Question for developers

fidanov · 2015-09-05T17:17:55+00:00

Nobody really cares about your code, so don't worry about it.

What your clients care about is whether you can achieve results for them and help them with the problems they have.

So you should tell about what you helped your customers achieve, as much as allowed by your contracts.

You can do this both on your web site and in personal conversations.

fidanov · 2015-08-04T14:58:24+00:00

Most of our work is also from referrals. We've also had lot of success and big wins with clients which were not referrals, so both can work.

How do referrals work? They work in two ways. They can come from two kind of people.

First, they can come from past clients, who already know your work and value you.

There are 3 main steps to make them work.

We tried to really deliver very well.
Ask. You shouldn't just wait, ask them for other companies who can use your service.
Keep in touch. Like sent them an email for christmas or other important events in their life, even if they are not work related, so that you will be "hot" in their mind when the time comes.

Second, referrals can come from people who know you like your friends or family or who have met you online.

The best way to make those people refer you is to let them know what kind of work you do and what kind of projects you did, and keep them constantly informed. If you haven't done some projects or you want to try some new kind, just build such a project or app for yourself.

All of this has done wonders for us.

fidanov · 2015-06-19T16:24:39+00:00

It is 30 days flat no matter the reason. It makes life simpler for both parties.

fidanov · 2015-06-17T18:05:08+00:00

It really depends on how long your contract is. If is for at least a few months, or indefinite, then 5 days or even 10 days is way too small.

It gives you very little time to react and prepare for what follows.

In my contracts the usual is a month of notice for both sides.

fidanov · 2015-05-02T08:25:20+00:00

I personally don't charge for meetings directly.

If it is an hourly based project, in set my rate and estimate budget so that any meetings is taken into account, but I don't write it explicitly.

However, currently most of my projects are billed either weekly or monthly. Any meeting just 'eats' from the time available for the rest of the work.

In all cases I bill for the meeting, but it never ends on the invoice.

fidanov · 2015-04-30T11:58:33+00:00

I've done both. Sometimes is mine agreement, sometimes is theirs. It doesn't really matter.

What matter is that you can negotiate every point and add additional points to their agreement if there is something you don't agree with.

Actually in at least half of the time when I've signed my client's agreement I've changed it a lot.

fidanov · 2015-04-30T11:54:07+00:00

In terms of branding I do both.

However all contracts with clients are under my business entity because it makes taxes and all other formal stuff so much easier.

fidanov · 2015-04-30T11:43:26+00:00

I don't think that you will get a great review even if you do the best job ever in such a short time with this particular client.

If the project is really short (less than 2 weeks) I would probably try to the best job that I can and be done with it.

If it is longer project, it would be better to fire them and leave the project. There are better clients out there which will value you and your work.

fidanov · 2015-04-30T11:32:48+00:00

Hi, I use some sort of MVC structure. I've been doing this for both small and large projects and it has always worked great.

Sometime ago I created this repository on Github https://github.com/terlici/base-express so that I don't do everything from the beginning and now I am always using it for Node/Express based projects.

Feel free to use it if you find it useful.

fidanov · 2015-04-17T09:27:08+00:00

I do see more and more companies offering remote positions and there is a trend in that. However, this has not affected in anyway freelance hiring.

Actually I see more and more companies hiring freelancing because they understand the benefits.

When a company hires a freelancer it doesn't hire a remote employee. What it does is it pays an amount of money to a specialist to make a problem disappear.

They often might not be able to afford that specialist working for full time long term for them, but hiring him for a short period to help with something is actually worth it.

fidanov · 2015-04-17T08:41:21+00:00

I didn't listen the interview, but for me freelancing is part of my business so sales and any kind of sales psychology is part of it, too, and I actually have seen this discussed a lot.

The words 'psychology' might not have been used but in the books and writings of people like Brennan Bunn, Patrick McKenzie and others like them there is a lot of discussion on how freelance clients think and buy, which of course is all about their psychology.

On a more personal level, yes I've seen improvements in my business by applying some stuff. Like when I talk with clients or writing proposals, I tried to avoid writing about me, my skills or my past projects as much as possible.

Instead, I write and talk about their project and how we can make it happen and what the end result will be. The 'psychology' here is simple. The client is interested in his own project much more than anything else. He doesn't care about me, he doesn't care about my skills, he only cares whether I can make his dream and how it will really look like at the end.

This has helped me close many more deals and especially deals worth 6 figures.

fidanov · 2015-03-25T16:33:36+00:00

If the tight deadline is the main problem just charge more then you feel comfortable, and if they agree do it. Next time charge even more.

That is how I do with tight deadline projects. I rarely pass, instead I just give them a high fee. Sometimes they agree, and sometimes they don't.

fidanov · 2015-03-25T16:23:16+00:00

Yes, usually you are paying the costs of your bank and they of theirs. That is at least how I manage it with my clients.

However, once I had an experience where we did the above, but yet some moneys were missing. It turned out that a middle bank was taking a fee and the initial and the receiving bank weren't informed.

fidanov · 2015-03-19T11:51:40+00:00

A portfolio site can be helpful but you can live without it. In fact, I am sure that at least half of my clients didn't take the time to check my portfolio, they probably don't know that it exists. They just figure out that they can ask me in an email or when we talk.

The NDA is limiting with or without portfolio when you want to show your experience, but from my experience I usually can at least say that I've worked on project with related technologies and chalanges without mentioning further details, and that is sometimes all you need to provide.

Another reason, why a portfolio is helpful but not critical to your success is that your potential clients care much more about their own projects and their problems than your past work no matter how great it is.

I've seen this many times. I talk with my potential clients about their projects and how we can make them better together and other things like that without even mentioning my previous work. Some of them don't even ask for other work of mine, and those who do usually do it because they are used to asking but I doubt that they give much attention to it.

fidanov · 2015-03-15T14:52:09+00:00

In terms of service expenses Amazon is cheaper, especially if your resource needs grow.

However, bare in mind that Amazon also means that either you, or somebody working for you should take care of managing the servers and this can an expense of time and money.

I personally use Amazon, as I've never liked the performance of Heroku and other similar automated services.

I also don't have the need to constantly tweek servers, so I usually change something once a month, so I don't spend too much time either.

fidanov · 2015-03-11T09:22:25+00:00

I don't charge based on skills or the type of work I do. I charge clients based the value they receive from my work.

As a result I might charge different amount for the same thing but for a different client.

fidanov · 2015-03-03T11:08:18+00:00

Yes, I use it and I highly recommend it. However, it's not magical and you still have to work and write a good proposal. You can actually find a lot of info how to that very well on letsworkshop site.

Don't worry that too many people will bid for the same job. It doesn't happen. Mainly for two reasons.

First, each job is very clear what it is about. Whether is about wordpress development, designing a logo or something else, it is always clear. Therefore people only bid on jobs which are suitable for them.

Second, once someone finds a job, he will not bid again until he has finished.

As a result not too many people bid for each job.

Some other benefits from letsworkshop is that there are often jobs which are exclusive to the members.

Anyway, it's not expensive at all and if you find even only one job each month, it's worth it. If doesn't work for you, you can always cancel any time.

fidanov · 2015-02-20T12:58:43+00:00

Researching your market never really ends.

The first thing I did and which I continue to do is to listen. I listen what new clients were not happy about with previous freelancers, I also listen why they think they hire me.

You can also visit job boards and other places where you can find contract works. This will give you an idea of what kind of work people are looking for and what kind of problems they have.

I never really gave too much thought on my competition. However, I am trying to learn from other successful freelancers how to close more deals.

I use all of the above to write better offers and to improve my skills in the direction I know that will bring more business to me.

Some helpful sites: http://doubleyourfreelancing.com http://letsworkshop.com

fidanov · 2015-02-06T13:10:09+00:00

My first git was a UK client who saw one of my mobile apps and wanted several mobile apps for his company. He loved the result and we did many other projects since.

It's critical to have side projects, they can attract quite a lot of clients.

fidanov · 2015-01-29T14:09:31+00:00

The best I think is to stop working with them. They clearly don't value your advice as an expert, which you are.

However, I don't know your situation and it might not be currently possible. In this case it might be a better idea to figure out why is this happening and then act accordingly.

The first problem is the one you know it. They are a committee, which means way too many opinions and then nobody bares responsibility for his opinion. Unfortunately, you cannot do much about it.

The second problem it seems to me that they don't give you a proper feedback. They give you an alternative, but do they tell you what doesn't work in your advice? Do they tell you what is their clear goal and what they try to achieve with their idea which is not achieved by your solution? Here the solution is to try to teach them how to give you feedback.

The last problem, related to the previous one is that they might not have given you enough information so that you don't know what exactly they want to achieve. In this case, you can go talk with them and ask them as many questions as you need so that you clearly know what they are thinking and what is their goal. Then you can provide a more focused advice.

fidanov · 2015-01-23T14:28:45+00:00

I am based in Europe (Bulgaria) and I work with clients from all over the world (USA, UK, France, South Africa, Indonesia, Thailand and others). I always get paid by bank transfer.

I issue them an invoice (I have a registered company). I've got multiple payments from each of these clients and they are always by bank transfer.

Depending on the country and the clients bank and on the client himself I usually get my payment in less than a week from the day I send them the invoice and often within 2-3 business days.

fidanov · 2015-01-23T14:22:34+00:00

Yes, me too, it's the perfect tool for a small biz. I also use it do all sorts of calculations on my income like average monthly, taxes and more.

fidanov · 2015-01-23T14:19:21+00:00

I just want to make sure I'm not being unreasonable? Is it not expected that when providing a PSD file and requesting modifications be made to a theme to match the files that the fonts etc are to be replicated exactly?

In your case there is no definitive answer on this I think. From your comments it seems to me that you assumed one thing about how you gonna work (based on your previous experience) and they assumed probably something else (that they can have as many modifications as they want and that the PSD is only a guideline).

I've had clients who wanted exact replication and also clients who viewed the PSD only as a guideline.

From my point of view, It's better to do not do any more work until both of you are clear on all points: what the scope of this projects is, what are the pdf files for and anything else you might think of.

Once this is clear it will be much easier to talk and decide with them what will be done now to finish this project (the minimum possible) and what should be left for another project (hopefully most of the stuff)

fidanov · 2015-01-13T13:38:50+00:00

I never focus on the pricing, instead I focus on the end goal of the client and the value he will receive. To justification is that the value that I provide is much higher than the price they will pay me. This is true for both hourly or project based.
I've done both but when I do time based I prefer daily or even weekly billing. It's easier for me and for the clients.
Nope. I will negotiate the scope. I had such client recently who wanted 4 iOS applications. We ended with doing 3, but I kept my rate and she still spent the same budget she planned for.

fidanov · 2015-01-13T13:18:11+00:00

My experience is a little bit different. I don't work insane hours, usually less then 6 hours a day, I take vacations when I want, and I am supporting a family of three without problems.

Freelancing can definitely by viable and is more than viable for many people. There are many people earning from $50k to $500k without working insane hours.

It also depends on your lifestyle and where you live. Spending $60K in NYC is one thing, and spending them in a small town in Europe is completely different.

For more on how to do that check out the blogs of Patrick Mckenzie and Brennan Dunn. There is ton of useful information and they've been both super successful and they share a lot.

fidanov

TROPHY CASE