tejay

Thanks for the shout out.

Most freelance platforms should be happy with ~20 hours/week of consistent work. One freelancer that mainly works with us at that volume had enough stability through Gun.io contracts alone to get a mortgage, which was a pretty big coup for us.

Feel free to shoot me a line at teja at gun.io.

Thanks for mentioning Gun.io.

I'd also add a recommendation to spend at least a third of the time you spend doing billable work in building up your own pipeline — regardless of whether you're using a freelance service like us or not.

Hi there - I'm the CEO of Gun.io. Shoot me an email at teja[at]gun.io. Our average rates on platform are 10x higher than that. In fact, that's why we started the business.

I don't think this is terrible news for entrepreneurs. It forces more operating discipline in the earlier stages. And, I believe we could do with more discipline as an ecosystem. As long as there's growth capital around once the business _is_ prepared to scale, we're all good.

CEO of gun.io here - thanks for the kind words :)

we're not perfect by any means, but i'm happy to see there's love for what we're about!

i work for a company that helps people find freelance work, and i agree 100%.

i always say think about our site as the equivalent of a BATNA: always find work via referral, but we're here when you can't :)

You're welcome at gun.io any time. :)

really really sorry about that - can you email me at teja@gun.io when you get a chance?

No doubt, the best freelance gigs are the result of close, pre-existing relationships. Easier said than done tho if you're just getting your start.

Try using the sites mentioned within the thread - pickcrew, gun.io, etc. - these sites generally have higher-priced contracts and more interesting work than the classic variants. Use these sites at first to discover what work you like and build long-terms relationships with a few key clients.

1. Remember that the comms overhead with freelance work can be really lumpy and unpredictable. Programming is the fun part - the phone calls and emails can get painful really quickly

2. Avoid hourly pricing whenever possible. Do value-based pricing. Just trust me on this one.

Much love :)

yay Nashville! Affordable, centrally located, and has okay food.

Wow, this is a great take on the classic infoproduct genre :)

my clients just contact me to small short projects, I want it to change

What type of work are you looking for? Part of the problem is you're using freelance sites that have tiny gigs and force you to work within their platform.

I don't want to be a shill, but I can't help it: my friends and I run https://gun.io - we vet freelance clients on your behalf (to have budgets above $10k~ and be serious, etc). After you're introduced, you're free to work w/ that person forever, however you think is best.

Nice post. While I abuse caffeine, I manage to limit alcohol to a drink or so every few months.

My completely unscientific take: I feel noticeably grouchier ever since I've started doing this, but the physical benefits have been pronounced in terms of better performance, recovery, and appearance.

This appears to be an older post, but I think what the original author meant was that hard work alone isn't a sufficient condition for success (I'd argue it is a necessary one, though).

The real answer is there probably isn't a sufficient condition for success, but hard work in pursuit of your own goals (rather a manager's) increases the likelihood of a positive outcome.

Still, I'd have gone a step further. 'Career' is such a false construction. Go do fun shit and get really good at it. Maybe I'm naively optimistic, but if you're really good at something, it's pretty easy to get paid (a lot) for it.

As a Tennessean, I'm pretty proud of this.

If you want a really cheap city to work in that still has a fairly sophisticated technology community, consider Nashville!

i think the problem you've raised is that 'most significant accomplishment in your career' is too narrow, and i agree.

'what is your most significant accomplishment to date' is much more telling.

pg is not hiring for a role, tho. he is trying to assess determination for a particularly difficult lifestyle choice - starting a company

I dunno man. If you looked at the recent TechCrunch/VC exit data, your chances of 'exiting' with a VC funded startup are actually pretty bad. And that's what VC-funded startups are ultimately designed to do. I'd argue that if your goal is financial success, bootstrapping is actually better as a tactic purely on a financial basis!

The key thing though as you mentioned is you either gotta have a lot of personal cushion, or you gotta be willing to relocate to a fairly cheap area to temporarily lower your burn...like Nashville ;).

no doubt - thanks for pointing that out! i thought i had accounted for that, but maybe i didn't do so clearly enough!

that said, you train hard every day? respect, but jesus, better you than me ;)

not to nitpick, but there are other, dare I say, more important variables that you gotta consider as well - workout intensity being the main one.

there's no 'correct' intensity - just like there's no 'correct' frequency - just depends on the athlete's goals.

what's clear tho, is at the edges of performance, there are gonna be trade-offs between highly frequent and highly intense training - unless you're a pro athlete, of course

for the large majority of peeps, i guess this distinction doesn't really matter, but since hn is about optimizing at the edges, i figured i'd mention!

That's surprising. I feel bad for talented freelancers =/.

What about profit-sharing instead of options/warrants/shares?

We've found that it dampens the 'build-to-flip' mentality and lets us all enjoy the fruits of our labor while we're building the company, not afterwards =).

If you agree that teaching people to code will result in more professional software developers, which seems reasonable to me, we'll have more of them and the cost of any one of them will be reduced.

If I may disagree - you're assuming that the 'demand' for software developers is fixed. But, we know that it isn't. In fact, more software developers working on software may actually increase the demand for software talent, particularly if these developers go on to start companies themselves =).

If I lived in SF I'd totally jump on this. I was so productive in college because I lived right next to a gym and my dining hall had unlimited eating from 7am until 8p, every day.

I really think Jobs could've been right at the time. But, Dropbox now is much more now than what it was once was.

In fact, this is how most successful software companies get their start - right? They begin with very narrow product - a single feature, even. If their hypothesis proves correct, they will grow pretty rapidly in usage and in offerings.

I am probably naive, but I still doubt the ability of the US Government or even the National Security State (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security#National_secu...) to be tightly wound enough to advance together to attack our civil liberties in concert. Look at what a mess they've created in other aspects of nat'l policy.

Rather, I believe this slow but steady institutional creep against our civil liberties is mostly the work of independent bureaucrats who realize that by expanding their individual silos of power (i.e., expanding what their departments surveil and parse), they're a) keeping open the funding spigot, b) expanding their personal power and c) solidifying their job security. "National defense," since 1776, but especially since World War 2, has always been a bi-partisan rallying cry, after all.

In practice, the guys who get on TV (also known elected leaders), try as they might, have very little control over what actual policy is implemented in the realm of national security. They're just appealing to our most base instincts to remain elected, I think.

Working remote is not all that it's cracked up to be. It took me several years of actually doing it to realize this. I love my job at this awesome company but if I could work onsite and still have my family here with me, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Even with all of the not-so-nice things about remote work listed in your post, you've still chosen to work remotely -- to avoid upending your family. And I assume you would probably quit if your company were to say 'move to the Bay Area tomorrow, or else,' out of concern for your family.

That's, I think, the key point about remote work. You aren't forced to make that choice.

And that alone tells me it's better for workers (and therefore companies). Particularly if you're the best person the for the job (which I assume you are, since you work there!).

Much love :)

Throwing Nashville, TN into the hat for similar reasons as other places listed in this thread (affordable living, good weather, etc). If anyone does head there, give me a shout. I'll put you in touch with some nice folks :)

GroupTalent (http://grouptalent.com) maintains some personal checks on their talent pool. Not sure if they'd be into smaller applications like OP's, though.