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

Thu Feb 16 06:19:57 PST 2012

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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>>> Chat at lists.lrug.org
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>>>
>>>
>>
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