[LRUG] Switching from solo contractor to being a development company

Thu Feb 16 06:45:51 PST 2012

I have found really helpful to join a group of freelance (enspiral.com)
developers and designers where the finds work and takes the 20% and the
developer the rest. The 20% is used to find more customers, pay a person to
do the financial part. There are business developers too. I a couple of
years the number of developers, designers are more than 40. The 20% has
never been used by the founders as dividends, but to help the company or to
support no-profit initiatives. This could be an alternative model where the
members can choose the time the can commit in a project and do your job
instead for having to border with balance sheets and find new contracts.
You will not become rich, but at least it is possible to be involved in
more than one project at time. Enspiral is trying to see if there are other
companies abroad interested in joining the network (it's a NZ company) and
a company in Hong Kong has been formed last month.

This could be an alternative solution to the current system.

On 16 February 2012 15:19, nicolas alpi <nicolas.alpi at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wise investment ;)
>
> For the moment I never had to search for a client in 3 years, it's always
> coming from word to mouth and people usually contact me. I've got client a
> bit everywhere in the UK, few in France and Belgium, and one in SF.
>
> Having say that, I've always marketed myself, even when solo. And I think
> I have a slightly advance because I'm French (so is my wife) so usually
> people remembers me as "the french man" they met somewhere. And as they is
> not a lot of French man doing web stuff in Bristol, well it's easier to
> find me.
>
> I run different groups here in Bristol (Weekly freelance meetup, Bristol
> web dev hack night, and Bristol Ruby User Group) plus I've got some pet
> projects that usually dies in a few month but keep people interested in my
> profile.
>
> With WADC, we have a few ideas, the first one having been freelancearound (
> http://www.freelancearound.com/) but it didn't work as expected :$
>
> We'll start to run some monthly workshops under our name in May this year
> with various subject (How to start as a freelance, git for designers,
> advanced git, vim for the rest of us ....) and we already have some of our
> clients sponsoring us.
>
> So yea, I think you should always keep in mind that being solo or being a
> company is not that different, you should always market yourself, it's just
> the content message.
>
> But the good thing when you market yourself this way (ie: the clients
> knows you before you know him), it means that you usually don't have to
> sell yourself when comes the project. They have a project A, with X
> requirements, $ budgets, and they ask you if you're interested.
>
> my 2 cents
>
> Nic
> --
> Nicolas Alpi, web developer, cookies eater
> http://www.wealsodocookies.com
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 2:05 PM, luke saunders <luke.saunders at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> That's good advice Nic.
>>
>> I have invested £7.41 into my new venture and bought the book. I have
>> some meetings coming up over the next month with people who are possibly
>> interested in working with me in May, so I will try out the 'in transition
>> from solo to team' approach and see how it goes.
>>
>> Can I ask though, do you (and others on the list) actively generate leads
>> and try to sell, or do clients always find your company through your
>> site/Twitter etc and approach you first?
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 1:39 PM, nicolas alpi <nicolas.alpi at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Hey Luke, it's funny because I did the transition few month ago.
>>>
>>> I was (am) a solo developer, and my wife is a project manager. We
>>> decided to combine our skills to take more project on board, so we create
>>> we also do cookies limited.
>>>
>>> Basically I have my client, and she manages the project, invoice,
>>> requirements and everything, but I keep the daily communication with my
>>> clients. And when we take external devs for other projects, she manages
>>> both side (client and devs), and just keep me in the loop to make sure that
>>> everyone is happy.
>>>
>>> I have to say the first 3 month of working with someone else (specially
>>> your wife!) are insane, and you have to find the right balance for
>>> everyone. But now, I would never go back ever. This a really good way of
>>> expending a little (we think).
>>>
>>> We'll be looking for full time people after the summer, but for the
>>> moment we are booked up to June and pretty happy with the lifestyle that it
>>> gave us.
>>>
>>> The main problems I found when doing the transition was:
>>>
>>> 1. How to present/market yourself. You're not a freelance anymore, and
>>> you have to present yourself as someone founder of company X solving a
>>> problem Y
>>>
>>> 2. Refining your target market. Obviously your market will change when
>>> moving from solo to team (mainly because the price goes up).
>>>
>>> The way I did the transition is to present the company as it is (Husband
>>> and Wife + freelancer friends). But I make it clear that we are still in
>>> transition from solo to team, so if they need someone to join their team,
>>> or just need 1 dev, it's still possible.
>>>
>>> No problems with this tactics so far.
>>>
>>> If I can, I would recommend reading "Duct tape marketing", even if the
>>> title sound a bit cheesy, it's a really good book that will help your
>>> during this transition phase I think.
>>>
>>> Best of luck with your new venture, their are some exciting times ahead
>>> :)
>>>
>>> Nic
>>> --
>>> Nicolas Alpi, web developer, cookies eater
>>> http://www.wealsodocookies.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 1:06 PM, Jonathon Horsman <
>>> jonathon at arctickiwi.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Luke
>>>>
>>>> I'm in a similar situation where I work on several short to medium term
>>>> projects for several clients, operating under a company.
>>>>
>>>> I seem to be getting more and more work now but am a bit scared to take
>>>> on staff in case all the work dries up suddenly. Also the prospect of
>>>> employing someone seems a bit daunting.
>>>>
>>>> This might be a bit tangental to what you were asking about, but
>>>> partnering with other developer(s) on an informal basis seems very
>>>> appealing, if there could be easy resource sharing for overflow work.
>>>>
>>>> Ideally working in a shared office space with a few freelance developer
>>>> types with potentially design resource onsite and a shared meeting space.
>>>> This would facilitate collaboration on bigger shared projects and also
>>>> solve the problem of holiday cover and pitching to clients concerned with
>>>> lack of coverage.
>>>>
>>>> Eventually this could evolve into a formal arrangement or having
>>>> everyone operating under an umbrella company.
>>>>
>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 16 February 2012 12:29, luke saunders <luke.saunders at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>> For several years now I've been a contract developer, usually working
>>>>> for a single client at any one time and often for a couple of years at
>>>>> a time. Sometimes I get projects which are short term to fill some
>>>>> specific requirement, like now I'm redeveloping a site, which will be
>>>>> done by May. I think I'm a pretty typical contract developer.
>>>>>
>>>>> At some point I would quite like to run a development company, which
>>>>> might handle several projects at a time, employ other developers etc.
>>>>> But it's not clear how to best approach making the leap, when I am
>>>>> employed by clients they usually want to employ me and only me, if
>>>>> they need other developers or a designer they'll find them themselves.
>>>>> So probably the companies I have relations with now would not be my
>>>>> target market then.
>>>>>
>>>>> Has anyone made the jump from solo contractor to development company?
>>>>> And if so do you have any advice on how to achieve this? How do
>>>>> clients find you and do you have a lead gen / sales process?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Luke.
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Chat mailing list
>>>>> Chat at lists.lrug.org
>>>>> http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Jonathon Horsman
>>>> Director - Arctic Kiwi
>>>> Mobile: 079 42366038
>>>> Web: http://www.arctickiwi.com
>>>> Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jhorsman<http://www.twitter.com/arctickiwi>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>>
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