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

[Nick Tabernacle]

Hi Luke,

I've taken that road. It came about when clients I worked for as a contract
developer starting asking for more and more work to be done. As times got
busier I started employing a part time designer for the front end stuff so I
could spend my time on the code. 

Really it's not something the clients should notice. During meetings I would
just pipe up and say "That's something I can get done for you" and if your
work with them has so far been satisfactory they shouldn't mind trusting you
with a greater range of work. I think they prefer having only one person to
deal with (and to blame!) so they might not necessarily see it as a bad
thing. 

Also your probably find during your first few jobs your personally earning
less than you were as a contract developer as your giving more slices of the
pie away.

Good luck!

Nick
nick at beo.so

(+1 for keeping btw)


-----Original Message-----
From: chat-bounces at lists.lrug.org [mailto:chat-bounces at lists.lrug.org] On
Behalf Of luke saunders
Sent: 16 February 2012 12:29
To: London Ruby Users Group
Subject: [LRUG] Switching from solo contractor to being a development
company

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.
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