<story><title>Ask HN: How do you start contracting?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;m a developer and product manager, about ten years into my career and making pretty good money.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m curious to explore if contracting makes sense as an alternative to full time employment. How do I start? How do I position and price myself?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>Lucasoato</author><text>&amp;gt; Don’t underestimate how good a stable, big company job is right now.&lt;p&gt;This. Also don&amp;#x27;t underestimate how hard it is to get the money from a client if they decide not to pay you, even if you did a good job.</text></item><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>Finding clients is basically the hardest part.&lt;p&gt;Not going to lie: Most of my clients come from my network and their referrals. Most of my freelancer friends’ clients come from their network and their network referring clients to them. While it is possible to find clients organically through advertising, it’s much easier if you can build a network to pull from.&lt;p&gt;You can start by simply contacting people you know and asking if their companies need any help. Let them know you’re available. Then, when they ask, be available and solve their problems ASAP.&lt;p&gt;It’s actually quite a challenge to hold down a full-time job and to freelance at the same time. You might be lucky enough to find clients who don’t care much about how long it takes and are fine to communicate asynchronously through e-mail at your convenience. However, most clients will want to get on video calls throughout the day and will expect the work to be done quickly. Realistically, it &lt;i&gt;will&lt;/i&gt; start competing with your day job at some point. You should decide now how you’re going to handle that.&lt;p&gt;Whatever you do, don’t use your work computer for any freelancing tasks. Neither party may ever find out, but if you get into a situation where it matters then it’s terrible to have intermingled the two.&lt;p&gt;Finally: Don’t underestimate how good a stable, big company job is right now. Freelancing isn’t really the easy money that some people make it out to be, especially if you’re not actually free during the day because you have a job. If you’re looking for something different, consider just getting a different job.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nickjj</author><text>&amp;gt; This. Also don&amp;#x27;t underestimate how hard it is to get the money from a client if they decide not to pay you, even if you did a good job.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not too bad in my opinion. I&amp;#x27;ve been freelancing for close to 20 years on my own with no 3rd party platforms. I&amp;#x27;ve had assorted clients from around the world.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve only been legit ripped off once out of issuing hundreds of invoices and working with a bunch of individuals and businesses.&lt;p&gt;The amount I got cheated out of was 2 hours of work where the client requested work, agreed to pay but didn&amp;#x27;t pay. Other than that one time it&amp;#x27;s been smooth sailing where mostly everyone pays on time without issues. I&amp;#x27;ve only had a handful of cases where someone forgot to pay within 30 days and a single follow up email resulted in them apologizing and paying. In some cases they even gave an unrequested tip because they genuinely felt sorry for missing the first email. These were all cases of people being busy and forgetting by accident.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m also very lax with how I request payments too. I send out an invoice at the start of every month because it&amp;#x27;s more convenient for everyone involved. Sometimes with new clients this means doing let&amp;#x27;s say 5 hours of work on the 3rd of the month but not invoicing them until the following month.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: How do you start contracting?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;m a developer and product manager, about ten years into my career and making pretty good money.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m curious to explore if contracting makes sense as an alternative to full time employment. How do I start? How do I position and price myself?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>Lucasoato</author><text>&amp;gt; Don’t underestimate how good a stable, big company job is right now.&lt;p&gt;This. Also don&amp;#x27;t underestimate how hard it is to get the money from a client if they decide not to pay you, even if you did a good job.</text></item><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>Finding clients is basically the hardest part.&lt;p&gt;Not going to lie: Most of my clients come from my network and their referrals. Most of my freelancer friends’ clients come from their network and their network referring clients to them. While it is possible to find clients organically through advertising, it’s much easier if you can build a network to pull from.&lt;p&gt;You can start by simply contacting people you know and asking if their companies need any help. Let them know you’re available. Then, when they ask, be available and solve their problems ASAP.&lt;p&gt;It’s actually quite a challenge to hold down a full-time job and to freelance at the same time. You might be lucky enough to find clients who don’t care much about how long it takes and are fine to communicate asynchronously through e-mail at your convenience. However, most clients will want to get on video calls throughout the day and will expect the work to be done quickly. Realistically, it &lt;i&gt;will&lt;/i&gt; start competing with your day job at some point. You should decide now how you’re going to handle that.&lt;p&gt;Whatever you do, don’t use your work computer for any freelancing tasks. Neither party may ever find out, but if you get into a situation where it matters then it’s terrible to have intermingled the two.&lt;p&gt;Finally: Don’t underestimate how good a stable, big company job is right now. Freelancing isn’t really the easy money that some people make it out to be, especially if you’re not actually free during the day because you have a job. If you’re looking for something different, consider just getting a different job.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ushakov</author><text>find better clients, ask for money first and never share the source code before you got paid</text></comment>