on the project. There are several other, more junior developers on the team who work more hours than I do.

The client is very happy with the arrangement because it ends up costing much less than if I was on the team full-time and he is sure that every day I work is a day where things actually move forward significantly. He rather gets frustrated when freelancers charge several days of work and little progress seems to occur. There is at least a perception of lesser waste of time/money when work is concentrated over a small period of time, and I would argue that there is less actual waste.

I have kind of stumbled on to the same line, though I'm in the early stages of getting over the shock of it all as it was not something I was looking to do and considering where I am located (India), I never would have thought it would be possible.

I guess there is no one right way to do this. A lot depends on your own abilities, strengths and the terms in which you can get clients. If you have leverage and can deliver well, the timing is not an issue.

In any case, I'm glad there are more people doing the same :)

I've seen something like this before. If a freelancer doesn't work as much as employees, they can cherry-pick what they want to do. I've seen freelancers excellent at this cherry-picking. They can get a hell of a lot done because they choose the greenest of greenfield programming.

Observe what the author says:

• "It wouldn't work if I was the only developer working on the project."

• "There are several other, more junior developers on the team who work more hours than I do." Yes, works better if you have power to set the direction, more bargaining power than employees, and have your voice heard more (perhaps due to more experience, or aggressiveness, etc).

This isn't a condemnation; workplaces are inherently political, which means I play politics regardless of whether I admit it. (Also means I've needed to observe others' political games.)

Well, my own startup is also making a little money, and I resort to a couple of life hacks to get extra income and reduce costs. I'll write another post about that soon.

Hmm what kind of fee do you charge and what are you spending that 40 hrs/month would not be enough? For me thats about 4k euros which is plenty to live on, go on vacation and save money.

Go unrelated, conflicts do your head in.

Client: 'What should we do now?' You: We'll I've thought on this for ages, here's the answer but it's hard one knowledge from my startup, how much do I share?

Do you also restrict your time to, say, 10 hours per week as OP? How long do you work on a single client/project?

Thanks, fixed.