Notes on freelancing best practices from October meet-up

Here are some of the things we went over (click to skip to the topic):

• Agencies v. freelancing
• How to make yourself findable
• Assessing whether your skills fit the project
• Deciding to take on a project
• Pricing
• Other resources

Agencies v. freelancing

• Pro agency: It can be a little tougher to nail down terms if you're not working with a contracting agency.
• Pro freelancing: Not networking when you're going through a vendor.
• Pro freelancing: With vendors, there's never going to be any real information about the position till you're really far along.

Agencies: Collaborative, KForce (provides benefits), TekSystem, OST

How to make yourself findable

• Narrowing makes you easier to find (vertical marketing). i.e.: social justice, environment, sports, retail, etc.
• Focus on concepts, general services (horizontal marketing) - i.e.: strategy, design
• Word of mouth only works when you have expertise
• Marketing yourself about what you're good at, what differentiates you
• Taking part in the design process makes it so you're no longer a commodity (tech is becoming a commodity because of competition).
• Networking: For face-to-face networking, The Factory (shared workspaces) also doubles as a tech community center. User groups also attract clients seeking developers.
• If all else is equal, client will usually go for local contact

Assessing whether your skill set matches the project

• If you don't have the skill set, know the subject of your project, maybe know the user experience because it becomes a road map for development
• Learning sandbox: Look for opportunities within your circles/job to fill gaps (i.e.: One participant who works at Apple realized while there's a way for corporate to communicate with stores, there's no way for stores to communicate internally. Created a Drupal site so employees could easily update one another, and now four Apple stores use it)
• Figuring out what your client wants can be difficult because they don't always know what they need. Client has biz need and also their vision of how to meet their biz need. It's best for freelancer to go around their vision and just aim for the biz need, but work with them.
• Don't freelance if you're not confident/competent in what you're doing. Be honest with yourself about where you are and let it help you define your market.

Deciding to take on a project

• Don't take on a project where the client has something improved and doesn't want to start over.
• Dan: Learning opportunity, artistically interesting, invested in endeavor, personal relationships
• Jason: Money, enjoying work itself, project acts as a stepping stone (resume building, networking)
• Creating a profile of the type of client you want to work with (Mutually Human). This can include budget. Must be able to quickly say whether a project is worth pursuing. Should also emanate the same to clients via positioning (in John's case he almost wants to market what he doesn't do rather than what he does do).
• Gut reaction is to take whatever you can get. Bad thing is, you will get plenty of work, and it's not necessarily good work or even stimulating. Can't really predict workload in a certain time span, so it can be difficult.

1. Increase staff
2. Increase rate
3. Accept less work

Pricing
Price can actually go both ways. Can emanate quality if all else is equal. If you charge a lot and don't deliver, that's going to get out quick. If you don't charge a lot and don't deliver, you can possibly escape.

• Fixed bids v. hourly rates: fixed is much bigger profit.
• Tips for setting price:
• Whatever hourly rate at work, double it.
• Pick an exact number, do not tailor it to the client. Check out rates of those with similar experiences and every time you get a job, raise it 10%.
• Must factor in that with freelancing, don't get benefits or vacation when considering pay

Other resources

• Rework by 37 Signals
• Elevator Up's tech calendar has been dissolved. I've attached a spreadsheet of user groups in the area, but keep in mind that it's over a year old and is probably not a complete list.
• SoftwareGR