Advice for Aspiring Independent Programmers

[SuperMike]

I read the MS sucks, IE sucks, Windows sucks, Linux rules stuff and I just have to say - It reads more like advice from a Linux fanboy/MS troll to aspiring independent developers.

And I guess I'm scratching my head wondering why you're visiting a Linux forum?

[laxmanb]

And I guess I'm scratching my head wondering why you're visiting a Linux forum?

Because (k)Ubuntu is my primary OS. And I also use XP, Vista and Solaris. But fanboyism/trolling just turns me off.

[SuperMike]

What the hell? I'm not trolling. If I were, I'd be making short little smart alec comments all the time in my posts and never leaving anything of worth in the forums. My posting history shows nothing of the sort.

I'm sharing these facts here in this thread just as a way to get it off my chest and organize my thoughts about something new I've learned or discovered. And that helps me capitalize on my knowledge. Plus, in other forums, I get useful suggestions in feedback, such as to try something new.

Besides, what little I said about M$ compared to everything else I've shared in this thread -- it's so insignificant, that for you to pick that out, it sure does sound like you're the pot calling the kettle black?

[laxmanb]

Sorry. I just find the "Windows Sucks!!" attitude annoying and got carried away - Some of the tips in your post are really good!!

[HumanAnarchist]

From DSL (Damn Small Linux) it's a guide for how to make a living online when you come from the open source world.

http://damnsmalllinux.org/income-guide/

by the way, great thread!

-ha-

Another option for some people could be to move to a low cost land and work from there, Easier to make the wheels go around when you don't have so much expences.

[SuperMike]

From DSL (Damn Small Linux) it's a guide for how to make a living online when you come from the open source world.

http://damnsmalllinux.org/income-guide/

by the way, great thread!

-ha-

Another option for some people could be to move to a low cost land and work from there, Easier to make the wheels go around when you don't have so much expences.

The DSL F/OSS software business is a great link for some. For me, I tried my own F/OSS project and only had a bunch of happy downloaders and about 4 gigs that started to sound like they were going to go through, but fell through. Instead, the customer went on without me. However, it did manage to get someone to give me an unrelated gig and for me to get started as a PHP freelancer.

Regarding the country comment -- you are absolutely correct. If there's any way you can break things down to the barebones when getting started as a freelancer, I recommend you do so. I mean, if I weren't married and didn't have children, then I would probably be moving to some place with great food, great women (ha!), stability, safety, and cheap prices. Funny thing is -- the only thing I've found with all that is the USA.

The great thing about a web dev freelancer is that you can basically set up shop anywhere you can get an Internet connection and a mobile phone connection, and sometimes not even that (such as a local web server on your laptop). So, if I want to work at the beach, I can do so. Sure, it helps to have other systems to test things on and host projects of your own, and bigger screens, and more stable keyboards that can handle daily pounding, but if you want to break it down to its basics, then a laptop and a mobile phone is all you need.

[sicofante]

if I weren't married and didn't have children, then I would probably be moving to some place with great food, great women (ha!), stability, safety, and cheap prices. Funny thing is -- the only thing I've found with all that is the USA.

Isn't that a bit too broad? Where in the USA? Have you really checked that out or are you being lazy?

In some European countries, self employed workers do have unemployment subsidies and public medical insurance that will help a lot if you fall ill or have a bad time with no business coming in (even if you don't have a dime and can't pay any taxes, you get full medical care in Spain). Of course you won't be able to live a long time from subsidies but at least you don't need a spouse to rely on her/his income for the hard times.

I also dislike very much the "Microsoft sucks" attitude and replacing the S with the $ when talking about MS. That sort of things are childish and make an otherwise brilliant post less reliable (especially when you declare you're in your forties). Consider respecting your "enemies" to gain credibility.

[WastingBody]

Sounds like great advice for an aspiring programmer like me.

[SuperMike]

Staying Focused When Behind Schedule I've found it's harder for me to stay focused when I'm behind schedule. It's like hopelessness compounds itself and one just gives up. I then rage against that attitude to keep fighting on. I'm in a very tough project right now that's hard to finish. AJAX and heavy Javascript stuff can be pretty frustrating. So, if you're wanting to get into this industry, you'll probably encounter the same kinds of issues.

Admin Pages Will Drive You Nuts After a few runs of doing this now, I've learned that building admin pages are something I always underspec too much as far as time, and I keep having to do them as custom things, which is extremely time consuming. I've had enough! And so now on my next project, I'm going to create an application in a wizard interface (next, next, finish, etc.) that analyzes a database, asks a few questions, and builds at least 75% of the admin interface complete with database calls, AJAX search and lookup, forms, and so on. Then, I can turn around and write the last 25% of the business rules to finish the admin interface.

So You're Popular, Now What? So let's say a couple clients are extremely enthused with you. They think they can get the customers, design the website look and feel in Photoshop or Gimp or Inkscape, build the functional specification, and then outsource the rest to you. It's a pipeline. Trouble is, you may find that the average project takes about 3-5 weeks to build. Now what? It's a conundrum you'll be faced with eventually. You could get your client to agree to let you outsource some small pieces of it and then its up to you to blend them all together. However, don't be surprised when you hear a no, not only because of the increased cost, but because he trusts your work, not the work of others. You could get your client to look for other guys like you, build up trust, and so on, but then you could potentially end up with some serious competition that's more skillful than you. So, in the end, you'll find you can't keep up with the demand of your clients and someone is going to have be told yes at the expense of saying no to others. What I do is build a pool of guys I like interacting with, and like the way they code, and so I then refer clients to these other guys when I'm too busy. For one, I hope that they reciprocate one day back with me. For two, I like leaving my potential client on a positive note, not a negative one, because I've at least found someone else available for them. I also don't like to form partnerships with any other guys because that just complicates things -- the cons outweigh the pros. I mean, I don't like a lot of complicated tax and business paperwork. I keep it simple.

[SuperMike]

Learn jQuery. I've done a lot of thinking about time-killers on projects, and the biggest one is delivering fancy effects in the browser and then the cross-platform testing and tweaking that needs to occur after it. To that end there are Javascript frameworks out there to take the pain out of cross-platform testing. If you look around, you soon find that the richest platform, and the platform with the largest players behind it, is jQuery. With jQuery, its lead developer works at Mozilla Foundation, which is an extremely well-funded organization thanks to cooperation between Google and Firefox. What's also interesting about jQuery is that it is not just a framework of pre-built, pre-tested ooh aah components for the Web 2.0 clientele -- it's also a new way of doing Javascript that uses far less lines of code. So, if you're looking to make your Web 1.0 products move into a Web 2.0 direction, or if you're simply looking to optimize time, jQuery is a highly recommended framework for you to invest your time in.

Be Careful about Being Too Chummy with Clients. Working with clients sometimes feels like a teacher and his students. As a teacher, you can't let your students get too chummy with you or you can't control bad behavior. Clients like to get a lot of things for free, or to ask for add-ons that are half-priced or free near the end of the project, and that's a difficult thing to put the foot down on when you've built up too much friendliness with your clients. Saying this, though, if you're building a portfolio still, then of course it's good to get chummy with a few clients and give them some freebies or half-priced work near the tail-end of a project. Also, if you are trying to lose the game to win the greater good, such as giving away a few freebies here or there, or getting too friendly with a client, because you honestly think it will guarantee you a slot for more work on other projects or later phases, then it might be something for you to be flexible with.

There Will Be Down Months. There will be months where you're doing cheap or free add-on work that consumes a lot of time, and poor time estimates that carry you into another month, and so you need to be prepared for this shock and have a plan. In a couple months, for instance, I was bringing in $10K on projects (although working extremely hard + nights and weekends). In my current month, however, cash has dipped down to $2500. It's not that the cash has dipped down because I wasn't looking for client work -- it's because of bad time estimates and longer bug cycles than anticipated that I was too busy to work for other clients. So, after projects complete, you'll need to do a Lessons Learned for yourself to determine the time failures and bottlenecks, learn to optimize, and you'll need to have something on the side to help give you a cashflow even when time is tight. One opportunity is to put out a Google AdWords ad to try and catch just one client who will pay you on retainer on a 6-month or 12-month contract for like 1/2 to 1/3 your regular rate. Luckily I didn't have to do that because that proposal came to me first. However, if I ever lose my retainer client, I'll definitely be using Google AdWords to find my next one. Another opportunity, which of course is a natural for many web developers, is Affiliate Marketing since many of our clients are AMers. Last, there's also small stuff you can do like PSD to XHTML conversions, and use ads on various sites to bring in your traffic for that.

Two Clients A Month Is Great, Three Is Tough, Four Is Impossible. I think you'll find when building websites for people that two clients a month is great and a little tough, but three clients a month is going to be so tough that you won't have any kind of social life. At four clients and beyond, you're moving into insanity. The only way to get those kind of client months is to outsource chunks of projects, such as the admin functionality, or use canned projects (or previous sites) that you pull off the shelf and customize.

Yes, You Can Work from The Beach. Recently my wife had an opportunity to take a spring break at the beach and we rented a beach house. I was actually hoping to have my work ironed out for me to take a break, but I was not so lucky. So, I stayed back home one extra day, but that wasn't enough. Since investing in your wife and family is extremely important as a freelancer, I knew I had to hit the beach. Luckily with this new career I could take my laptop and catch an occasional free wireless signal when I could. Many cafes and even McDonalds have free wireless, but I found I was oddly lucky enough to catch free wireless from the comfort of the beach house for some odd reason, and I wish the same luck upon you. It was simply amazing to be right there on the beach in a chair with the ocean waves, doing occasional work that earns me cash rather than reading a spy novel. Other relatives who arrived to meet us at the house were fairly jealous -- there lives are in long commutes, 9 hour days where they have to be in the office, and they don't get to enjoy life very much.