Unlike Dave, I never had any luck w/ Guru.com or similar type sites. I no longer look at them, preferring to spend time networking with local folks.
I recommend writing a business plan. Who are you going to service? How are you going to reach them? What are your motivations for working on your own? I hope it's something more than "I don't like my job." What are your expenses? Include marketing in their. How much do you have to make to cover all expenses. Add 15% on the top for retirement planning and 40% on the top for tax. Not all of your time will be paid, so keep that in mind. I generally budget 80 billable hours a month. If I'm working more billable hours than that, it means I'm not drumming up any business for next month. If you have a bunch of steady clients you may not care. Most companies budget somewhere between 25% and 35% of a employees salary for benefits. So, if you take your salary, turn it into an hourly rate (if not already), and add 30% the company can (theoretically) hire you as a consultant for that amount. Whether it makes sense for you to work at that rate is open to discussion. It is not uncommon for a company to hire back the employee that just left as a consultant, and if you can negotiated that you're well on your way. All that said, there is a good chance that you'll spend less time coding as a business owner and more time dealing with crazy insane client issues. At 12:10 PM 10/10/2006, you wrote: >So what kind of advice would folks give to a someone considering >quitting my regular job and becoming a full-time freelancer. My >regular job is a mix of coding, network maintanence, and other IT-type >stuff. Over the past year or so I've picked up a couple of >freelance/contractor positions. The primary reason I am considering >this is that the freelance work pays much more - almost twice. I've >calculated all the costs of things like health insurance, taxes, etc. >and believe I could come out ahead. A secondary reason would be I >could concentrate on coding/builing applications and drop the less >enjoyable parts of the job which are coding. > >Ideally I would be able to have my current employer as a client and be >able to continue the coding part of this job. But that may be wishful >thinking, especially when I tell them my hourly rate. > >Any advice and suggestions are appreciated. Thanks. -- Jeffry Houser, Software Developer, Writer, Songwriter, Recording Engineer AIM: Reboog711 | Phone: 1-203-379-0773 -- My Company: <http://www.dot-com-it.com> My Books: <http://www.instantcoldfusion.com> My Recording Studio: <http://www.fcfstudios.com> Connecticut Macromedia User Group: <http://www.ctmug.com> Now Blogging at <http://www.jeffryhouser.com> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Introducing the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. 80 pages of hard-hitting, up-to-date ColdFusion information by your peers, delivered to your door four times a year. http://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Jobs-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:3150 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Jobs-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.11
