Too many projects I need a wingman/wingwoman

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17835990

by devtrepeneur • 8 years ago

20 30 8 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I have a problem. I am a solo, full-stack dev and I've done quite well over the past number of years, earning approx. €120K Per Year, building and delivering solutions for clients.

Recently, my business has started to really expand, and I would expect to double up on revenue this year.

The problem is, it's too much for me. With this in mind, I've looked into (1) Freelance sites like Upwork (2) Outsourcing to small agencies (3) Outsourcing to larger agencies.

I'm finding that they don't work for me for a number of reasons. (1) they don't show much initiative (2) they are only interested in the quick pay cheque (3) they look for the quickest way to build the app, which is not always the best way. I could go on.

I guess, I'm looking for someone who I can say "hey, I've a €50K project, want to split it? I'll do the API and Mobile App, and you do the Web App and DB stuff".

I'm really interested to hear some thoughts?

ideatostartup• 8 years ago

Been there, done that. We can help. :)

davsch77• 8 years ago

Sounds like you need to build up a network of other freelancers who you can share/sub-contract work to. And ideally who can share their work with you, send work your way when they are too busy, or the work suits your skill-set more.

andrewmcwatters2• 8 years ago

Hi, it seems to me that you're not charging enough. That's just enough for yourself, and not really enough for a small dev shop. I'd like to hear other people's experiences from HN, but in my opinion, you should have some capital to pay for another engineer as a part of your small business.

I wouldn't "run and gun" with contracts, because as soon as you've got an employee and it's not just yourself (or at least a co-founding partner) you're not just responsible for delivering solutions to clients, you're responsible for supporting employees.

I'd continue to do what you're doing, raising prices until you've saved up capital, bring on an employee and start raising prices to make a small development firm economically feasible.

superflit• 8 years ago

Well, I thought I was the only one with this problem...

I think it is doable, but you have to be very clear on your expectations and Honest about the invoice, etc.

Let's say you came to me and said:

Hello, superflit there is this project it is $xx xxx,00 Euros we split. I do zzz, and you do the web or backend.

Once we agreed we have to set the scope, tech, and deliverables. Because we are looking for the long-term partnership, I had to trust you, and you have to trust me. So we have to be clear what we are charging getting for every project and expectations.

My email is on my profile enter in touch if you want to.

devtrepeneur6• 8 years ago

I think you are right it does come down to trust. It's no different than building a business "partnership" in my mind.

A lot of these projects tend to move very quickly, where I meet the client, spec, price, develop and deliver. It requires a lot of trust to share that with a partner and trust that they can interpret the project.

benvineyard2• 8 years ago

Having too much work is definitely a nice problem to have. Feel free to reach out to me if you ever need help to fill a gap.

atmosx• 8 years ago

The problem is that you don't scale.

If you want to make more you need to scale and scaling probably means starting an agency and turn from programmer to manager/director.

Another approach is to charge more. If you have many clients, it is possible that some of them are willing to pay more than others.

Finally, granted that I don't know anything about your situation, stop and think: do you really want to do this? I mean, 120k/year in most European cities is a very good income.

andrewmcwatters2• 8 years ago

Software agencies don't scale. People in software shops know this. In fact, even successful ones, for years on end, may have just months of runway. That's literally the business. It's just how it works.

The more devs you have, the more clients you need, or bigger ones.

So, OP, to be clear, software agencies are lifestyle businesses. Don't expect to scale if you're working on client solutions, because that's what agencies' bread and butter is.

There is a fundamental difference, however, between being a marketing agency, a mobile development shop, or a software company going through RFP cycles for govt. contracts and being a product or service company.

They feel different, too. There might be similar headcount, but differences in goals are just significant enough to matter.

The latter actually scales, but can still be a lifestyle company, too.

devtrepeneur6• 8 years ago

I think they can scale, but they require expertise around managing people, scaling companies, etc. Because I've forever been involved in software development I don't have those skills. At the moment it is fair to say it's a lifestyle company, but it could probably sustain two/three people.

felipebrnd• 8 years ago

Senior Engineer in Lisbon here. Feel free to reach me, my e-mail is available on my profile.

bkovacev• 8 years ago

1) Freelance sites like upwork won't work for you because they're filled with people that either have long contracts or dont have any, with latter being the majority and they're in it for the quick buck.

2) Agencies won't work because agencies are in it for themselves. If their funnel is big, they could care less about your project and will only dedicate enough resources to get paid.

3) Larger agencies won't work because you're not a big client.

What you need to do is either get a partner or start your own consulting agencies.

Alternatively, other approach is to raise your rates to filter out clients. Also, unsure if you're doing maintenance work, but you can switch from that to new projects exclusively to eliminate 10-20 hours, however that might lose you a contract in the future.

Shameless plug - My long term (1,5+ years) contract is coming to an end and I'm actively looking for another or for an opportunity to partner up. I do full-stack, but I prefer backend and/or apis and have six years of experience.

Regardless of whether you're interested or not, feel free to reach out even for just a chat :) email is in the profile.

devtrepeneur6• 8 years ago

I agree with your points. I recently reached out to a larger agency. I put to them a very small project, to get a feel of their pricing, process, etc. I estimated it would take me max 5 days. They came back with an estimation of 4 - 5 weeks!! I feel like they just stretched it out to maximise income. They really don't see the bigger picture.

marketgod• 8 years ago

Maybe this thread will help the both of you!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17819673

captain_perl• 8 years ago

Put your email in your profile and I'll contact you.

yixiang2• 8 years ago

You have three options.

1. Learn management. If you want people to do things to your satisfaction, you have to be explicit about your expectations, communicate it, monitor progress, and review results. Even if you get a talented coder to help you, he probably has different ideas about how things need to be done, and you still need to clarify who's responsible for what.

2. Give some of your projects to others. Instead of split a 50k project, you give this entire project to others, maybe charge a fee. You'll earn less and have less headaches.

3. Raise your fees so you have less clients.

devtrepeneur6• 8 years ago

I think you are spot on about learning management. I spoke with one of my mentors, and he feels I don't know how to manage because I never needed to. So it's a skills gap I have. I'm not really sure I have the time to invest in it at this point. It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario.

I also raised my fees, so that now I will only discuss projects at a minimum of €10K. It definitely helped shift some of the crap :)

yixiang2• 8 years ago

After reading your comment about more context. I honestly feel you should seriously consider learning how to manage people/projects. Or, how to bring in help without bringing in problems.

Ask yourself is this increase of work temporary. After all current deadlines are met, will you still be as busy? Can you expect to relax and rest, or are you expecting as much new work waiting for you? Will there be as much work two months later? six months later? Will there be more work? Will there be new clients?

If it's not temporary, if there will be only more work, then it's only reasonable to focus on seeking help now. You can't handle the workload you can't handle forever.

You probably need to change your mindset too. From "what do I need to do to solve this problem?" to "what help do I need to solve this problem?"

I recommend reading E-Myth Revisited, exactly the book for small business owners facing too much work to do.

cattlefarmer• 8 years ago

Back in uni, a friend of mine interned at a place that was basically like yours. Just one guy running everything by himself.

Obviously it didn't turn out very well for my friend as he didn't really get do much. I suspect the owner however might have learned a thing or two about managing people.

devtrepeneur6• 8 years ago

Thanks everyone for the feedback, it's a very lonely journey at the moment (although I'm lucky to have very supportive family/friends and HN :).

Some more context ...

(1) The projects are split between three Enterprise Clients, two of which I've been working with for about 10 years. I've developed Mobile Apps (originally Windows Mobile, now Android), done some integration with their ERP's, and built some Web Apps (Angular). I used to work with smaller clients, but the 80/20 applies i.e. they take up 80% of your time for 20% of your revenue. I turn down this work now.

(2) Quick story - when I first approached one of these Enterprise Clients I quoted a price of just over €10K for a small project. Another vendor laughed at me and quoted €50K. I won the business and have since made €500K from that one project. I always look long term.

(3) The work is remote. I work from home, with very little meetings. I tend to have total control over the project architecture, development, etc. They trust that I will deliver the best solution and let me get on with it.

(4) Strategically, I'm working to implementing a common stack across all projects that is robust, and allows me to deliver more efficiently. To that end, I'm moving to Xamarin (I have a core expertise in C#) for Mobile Apps, .NET Core for API's (I was using Node - great, but a pain to debug e.g. "console.log('HERE')"!!), and Angular 1.6 for Web App (although on this one, I'm not 100%. I find 1.6 mature, whereas Angular 2/4/6/or whatever it is now is a bit of a mess), and a SQL Server or Postgres DB.

Here's a curve ball - I've also been accepted onto a great startup program for a side-project I had been working on. It's also now got customers, revenue, and a great chance of success. The same week I got accepted onto the program I also heard from one of my existing clients (a multinational) enquiring about working with their sister companies in other counties to deliver the solution I recently did for them (HELP!!)

BTW - Some of you have expressed an interest in partnering up. I'm definitely interested in reaching out and have set up a temporary email address I will use to contact you. I'm not using my real email because I'm being bombarded by agencies (which I've no interest in using). I'll open up more if it looks like me could work together.

benvineyard2• 8 years ago

I would love to help if you need to fill a gap with your current workload.

ericintheloft24• 8 years ago

Hi! I made https://RemoteHacker.com specifically for this problem :) A lot of people have managed to find new partners to continue developing and building businesses!

mrfusion2• 8 years ago

This is great! I wish it had more posts.

ericintheloft24• 8 years ago

Thank you! Yes, I'm trying to make that happen. There is definitely a higher quality than quantity on the site right now, which I like, and people who use it seem happy, so that's nice :) Spreading the word without spending a fortune is my biggest problem to solve it seems.

devtrepeneur6• 8 years ago

Hi Eric,

Site looks good, I just posted on it, so real interested to see how it goes.

I think there's a need for a site like this. Are you working on it full time?

ericintheloft24• 8 years ago

Hi, thank you! Hope it goes well :) Well, not 100% full time. I'm also working on another product together with my dev partner, which requires a little bit more work than RemoteHacker for now, so I'm basically balancing between those two projects and client work.

jtchang• 8 years ago

Senior engineer with some contacts available. Would love to chat. E-mail is in my profile.

cygned• 8 years ago

My colleague and me (both from Germany) are always looking for interesting side projects. Mail is in the profile, website gives a rough idea of what we do. We would love to hear from you.

Regards!

Too many projects I need a wingman/wingwoman

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