Freelance Web Development - Don't quit your day job
Author: Wayne Eggert
Date: 09/07/06
Freelance
sounds very tempting.. no boss breathing down your neck, you can wear
your pajamas to work, plenty of freelance websites and part-time work
available through websites like RentACoder.com, Elance.com, Guru.com and
GetAFreelancer.com. I'm going to take a wild guess and say if you're
working for a small or medium-sized web development company, you've
probably thought "Why am I only getting paid $15-20/hr when my company
is charging $80-100/hr for a project." Well, you might not say that if
you were a regular HTML monkey and all you did was code HTML while your
colleagues programmed full-blown database driven web applications.. but
lets just assume for the moment that you are more than a monkey --
you're a guru. Heck, you might even know some Unix *gasp*.
Take This Job And Shove It
..err, on second thought.. can I have my job?
Don't quit your day job yet.. that is of course, unless the company
you're working for is *way* behind on payroll and you're going into debt
(as was the case with yours truly).. then by all means QUIT NOW!
Otherwise, check your company's policies on freelancing to make sure
you're not going to get into any legal trouble with pursuing other forms
of income while you're working at your current job. Remember that
non-compete you signed way back when you naively figured all web hosting
companies had 5-year non-compete agreements? Yep, it's back to bite
you in the ass.
Lets say you don't have a non-compete.. or you spoke with your boss
about doing some freelance work and he/she gave you the OK. The
freelancing opportunities online seem pretty tempting -- and you have
more experience than many of the knuckle-heads in your profession.. so
why not quit immediately and get started raking in the dough? It's
simple.. there are 3,435,983 other people just like you doing exactly
the same thing and most of them are willing to work for far less than
you can imagine. Okay so I made that number up, it's probably much
higher.
So I Shouldn't Freelance
I didn't say that. By all means pursue other forms of income, but just
realize it will take time, effort and a bit of luck to make freelance
your full-time job. It might never happen, it's all in the cards you're
dealt.. how you play the game, and how lucky you are in making good
contacts.
Finding Freelance
Whatever freelance site you use, you're probably going to be bidding on
freelance projects. You could of course find freelance work in forums
or job posting sites, but it's much easier to use a site that was
designed for freelance postings where you can monitor a category or
easily search new postings without having to waste a ton of time
searching through expired freelance requests. I should also mention
that you're going to want to use a site with Escrow and other forms of
buyer/seller protection -- it will be costly at first, but you can at
least be reasonably certain that the time you're putting into a project
will be payed out to you once the project is completed.
Lets take RentACoder.com as an example, which I have used successfully
in the past for finding freelance work. RentACoder.com allows a
"Seller" to post a project (freelance work request) and the "Bidder"
(programmer) to place a bid on that project. It's like an eBay auction,
only you're bidding on how much you think it would take to complete
their project by the deadline. Once a Seller has accepted a bid, the
money is put into Escrow and sits there until the Bidder has completed
the work on the project. After successful completion of the project,
the money is transferred out of Escrow and payed to the Bidder. It
works very well -- the only catch is there are usually fees involved
with using a freelance service.
Starting Out: Taking A Dive
You're going to take a dive when you're first starting out.. this is
especially the case if you don't have an extensive portfolio or prior
freelance reputation anywhere. So you're going to bid for a project,
and most likely not get the first one you bid on, or the second, or the
third. Someone somewhere has to take a chance on you, and it usually
means you have to bid an obscenely low amount on a mundane task or be
lucky enough to find someone willing to give you a shot. In my case, I
was paid roughly $20 to spend 3 hours gathering quality links from a
search engine on a specific topic. After RentACoder took their fees, I
wasn't even making minimum wage. Be prepared for this.. but try not to
stay down with the bottom feeders of data entry too long or you'll have
people wondering why you've only worked on $5-10 data entry projects if
you know how to program an e-commerce site from scratch.
Making The Right Connections
Network, Network, Network! It's going to be tough proving to people
that you can do half of the things you tell them you can. Give them a
resume if they ask, show them some samples of your work if you have a
portfolio.. make them feel comfortable that you will be completing their
project on-time come hell or high water, even if you know in the long
run you're still going to lose some money on the 5 or 10 projects you
do. It's important to build your feedback on at least one freelance
site so you have an online reputation for use on other sites. And
remember, if you do a good job -- you could have a customer who is
interested in working directly with you and won't have to waste the
time/money it takes to bid on and land a project.
Your Friends Overseas
One of the more frustrating parts of using the freelance sites will be
your competition. It's not uncommon to see bidders from developing
countries bidding $50 on a fully customized MySpace clone or something
of that nature. I'm not talking about a customization of a script..
rather, a website built from scratch. You'll bid $200 for a project
that you're lucky if you'll make $15/hr.. and someone else will bid $75
or lower. You have much more competition than you will realize -- but
there are usually a few people who have had bad experiences with
accepting these lower bids & want to hire someone they can
communicate effectively with. Point is, you aren't out of luck if you
submit 10-20 bids and they go to another coder. When bidding, just
explain what your qualifications are, restate what they want you to do
on the project and you should stand a pretty good chance of standing out
from many of the canned responses that someone overseas would give.
IRS Blues
Another thing to take into consideration is the IRS will want some of
your hard-earned money as well. Figure roughly 25-30% just to be on the
safe side. Keep records of what you're paid and definitely keep this
in the back of your mind as you continue doing freelance. You don't
want to be caught with your pants down at the end of the year, having to
owe hundreds to the IRS that you could have set aside as you were
working.
Site Recommendations
My current recommendation for getting started in freelance online is
RentACoder.com. Their site is fairly easy to navigate and search for
new projects.. and while i think the interface could use an overhaul it
works pretty well. The site can be slow at times, but you tend to find
more lower-end projects that a beginning freelancer stands a chance of
winning. You'll need to build up your ratings quick to stand a chance
at making it worthwhile though.
I don't recommend Guru.com -- I purchased an account with them and
barely used it. They offer subscription plans, but lock you into
bidding only on the project category you signed up for. If you want to
bid on projects in other categories, you have to purchase a subscription
for the additional categories. Additionally, the projects there tend
to be higher-end and if you don't have a reputation elsewhere it's going
to be tough actually landing a project or seeing any immediate income.
In Conclusion
If you're thinking of freelancing, don't quit your job just yet. With
some time and effort, it can be worthwhile.. but it will likely be a
rough start until you build your reputation. Remember.. network,
network, network! There is some stiff competition out there and you're
going to have to distinguish yourself from everyone else who is looking
for work just like you. Have a portfolio ready, try to sell yourself
some if given the chance to comment during a bid, and be prepared to
take a few dives on projects initially. At least if it doesn't work
out, you still have your 9-to-5.
Comments:
| Site Recommendations |
| Posted 06/26/07 3:01PM by Jill |
|
There are better ways to build a sustainable freelance business than bidding for projects and competing with overseas talent. Check out www.freelancelocaltech.com. I have been working as a freelance software consultant for more than twenty years and find most of my clients are local (even if we never meet) and they want to work with someone who is local. They also want to work with someone they can easily contact whenever they have a problem or need advice. It can be tough to get your freelance business started and I recommend having a 6-month runway, but there are definite advantages to being the boss. |