Didn't expect this note at the end, but what a good move:
> Give back to the tools that make you successful - I give a percentage of my earnings every year to support software tools that help me do my job - iTerm2, Vim, Go, Postgres, Node.js, Python, nginx, various other open source projects.
Given the motivation to read and learn, a developer can read and modify legal 'code' just as easily as a lawyer can read and modify software 'code'. The question is what exceptions are thrown at compile time? In most SW stacks, you find out where your errors are pretty quickly. Unfortunately with legal code, "compile time" may not occur until the code is executed in a court of law. Are you sure that's when you want to do your debugging?
"Read contract yourself then get back to company and request to either remove all one-sided clauses or make them equally two-sided."
I did that not too long ago, to a potential client. The client's response was "Well we have used this standard contract with other freelancers and they have never complained about it. Take it or leave it" I left that client.
Piggybacking on this, here's a talk I couldn't possibly recommend enough, in which Mike Monteiro discusses the importance of 1) an attorney and 2) contracts in freelance work (40min):
Charging for a full week will make you lose a lot of clients. In the case of software development: The client never knows the full spec of the project and you'll have weeks were 10 hours is enough. Charging for those extra 30 hours is terrible deal for your client and he won't take it.
What you should be careful about is how much you charge per hour. You may set different rates based on context like: for a full time project project you charge X, for future maintaining (which is on demand ) you charge 1.5 times X.
Hourly also protects you agains scope creeping.
Charging by the week/project/milestones requires a near full specification and it's done at an agency level where you've a team. I've been working hourly and I love it. You can try to spec out any project as much as you can, in the end you can't predict scope changes and/or unexpected problems: API is broken, missed an important email, build system is failing for no obvious reason, server went down, etc, etc.
You have to figure out when charging by the hour/week/month/milestones is reasonable. Just because someone is making 120K a year in San Fran, doesn't mean you've to make the same amount while freelancing. It heavily swings from client to client.
I believe you'll find that overall consensus on HN will strongly disagree with you on this point.
Here's the post most people will direct you to for an explanation of why you'll want to avoid hourly billing, and how to get to a place where you don't need to bill hourly:
For what it's worth - all of the people I know who have been able to do software-related consulting successfully over the long term don't bill hourly. They'd actually agree with you that having a minimum billable period of a week lots them lots of clients - but it lost them the clients that would try to nickel and dime them to death and complain about every invoice no matter low the hourly rate was.
It sounds like your experience has been different though, so I'm happy to hear you've found something that works for you.
To offer a counterpoint to the other commenters here:
I charge hourly and I wouldn't trade it for the world (unless I change the general concept on how I want to freelance).
When I freelance, I want freedom. For me that often means taking off the rest of the day spontaneously after lunch, or just ending the day early. When you are billing for a whole day/week that becomes much harder.
I also don't bill per-project, unless I have the ability to bring a trusted project manager onto the project as well, to provide me with some security against mismanagement, for the usual reasons like scope creep.
Charging hourly also makes it much easier to juggle multiple clients at the same time. For some reason, a meeting with all the stakeholders was set up on a day I am spending most of a day with another client? No problem, I just scoot right over, bill both client hourly accordingly, and nobody has any reason to complain.
As for clients being more prone to haggling over invoices with hourly rates, I haven't had that happen to me yet (~20 clients in 2,5 years). On the contrary, for project-based billing, there is usually a lot of time spent(/wasted) up front negotiating over pricing. I always send over a timesheet with my invoice, and if I had to guess I would guess that none of my clients ever checked that.
In the end, hourly billing gives me a much more relaxed life, a much more stable income stream, a much more stable growth in income, with far fewer headaches.
I would like to offer a different point of view here. Speaking as someone who has done consulting and owns a business. I would leave those hourly jobs for someone else. Focus on selling the result or business impact here. Frame and charge for it that way. You do not want to be some charge me by the hour consultant where they can just find someone cheaper, they will start to think of you like that, and will find someone else.
Do not overcharge or be dishonest about it. But, what is this result worth to them? I'd think of it that way. I have seen people pay 250k for a months work. But, the impact was massive for the company. I am positive this is on the small side as you work up the food chain. There is some free work up front in scoping things out, but then I would sell time in blocks or packages, and do not really get into what you are charing by the hour. They must have some budget for this project, the timelines, a general scope, etc. Make your proposal around that in the context of the impact to the company.
This depends on your field and clients too. But, I'd look to move as quickly as possible from hourly to package deal. There is risk but there is also big reward.
Something else if you're a freelance developer:
In order to command a higher rate and not just be hired as a code monkey to implement a predefined task, it helps to position yourself as a consultant who can help the client discover the best solutions to achieve their goals.
Example: instead of just agreeing to develop a client's website per their initial specs, in your discovery call, find out what their goals for the website are.
Let's say they want to use it to capture pre-orders for an upcoming product. Based on this, you can propose a few ROI-positive solutions like integrating payments with their email marketing platform to engage customers and bring back cart abandoners, hosting a viral share giveaway, etc.
Author, if you read this, skip Ally for business accounts. They do not allow them and may freeze your account and hold your funds when they realize you're using it for business.
I didn't know this was an issue. After some research, I found that this is correct and not only do they not allow it but it seems they've shut accounts without contacting the account holders first. Appreciate the heads up.
> Make Sure Contracts Are Signed With the Company - The contracts you sign should be between the client you are working with and your company NOT between the client and you personally. Discuss this with your lawyer.
So simple, yet so many people fail to do so. They believe that since they are incorporated they are protected.
What does this even mean from a mechanical standpoint? What do you look for?
More importantly, where do you learn about all this low level mechanical stuff? Business books and HN comments always assume you know how to do that stuff. They don't teach it in school, at least for CS majors. (And yes, I took the "law for everyday life" class at my school. It was basically at the same theoretical level)
Get a lawyer, review contracts, hire an accountant, register as a company...is this really better than working a regular 9-5?
Sounds like the OP spends just as much time (if not more) doing paperwork, meetings, phone calls and other assorted meta-work as programmers in Big Tech Co, if not more.
Corporate America can be a drag, I get it. Annual reviews, backstabbing office politics, the wrong people get promoted, loud open offices full of clowns that prevent you from concentrating but from this write-up it doesn't sound like going solo is any hassle-free Shangrila, either.
For a certain class of people they like the "freedom" and hey, more power to you. By all means, enjoy the IC life. But I'd just as soon move to a different company if I'm unhappy at my job and not deal with this Kafkaesque amount of paperwork of being an independent consultant.
I am the OP and I spend far less actually... a few hours at the beginning of a contract sure but the average contract is multiple months. All of the bills are auto paid, I just need to choose the right card/account when I pay for something. Invoices take about two minutes to generate using a free site called “invoice-generator.com.” The accountant I would have hired anyway to do my taxes. I don’t pay for the lawyer if I don’t use them.
I also get to skip doing phone screens, interviews, being oncall... I am spending a lot more of my time focusing on product problems than I was as a full time employee.
Also - this might be obvious but the goal is to make more than you made as a full time employee or get more vacation time for the same amount per year not merely tread water.
Until recently I would've spoken as pro-independent, having been at it the last few years as an agency. I left Corporate America to increase "freedom" but regardless of whether you charge flat-rate, hourly, weekly, retainer, etc. you're also spending those "free" hours wondering / attempting to find + secure more work. And regardless of your pipeline, it is a dance with existing clients. Payment schedules getting out of wack, revisions delaying payment and so on.
What's the real net return? Living expenses covered? Compared to a 9-5, there is a significant risk. What I realized is that if I am going to play with such levels of risk, do so through equity plays and not services. Through end of 2018, I was services only. I am mid-process interviewing with larger companies and will happily dive into my skill set for _______ while doing side projects.
When people talk about "freedom" in this context, they don't mean freedom from meetings, paperwork or other boring aspects of corporate life. And being self-employed is definitely not hassle-free.
What entices people is that - for both better and worse - you are your own boss. You dictate what projects you say yes or no to, what hours you work, when you go on vacation and lots more.
You skipped the other “freedom” you get when you work for yourself: free time.
When you hang out your shingle and quadruple your bill rate for short bursts of client work, you get the option of not immediately booking another gig after you finish the last one. For me, I’d usually toss in a quick 9-12 months of travel before committing to another gig.
But you’re right. I did have to fill out the longer version of turbotax, so maybe it all balances out.
Yes, because once you figure those parts (which is not that hard as you listed), you will be able to make 5x - 10x more money than you used to make with the same skillset.
9-5 for a developer pays 100k. Freelance gets paid 250k+. This is real.
> Sounds like the OP spends just as much time (if not more) doing paperwork, meetings, phone calls and other assorted meta-work as programmers in Big Tech Co, if not more.
That's business ownership for you. The one thing you're almost certainly NOT getting (at least at the start) is more coding time.
After the initial corporation, legal and accounting setup there’s actually little paperwork that really needs to be done and can actually be quicker than the 9-5 equivalent.
ie: if I need a new computer I just buy it and attach the receipt to the bank statement tracked by my accounting software and my accountant takes care of the rest, versus having togo through some procurement process involving making a business case for my purchase, filling in the expense report, getting that report signed by a manager, etc.
For me personally it was a huge drop in stress. I absolutely hated having bosses promise unrealistic deadlines and then crank up the pressure on the team when we flew passed promised deadlines.
This is great. Also interesting would be a similar guide on scaling from a one-person operation to a proper consultancy.
Personally I'm jealous of those who manage to found their own creative consultancies. Especially ones that mix design/VFX/videography/software talent, that focus primarily on things like interactive experiences or commercials.
For example, the Windows 10 default background.[0]
There's numerous other equally neat examples, but the gist of it is that they get to think up cool stuff and then sell that to their clients, who are usually massive brands that can afford to pay big money.
Getting one of those off the ground is probably exceedingly difficult barring deep industry experience and the connections to match, and even then I'm sure it's hard.
Sourcegraph CEO here. Kevin Burke (the author) worked with us at Sourcegraph for some important projects in late 2018 (including helping to prepare a big product release). It was a joy working with him. I’ve worked with a lot of contractors and would love it if more people followed these guidelines.
I'm in the same boat, with a pure technical background, I managed to tripled my salary in 2 years, the job has become much more interesting and without all the political noise. The hardest bit so far is the sales / pricing strategy. For example, my biggest problematic this month is to figured out how much is it realistic to charge a F500 to support & maintain a custom build solution we've created: 5k/month, 10k/month, 15k/month (was sounding totally crazy to me until some people told me their company charge that kind of money for support)
My experience has been to ask for a crazy amount (at least 50% more than you think you can possibly achieve). This anchors them high. Agree to “meet in the middle” and you will be better off than your starting point. Then deliver like crazy until they think you’re underpaid.
"""
I started out charging a monthly rate that was close to my full time salary / 12. This is not a good idea because you have overhead that your employer is no longer covering - health care probably the biggest one, you don't have paid vacations, there may be unpaid downtime between contracts and also companies might not pay you.
"""
When I started working remote 5 years back, I was just out of college and didn't care about those things...
I feel like this is standard stuff, especially coming from the UK and the huge amount of contracting in that market. The real hard parts of independent contracting (how much exact are market rates/how do I find & land leads for contracts without an existing contact at the client) don’t seem to be addressed.
I feel like going freelance/consulting is such as "figure it out on your own" ordeal even though there are so many people who do it. Seems like there's opportunity to help people who want to go freelance transition more easily.
I think a good analogy is hair salons that sell a seat you can rent as a hairdresser...are there places where you can "pay" for leads/intros to clients as part of a larger remote software consultancy?
It's an additional expense but I would add obtaining business liability insurance to the list. It's not generally too expensive but can save you a bundle in legal fees that you can't recoup even if you prevail in lawsuit. Additionally, while a corporate structure should shield you from personal liability, there's no guarantee that whoever is suing won't try and pierce the corporate veil to get to the corporate principals - hence the benefit of insurance.
This is so helpful- thanks for sharing! Also your own website is such a great example of taking selling yourself as a consultant seriously. Congrats on all the success here!
The biggest impediment for me would be finding clients. IME most programmers dont meet a lot plant potential clients when they are maintaining internal software. Even if they work for a consulting company, you can't use them due to restraint of trade clauses.
So how would you get the first customers? I'm just some guy off the street, no one is going bet money on me performing a function for their business.
One issue I see is that GitHub ToS prohibit a single natural person from owning multiple GitHub free accounts, so you would have to pay for each one which could get quite expensive. Of course, larger business will have their own GitHub Enterprise or self-hosted Bitbucket/GitLab/etc that they can make you an account on.
We just maintain our own corporate git hosting account for clients who don't have their own. Not a significant expense. Although we actually use bitbucket rather than github for this.
Problem is, as a student I am trying to go freelance and start getting clients by doing small projects. And I read articles like this one and I have so many questions. I cannot pay for a lawyer or an accountant yet most of the people recommend it, am I not going to be able to go solo if I don't have those kind of securities?
> I cannot pay for a lawyer or an accountant yet most of the people recommend it
Things are simple. The rule is: "If you can't pay for it, you probably don't need it". I am also one of those solo consultant, personally I got mine when I found out the price I was paying my accountant was multiple time less than the loss of not having one. To give some numbers, if you give to your government more than $5k, it will be worth your while with all the tax cut you can claim.
For small projects you might not need a lawyer or accountant.
But when you feel the balance is right you should hire people who can help you with your problems.
At the moment you might do small projects but when project get bigger and your rate higher you will see that an accountant will become affordable.
And when you do multi million projects you will be able to afford a lawyer.
But one thing that is very important even when you are still 'small': register everything! What money goes in and what goes out. What the contracts are and all your email conversations with clients.
This will help you and future accounts and lawyers.
You might want to consider charging more and retaining some income to cover professional fees. That said those fees don't need to be huge. We typically pay our lawyer and accountant less than $1000/yr, and we have more business and more complexity than you'd have starting out. Note that these folks aren't doing actual accounting and contract negotiation for you, just providing advice on how to set things up, on fine details, final agreement review, taxes, stuff like that which you can't get from Wikipedia and SO.
Dear Author, thanks for the write-up. Regarding "Market yourself"... You mention websites and so forth. Is most of your marketing online or most of it in networking events?
How do you deal with recruiters and LinkedIn recruiters - have you found a way around these?
[+] [-] faitswulff|7 years ago|reply
> Give back to the tools that make you successful - I give a percentage of my earnings every year to support software tools that help me do my job - iTerm2, Vim, Go, Postgres, Node.js, Python, nginx, various other open source projects.
[+] [-] SomethingOrNot|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gesman|7 years ago|reply
Read contract yourself then get back to company and request to either remove all one-sided clauses or make them equally two-sided.
Also - add clause stating that unless you paid in full and on time - all IP belongs to you.
Most contracts try to pull the blanket one way.
Once done, then call your lawyer with resulted paper.
Much less work for your lawyer to do.
[+] [-] karambahh|7 years ago|reply
Read a clause, test it with varying inputs, watch the output and so on.
I've actually had fun working with my lawyer debugging/mine-sweeping contracts. We tech people use very similar techniques.
Seriously, go for it, you'll see :)
[+] [-] nroach|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TomMckenny|7 years ago|reply
I did not know this had to be explicit. So even if unpaid or partially paid, your work can still legal belong to the commissioning party?
[+] [-] antoinevg|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamaicahest|7 years ago|reply
I did that not too long ago, to a potential client. The client's response was "Well we have used this standard contract with other freelancers and they have never complained about it. Take it or leave it" I left that client.
[+] [-] rlue|7 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U
[+] [-] andrei_says_|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mariopt|7 years ago|reply
This is bad advice.
Charging for a full week will make you lose a lot of clients. In the case of software development: The client never knows the full spec of the project and you'll have weeks were 10 hours is enough. Charging for those extra 30 hours is terrible deal for your client and he won't take it.
What you should be careful about is how much you charge per hour. You may set different rates based on context like: for a full time project project you charge X, for future maintaining (which is on demand ) you charge 1.5 times X.
Hourly also protects you agains scope creeping. Charging by the week/project/milestones requires a near full specification and it's done at an agency level where you've a team. I've been working hourly and I love it. You can try to spec out any project as much as you can, in the end you can't predict scope changes and/or unexpected problems: API is broken, missed an important email, build system is failing for no obvious reason, server went down, etc, etc.
You have to figure out when charging by the hour/week/month/milestones is reasonable. Just because someone is making 120K a year in San Fran, doesn't mean you've to make the same amount while freelancing. It heavily swings from client to client.
[+] [-] rpeden|7 years ago|reply
Here's the post most people will direct you to for an explanation of why you'll want to avoid hourly billing, and how to get to a place where you don't need to bill hourly:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4247615
For what it's worth - all of the people I know who have been able to do software-related consulting successfully over the long term don't bill hourly. They'd actually agree with you that having a minimum billable period of a week lots them lots of clients - but it lost them the clients that would try to nickel and dime them to death and complain about every invoice no matter low the hourly rate was.
It sounds like your experience has been different though, so I'm happy to hear you've found something that works for you.
[+] [-] hobofan|7 years ago|reply
I charge hourly and I wouldn't trade it for the world (unless I change the general concept on how I want to freelance).
When I freelance, I want freedom. For me that often means taking off the rest of the day spontaneously after lunch, or just ending the day early. When you are billing for a whole day/week that becomes much harder.
I also don't bill per-project, unless I have the ability to bring a trusted project manager onto the project as well, to provide me with some security against mismanagement, for the usual reasons like scope creep.
Charging hourly also makes it much easier to juggle multiple clients at the same time. For some reason, a meeting with all the stakeholders was set up on a day I am spending most of a day with another client? No problem, I just scoot right over, bill both client hourly accordingly, and nobody has any reason to complain.
As for clients being more prone to haggling over invoices with hourly rates, I haven't had that happen to me yet (~20 clients in 2,5 years). On the contrary, for project-based billing, there is usually a lot of time spent(/wasted) up front negotiating over pricing. I always send over a timesheet with my invoice, and if I had to guess I would guess that none of my clients ever checked that.
In the end, hourly billing gives me a much more relaxed life, a much more stable income stream, a much more stable growth in income, with far fewer headaches.
[+] [-] WestCoastJustin|7 years ago|reply
Do not overcharge or be dishonest about it. But, what is this result worth to them? I'd think of it that way. I have seen people pay 250k for a months work. But, the impact was massive for the company. I am positive this is on the small side as you work up the food chain. There is some free work up front in scoping things out, but then I would sell time in blocks or packages, and do not really get into what you are charing by the hour. They must have some budget for this project, the timelines, a general scope, etc. Make your proposal around that in the context of the impact to the company.
This depends on your field and clients too. But, I'd look to move as quickly as possible from hourly to package deal. There is risk but there is also big reward.
[+] [-] Sapph|7 years ago|reply
Example: instead of just agreeing to develop a client's website per their initial specs, in your discovery call, find out what their goals for the website are.
Let's say they want to use it to capture pre-orders for an upcoming product. Based on this, you can propose a few ROI-positive solutions like integrating payments with their email marketing platform to engage customers and bring back cart abandoners, hosting a viral share giveaway, etc.
[+] [-] codazoda|7 years ago|reply
Their great for personal accounts.
[+] [-] enobrev|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willart4food|7 years ago|reply
So simple, yet so many people fail to do so. They believe that since they are incorporated they are protected.
[+] [-] andrewflnr|7 years ago|reply
More importantly, where do you learn about all this low level mechanical stuff? Business books and HN comments always assume you know how to do that stuff. They don't teach it in school, at least for CS majors. (And yes, I took the "law for everyday life" class at my school. It was basically at the same theoretical level)
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ordinaryperson|7 years ago|reply
Sounds like the OP spends just as much time (if not more) doing paperwork, meetings, phone calls and other assorted meta-work as programmers in Big Tech Co, if not more.
Corporate America can be a drag, I get it. Annual reviews, backstabbing office politics, the wrong people get promoted, loud open offices full of clowns that prevent you from concentrating but from this write-up it doesn't sound like going solo is any hassle-free Shangrila, either.
For a certain class of people they like the "freedom" and hey, more power to you. By all means, enjoy the IC life. But I'd just as soon move to a different company if I'm unhappy at my job and not deal with this Kafkaesque amount of paperwork of being an independent consultant.
[+] [-] kevinburke|7 years ago|reply
I also get to skip doing phone screens, interviews, being oncall... I am spending a lot more of my time focusing on product problems than I was as a full time employee.
Also - this might be obvious but the goal is to make more than you made as a full time employee or get more vacation time for the same amount per year not merely tread water.
[+] [-] TaylorGood|7 years ago|reply
What's the real net return? Living expenses covered? Compared to a 9-5, there is a significant risk. What I realized is that if I am going to play with such levels of risk, do so through equity plays and not services. Through end of 2018, I was services only. I am mid-process interviewing with larger companies and will happily dive into my skill set for _______ while doing side projects.
[+] [-] paxys|7 years ago|reply
What entices people is that - for both better and worse - you are your own boss. You dictate what projects you say yes or no to, what hours you work, when you go on vacation and lots more.
[+] [-] jasonkester|7 years ago|reply
When you hang out your shingle and quadruple your bill rate for short bursts of client work, you get the option of not immediately booking another gig after you finish the last one. For me, I’d usually toss in a quick 9-12 months of travel before committing to another gig.
But you’re right. I did have to fill out the longer version of turbotax, so maybe it all balances out.
[+] [-] system2|7 years ago|reply
9-5 for a developer pays 100k. Freelance gets paid 250k+. This is real.
[+] [-] perfunctory|7 years ago|reply
Oh man. This alone is reason enough for me to be a freelancer.
[+] [-] taneq|7 years ago|reply
That's business ownership for you. The one thing you're almost certainly NOT getting (at least at the start) is more coding time.
[+] [-] eswat|7 years ago|reply
ie: if I need a new computer I just buy it and attach the receipt to the bank statement tracked by my accounting software and my accountant takes care of the rest, versus having togo through some procurement process involving making a business case for my purchase, filling in the expense report, getting that report signed by a manager, etc.
[+] [-] JamesBarney|7 years ago|reply
Now the only person who makes promises is me.
[+] [-] buboard|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rl3|7 years ago|reply
Personally I'm jealous of those who manage to found their own creative consultancies. Especially ones that mix design/VFX/videography/software talent, that focus primarily on things like interactive experiences or commercials.
For example, the Windows 10 default background.[0]
There's numerous other equally neat examples, but the gist of it is that they get to think up cool stuff and then sell that to their clients, who are usually massive brands that can afford to pay big money.
Getting one of those off the ground is probably exceedingly difficult barring deep industry experience and the connections to match, and even then I'm sure it's hard.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL8BBOwupcI
[+] [-] sqs|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mickael-kerjean|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mathattack|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drake01|7 years ago|reply
""" I started out charging a monthly rate that was close to my full time salary / 12. This is not a good idea because you have overhead that your employer is no longer covering - health care probably the biggest one, you don't have paid vacations, there may be unpaid downtime between contracts and also companies might not pay you. """
When I started working remote 5 years back, I was just out of college and didn't care about those things...
[+] [-] falsedan|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] temp1928384|7 years ago|reply
I think a good analogy is hair salons that sell a seat you can rent as a hairdresser...are there places where you can "pay" for leads/intros to clients as part of a larger remote software consultancy?
[+] [-] pseudolus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ha470|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HumanDrivenDev|7 years ago|reply
So how would you get the first customers? I'm just some guy off the street, no one is going bet money on me performing a function for their business.
[+] [-] morpheuskafka|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dboreham|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alex_suzuki|7 years ago|reply
I blogged about this as well recently, might have one or two interesting points for you: https://blog.classycode.com/going-freelance-as-a-software-en...
[+] [-] jdmg718|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mickael-kerjean|7 years ago|reply
Things are simple. The rule is: "If you can't pay for it, you probably don't need it". I am also one of those solo consultant, personally I got mine when I found out the price I was paying my accountant was multiple time less than the loss of not having one. To give some numbers, if you give to your government more than $5k, it will be worth your while with all the tax cut you can claim.
[+] [-] pasta|7 years ago|reply
But when you feel the balance is right you should hire people who can help you with your problems.
At the moment you might do small projects but when project get bigger and your rate higher you will see that an accountant will become affordable.
And when you do multi million projects you will be able to afford a lawyer.
But one thing that is very important even when you are still 'small': register everything! What money goes in and what goes out. What the contracts are and all your email conversations with clients.
This will help you and future accounts and lawyers.
[+] [-] dboreham|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uasm|7 years ago|reply
Is this more-or-less your first job straight out of school?
[+] [-] mancerayder|7 years ago|reply
How do you deal with recruiters and LinkedIn recruiters - have you found a way around these?