Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > Interests > Tilted Technology


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 05-07-2004, 03:44 AM   #1 (permalink)
Addict
 
Location: Grey Britain
Career in IT

A couple of months ago I quit my old job as an engineer (for 'engineer' read 'trumped up repair man') to work on a self employed basis with a friend on a project of his. My work with him has largely involved working with vb and access, as well as some html php and javascript. I also have some experience of PASCAL and various versions of C. I did a Physics degree so I'm fairly numerate and I've designed some algorithms in my work as well.

Things have changed with his project and I've decided to go my own way, business-wise. I've already landed my next job through networking and could cite several good references from the work I've been doing over the last couple of months.

I'm now thinking about going into freelance application development/website design/whatever else for small businesses.

I figure there are a lot of people in this industry on this board and I was hoping I might get some insight into what it's like, best way to go about getting contracts, pros and cons etc.
__________________
"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."
John Henry is offline  
Old 05-10-2004, 09:03 PM   #2 (permalink)
Crazy
 
Location: Salt Town, UT
Done that, I wasn't any good at it.

I did that for a while, and it didn't work out very well for me. Primarialy because I'm not a salesperson, so getting work was really hard. Luckily I had a pretty good network of people that I could get jobs through, but without them, I would probably have been washing windows on streetcorners and jingling my change cup.

So my advice for you is threefold.
One, don't do sales. Get somebody else to do sales for you, split the profits 60/40 or so in the salesperson's directon. When they make a lot of money, you make a lot of money.
Two, Build something reusable, and milk it for all she's got. It's the only way to make money on the small contracts that small businesses have.
Three, Get a spec. I worked on and off on a project for around three months, getting three approvals along the way for what I was doing, at the final hand-off phase I was expecting to make some changes. Instead, the project got handed off to someone else for signing off, and they determined that it didn't do what they wanted, so they sent me off empty-handed.

My advice: It's trouble. Be sure you have a lot in the bank if you want to try it. Remember, working your own hours means that you are working all of the time.
Rawb is offline  
Old 05-11-2004, 06:28 AM   #3 (permalink)
Addict
 
Location: Grey Britain
That's useful advice, cheers. I think I'll steer clear. Better off going for the conventional employment route, I suppose.
__________________
"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."
John Henry is offline  
 

Tags
career

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 12:13 PM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360