<story><title>How to start a successful freelance business as a software developer (2017)</title><url>https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-start-a-successful-freelance-business-as-a-software-developer</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>shubb</author><text>To share a failure - back in 2015, I tried to set up as a freelancer and ended up going back to perm&amp;#x2F;employed work about a year later.&lt;p&gt;Between subcontracting from established freelancer friends and reaching out to my network I was able to get a few projects, and things were progressing nicely but then my biggest single client had some internal issues and basically didn&amp;#x27;t pay me for 6 months.&lt;p&gt;My financial situation going into freelancing was not good - I had some debt going in, and then put some incidental expenses like visiting a customer&amp;#x27;s city and staying in a (cheap and amazingly nasty) hotel for a few weeks on a credit card. The gap between invoicing the work and getting paid was too much and I realised I needed reliable cash flow.&lt;p&gt;They say the main reason businesses fail is lack of capital. Turns out starting a business with negative capital is hard. Too hard for me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wila</author><text>The moment a customer does not pay a bill within the specified terms is the moment you must stop working for them.&lt;p&gt;This also means that you must invoice regularly.&lt;p&gt;Learned that the hard way.</text></comment>
<story><title>How to start a successful freelance business as a software developer (2017)</title><url>https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-start-a-successful-freelance-business-as-a-software-developer</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>shubb</author><text>To share a failure - back in 2015, I tried to set up as a freelancer and ended up going back to perm&amp;#x2F;employed work about a year later.&lt;p&gt;Between subcontracting from established freelancer friends and reaching out to my network I was able to get a few projects, and things were progressing nicely but then my biggest single client had some internal issues and basically didn&amp;#x27;t pay me for 6 months.&lt;p&gt;My financial situation going into freelancing was not good - I had some debt going in, and then put some incidental expenses like visiting a customer&amp;#x27;s city and staying in a (cheap and amazingly nasty) hotel for a few weeks on a credit card. The gap between invoicing the work and getting paid was too much and I realised I needed reliable cash flow.&lt;p&gt;They say the main reason businesses fail is lack of capital. Turns out starting a business with negative capital is hard. Too hard for me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mcv</author><text>It helps to have a financial buffer. When I started freelancing in 2012, I could do so while keeping the unemployment benefits I got for getting fired in the bankruptcy of my last employer (they survived and actually had a healthy business, but they&amp;#x27;d made some poor financial decisions driven by a bug in their home-made accounting system). I ended up not really going anywhere that first year, got a few minor gigs, but after a year I got approached by a recruiter for a bigger client, and that took off. I&amp;#x27;ve been doing half-year to year-and-a-half projects for various large client, including a railway company and 4 banks.&lt;p&gt;But I rely a lot on recruiters finding me on LinkedIn. I hate LinkedIn with its dark patterns, but it&amp;#x27;s where 90% of my work comes from, so I don&amp;#x27;t complain too hard.</text></comment>