I forgot one thing... CFUG meetings are a great place to find freelance
work, as a lot of cf vets are always there looking for new talent or old
talent that want new work.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Renet" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2000 7:02 PM
Subject: OT-- Getting outsource work
> Within the last week I've recieved a bunch of emails asking how to start
as
> a freelancer. I figured I should just post my reply as it might be
helpful
> to any of you looking to do the same.
>
> Disclaimer: Anyone that wants to cry about the whether this is the proper
> forum for such, look at your check and anyone that disagrees with any of
my
> assumptions herein, I can only speak for what I myself know empirically.
So
> if you don't care, delete this email..
>
> This is what I generally suggest, as it is how I started doing contract
> work.
>
> While gainfully employed build yourself some apps (shopping cart, message
> board/forum, chat room, contact manager, content manager, security
sandbox,
> etc). Also play the buzzword game and develop these apps for Flash and
WAP.
> Just look around the web and figure out what is common to most sites.
>
> Then I looked at the job board (currently there are 1187 jobs at
> http://www.houseoffusion.com). Wherein most of these jobs are for
fulltime
> people, I found that the progress at these companies suffers while they
> looked to hire fulltime employees. So I would either email or call them
and
> tell them that there is no way they could pay me what I make freelance
(most
> of the salary base is laughable at best), but I would like to do thier
> outsource work while they are looking for thier staff. Some people are
> idiots and think yer crazy, others are desperate and see the value of such
> an offer; most fall in between. But here are the facts. My numbers might
> be off, but I heard that there are some 300,000 coldfusion servers
installed
> in the US and only 450,000 developers. That would mean 1.5 developers to
> every box. Most hosting companies put up to 100 clients on every box. Do
> the math, 1.5 developers per box and 100 clients that need new or
continuing
> development. Before I hit this winfall of work, I was finding unfilled
job
> listings that were a year old.. The stats are totally in the favor of the
> freelancer. So before I quit my bi-monthly check I started taking some of
> this work on the side and doing it at night. When my side work began to
> outweigh my fulltime gig I gave my employer like a month's notice, trained
> my replacement and began coding fulltime on my own.
>
> The reason I subscribe to fusebox's methodology, is because once you have
> the basic modules built you can cut and paste these modules together and
> build a nice little business. So something that should take a non
fuseboxer
> a month or so to build, you can build in a few days and have any
> personalization done within a few weeks. Then I charge people like 50-75%
> of what they would be charged by Viant or some big web company. Upon
> completion of your first app for a client they generally find you are more
> cost effiicient and faster than hiring a full time employee. This
> methodology works for any small web company that develops coldfusion as
> well.
>
> There is an incredible market for mid size apps. Every dot com needs one
and
> most institution businesses (corporate money managers, hotel chains, etc)
> need the same. Once I put this whole formula together I figured why stay
in
> a job where my salary is less than 50% of what I bill? Someone might
respond
> "well you end up giving half of your income as a freelancer to uncle sam
so
> why not stay with the security of a bi-monthly check. My response is call
> Mick Snyder at Entertainment Financial Services (818) 986-8888. He is the
> premier independent tax accountant for the record industry and just loves
> web developers. Also, I don't think the market can bear high priced web
> development. Dot com Tech Stocks are overvaluated and on the decline, so
> anyone that still wants to play that game is going to need a good cost
> efficient solution. To anyone that might respond, "well I make a buck a
year
> in my current gig", I would have to reply that I live in Los Angeles and
> can't live on anything near that..
>
> I also found, that companies that prescribe to "JAVA scales better than
CF"
> also require this sort of service, in that it takes incredible development
> time to build JAVA apps. So my pitch to these companies is "Let me build
> you a quick CF solution that you can use as a facade while your JAVA
> developers run thier course." So far only 15% of these JAVA clients
stayed
> with Coldfusion, but what do I care what thier ultimate solution is? I am
> not selling them on a development platform I am selling them on a
> intermediate solution they can show thier investors. And chances are that
> anything really big is going to require Viant or Figleaf anyway.
>
> So far as the actual web design goes, I have the asthetics of a gnat. So,
> if needed I send this work to the web companies that employ me or the
> company I used to work for. There are plenty of design companies that
need
> work, so finding someone to pair up with shouldn't be a problem.
>
> So far as the work load that I outsource to other developers, I intend to
> slow it down for about a month as the two main companies that I get most
of
> my work from and I have decided to tune some of our modularity up and
build
> some in-house browser interfaces like the example I posted using tags and
> CFASSOCIATE for dynamic navigation.
>
> I am unsure how most freelancers work, but I have a team of 3 developers
> besides myself that work together on projects, 5 web companies that
> outsource to us and 3 graphic artists that we outsource to or code for. I
> do know however that Mark Warrick is putting together a conglomeration of
> cfer's at http://www.fusioneers.com/
>
> My family is pretty healthy, so my health insurance is Kaiser Permanente.
> It's an HMO that is non-profit so in general they are not motivated to the
> horror stories you generally hear about HMO's. My wife just gave birth at
> Kaiser and it went just as smooth as her first birth at Cedar Sinai but
cost
> 15 grand less.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
>
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