damoncali

If you think today is anything like the 90's then you weren't there.

One more thing. Getting a mortgage is a pain in the ass. You will be held to a higher standard than someone with W2 income, so you might not be able to borrow what you can actually afford, and won't get anything at all until you've got a few years of track record on your tax returns.

It gets easier over time. The first contracts are the hardest to get. Then, if you're any good, you start to get referrals. You just have to make sure every single client is happy. If you go out and network, you will eventually get to a point where you can stop trying so hard, but it's never what I would call "easy". The hardest part is making a living while you're getting started.

I would avoid oDesk type rates at all costs. You're better off going to small business networking groups and making simple brochure sites and wordpress installs for $1000-$2000 a pop.

Basically, yes. Don't let it discourage you. It's a great way to earn a living, but it has downsides - so go in with open eyes. It's not a life for "I just want to code" types. They're better off with full time jobs.

I do this, but it's not all roses. Getting and keeping those contracts continually takes effort and time. It's stressful when you don't have much line of sight into the future. And even though you can charge a high hourly rate, it's difficult to work lots of billable hours. I need time for context switching, administrivia, marketing. And the one problem I don't see discussed much: on-demand motivation.

If you work a salary job and don't feel up to it for at the moment, you can coast for half a day and get your shit together. On your own, that's a half a day of lost money. My brain needs breaks, and I just can't do code 40 hours a week and not burn out. I've tried. It just hasn't worked. So that downtime is a requirement, and you lose money for it.

The best part is that a decent programmer can make a moderate income working relatively little. Or you can make a lot of money if you work very hard. It's your choice at any given moment. But don't underestimate the drain of having to work for one to three people at a time, managing your time, and making sure the pipeline doesn't run dry all at the same time. It's pretty annoying/stressful when two important clients have deadlines on the same day. It's not like you can just pull in more help. Or if you can, you then have two problems - you have to go out and find the help, manage it, etc.

I don't think I could bill more than 25 hours a week and keep my sanity. But I'm not exactly a workaholic, and 25 hours a week is a pretty good living.

Milage may vary.

I've always wondered what would/will happen when the tax code gets so complicated that nobody can understand it, and we have to rely on a machine to interpret it. A sort of brave new world where the inputs are collected by computers, the tax is calculated by computers and taken by computers, all understood only by a small cadre of tax coders. Kind of scary.

I believe we were studying Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" at the time. Now that I think about it, it was probably more like 10th grade.

But it was an informative exercise, as I've since found that many good ideas also fall into this category along with all the nutty ones.

I enjoy them. I still can't tell if this one is real or intended as humor. That's fascinating to me.

How depressing is it for us in the US that the Indian tax code is simple enough that someone can "show HN" a tax calculator.

Voltage, mainly. Sometimes NiMH batteries just don't do the job for very long- it's like putting in an almost dead battery to start with. My kids' wii remotes, for example, don't work very well on rechargeables. They work for a little while, but I was constantly recharging them to the point where it got stupid.

calories vs kilocalories, I suppose.

Funny. Just the other day, my gas cap was loose. The traction control light came on along with the check engine light. As far as I could tell, it (traction control) was still operational, however.

Seemed like a funny combination of lights to blink on.

Been there done that. Have a talk with the client NOW, and reset the expectations more realistically. You'll both be less stressed out.

Honest, frequent communication is the answer to this problem. A strong work ethic, ironically, just makes it worse.

I think you misunderstand what I'm trying to say.

WordPress is great for them. They want WordPress because it makes them comfortable to know they are on a "standard platform". They can hire someone else to maintain it if I get hit by a bus. So it's very easy for me to sell, and hosting companies like Flywheel (https://getflywheel.com) make it very easy to maintain. That was the point I was making - Wordpress is great for business. But, compared to other systems I have used, I find it technically very clumsy.

Usually, clients don't really realize they don't want to touch the site until it's in front of them. If I were certain that they would never want to edit before I started, I would be far less inclined to use WordPress, but might anyhow just because of the hosting/maintenance situation and the brand. I get tired of getting emails asking if I've updated the site for the latest high profile security patch. With Wordpress, I can pretty much ignore them with a quick "got it covered" response, because the (good) hosting companies fix this stuff before the clients are generally aware of it. At worst, I log in and click a button. That's great.

So really, I like WordPress, but only because it makes me money and saves me time. Everything else about it is fairly awful to me. I hate working with it. I hate developing in it. I hate that I have to wade through a sea of crappy plugins to find one that is suitable. And, easy as it is for you and I to edit, it's just too complicated for many of my clients. Sure, some of them are fine with it. But more often the CMS winds up being for me, not them.

This is all just my personal experience slogging through this stuff for the past several years. Milage may vary.

Don't take it so literally. The point is that the personality traits that give us our strengths and good characteristics are very often the source of our weaknesses and bad characteristics. Take a look around at the people you know well - I bet it's almost always the case.

BS is s pretty strong word. I would suggest that maybe you have different clients than I do. Most of mine throw their hands up very quickly and just have me do it - if they even try. Maybe 50% don't ever attempt to. Things like adding images and links are a challenge for them, especially when canned themes are involved. Some do fine with just plain text. Most don't. But all in all, most of my clients don't want to even think about a website, let alone edit it.

No idea about Ghost. I found Jekyll to be too limited for client work - but it's been a good 18 months since I used it.

Think about the thing you like most about someone. Think about the things you dislike the most about that same person. 9 out of 10 times, it's the same thing. Same goes for strengths and weaknesses.

It also works because customers have heard of it and believe that they can edit the sites themselves (in spite of your warnings), so it's much easier to sell. "We'll just put you on WordPress!". Done.

Of course, they never figure out how to edit the site, because the WYSIWYG editor is anything but, and even the text editor "enhances" the html you type in inexplicably. They don't know the difference between a post and a page (or a blog for that matter). So they give up, and wind up hiring you to add content too.

Which is great (yay, money!), but now you have to actually work with this monstrosity and you wind up wishing you had used something like middleman or sinatra like a proper gentleman. But deep down you know that would have been a bad idea as well, because they'd call you in three years to fix the outdated mess that became of your beautiful site after years of neglect. And you'll do it despite not wanting to because they won't be able to find someone else who knows how and that will make you feel guilty.

Meanwhile, WordPress just chugs on, smug in it's mediocrity.

It's really a ghastly creation, if you ask me.

Build something that looks nice so you can show people. Use a good theme or pay a designer. It's more important that it looks nice than that it works well.

Then start going to networking events for entrepreneurs and meet people - you will get quite a few offers, mostly crappy, to build the next Facebook. Politely say no to these. Eventually, you'll find someone who needs something simple enough that you can deliver it and make him happy. Take this job even if the pay isn't so hot (but do get paid - a portion up front). Ideally, it would be a 6 week-ish project - enough to be significant, but not enough for you or your your client to get in over your heads.

Keep doing that until the referrals start to come in. Make sure every single client is happy - contracting is a referral business. If I had a dollar for every client who came to me because their developer flaked out, I wouldn't need work.

You can also do this at local small business groups (not the tech entrepreneurs, but the the plumbers, accountants, and store owners) - just go and start introducing yourself. You won't get any cool work like this - mostly just Wordpress sites - but it's easier work to come by, and can pay just as well if you're smart about it. This might even be a better way to start because you get more, smaller, clients who can start your referral network. More clients = more referrals.

It's far more holistic than a simple credential that will get you a pay bump. Ten years after I graduated from B school, I've done significant amounts of business with several classmates and juat started a company with another. I married one of them, and made life long friends with many. I'm 100% positive that I've just scratched the surface of what my MBA will give me in life - much is still to come.

Contrary to the unfortunate opinions of many here on HN (I get it, I am a former engineer), there are more good MBAs than bad ones. What I can say with certainty, is that I have never spent time with a smarter, more motivated group of people than I did in B school. That includes my time at NASA and working at couple startups. It's a unique experience, and to me at least, worth the cost even with zero financial return. But if you want to make more after B school, it's easier. Not everyone chooses to.

If you're going to B school for the salary bump, you're doing it wrong.

It happens a lot for various reasons. Admissions people aren't that good at their jobs, good ol' boy networks, outright cheating on standardized tests (this is a huge problem in Asia), and more than a few "dumb smart kids". Overall, good B schools (well beyond the "top 5", which I'm pretty sure consists of at least 10 schools) are full of pretty sharp folks. Some even brilliant. But quite a few dullards as well make it through the process.

I don't pretend to understand the subtleties of the license. All I know is the lawyers say "don't use it" and if I see it, I move on. Many others do this as well, and it can't be good for those projects.

It's just not worth a conversation in every case I've run across.

The tax problem is a common one and one of the major downsides to equity compensation in some situations. I've never heard of your particular situation where they didn't keep you informed of the valuation, though. That's fairly awful. I would be livid.

Lawyers pretty much freak out over it if there's even a hint of using GPL software in a product. Not so much for tools, etc, but they get pretty adamant about it in stuff that touches the product code (this is admittedly vague) in my experience. I won't touch the stuff for commercial use, personally. Not once in 10 years have I not been able to find a suitable non-GPL project that did the same thing as the GPL code to meet my needs. In my opinion, using GPL is a pretty solid way to stifle a project. YMMV.

As much as I hate where this is going, it makes sense for a certain type of app. Apps where you need a login, really don't want it to be posting randomly/inviting friends, but in the end really isn't that important.

It helps overcome the username/password signup hurdle AND it helps assuage fears of random Facebook posting. I'm sure it will be a hit with the next semi-skeezy dating app.

For serious apps (business stuff), I don't see why you'd want this.

My God I feel old.

I interpreted it as "she's using Google Apps on her own domain, which has a registered address of her house". But it's not exactly clear.

I agree 100%. We are all idiots now and then, even when we're not purposefully trying to be by adding ducks.