I'm looking to start working for myself, but I don't know how to work with clients. I have experience with Rails and developing web applications, but the business side of things are foreign to me. I guess the start of everything involves me working for myself, so I'd be my first client. I'd have to say that I'm a little light in the experience department.
One glimmer of light has come from ThoughtBot. They are big on open source work and transparency. They have their Playbook to show how they engage with new clients to plan and develop client software solutions.
https://thoughtbot.com/playbook
I'm planning on going through their stuff to get more of an idea of how to 'work' for myself so I can get closer to working with others.
Do you work for yourself?
Any advice or input would be much appreciated.
Top comments (6)
Hey Jason,
I don't work for myself, yet. I'd love to hear more about your journey and learn from you.
Here are some of the people I follow (and respect) on Twitter who work for themselves:
Erik Dietrich
Brianna Deleasa
Hey, thanks for the info.
I had a conversation with someone about this today about the topic and one main takeaway was that the "digital nomad" lifestyle is a pain in the ass. You want a good central work spot—either a good home office or a co-working space.
For me the 'takeaway' part was reaching out new clients. I had a few freelance jobs from time to time and those people sent me new clients but it didn't go far.. I looked for other ways to get new clients (mostly through freelance websites) but it's almost impossible to get any job when you have 10 indi devs requesting 1/10th of the price you requested. Actually for them those are good prices with current exchange rates, but not in my country. so I guess that the hardest part is to find a long term freelance contract to stick to and keep a stable income
Same! I bought his Developer Hegemony book. I have not been able to look at my career the same way.
+1 for going through the thoughtbot playbook!