If you can be a regular subcontractor for a larger agency, that IMO is generally the ideal situation.
Just wondering from someone who's never been to any type of event, so I've never had to really do any networking
Do you have any advice on how to leverage these experiences more?
Remember, most people in jobs will be threatened by a strong and assertive leader - they want someone they can control and extract value from, not someone who might take their job. Understand and embrace that fear and position yourself to handle it.
From that point I started negotiations out around 125 or more depending on the client. The whole thing gave me confidence that people would pay more for my skills. Funny, I probably only made 4K that weekend all told, but in a sense I made hundreds of thousands because it taught me to charge more. Only a couple times since then has someone dismissed the idea of hiring me because of rates.
Honest truth: I have been in this range for too long, I worried back when the economy tanked in 2008 that I would have to cut rates but it never really happened. Time to start raising them so new engagements I am now quoting a higher rate.
So my question is (actually two) how do you stay consistently busy and up to date on hours? Also have you managed to save (or are there lean periods) and if so, would you consider hiring out/subcontracting? I've considered becoming a client on oDesk/eLance and taking more of a team lead role. I guess that's three questions.
I dont think there is a secret recipe for staying busy other than the very basic truths. Meet and make friends with other people in your space and be a good person. Be on time, work hard, be honest and fair, respect people. Even if you fail people will give you lots of latitude if they personally like you.
I sub out work on occasion and have tried things at a few different levels. I have hired people off ELance and ODesk (which almost never works out); hired people I was introduced to and hired people off of CraigsList. In all of that certain truths remain, people who cost more money usually do that because they are better. Mostly at this point I hire other people like myself that have been at this for a long time and bill about what I do. I worry less about their work. In fact where possible I just bring them into a deal and let them work directly with my client. That way I am not in the middle of anything, I dont deal with money etc. Since I am not really trying to be a big firm making money off of people, skimming 15-20% off the top is just not worth the risks that come with it. Everyone is happier this way. I sometimes get asked if I worry that the person I bring in may steal my business and while the thought does cross my mind it is not the right thing to worry about. If that happens then I have to question what I was doing wrong that the client felt better using the other person more than me.
I am a creator at heart, I get joy out of making things. When you try to grow a company you are trading technology problems and challenges for a different set of problems that revolve around financing, sales, HR issues, people management etc and somewhere in all of that, the part I love - writing code and solving hard problems, gets lost.
There is also this period of change you have to go through monetarily. Right now I make really good money doing something I enjoy. To bring on others I end up for some time making less money for the hope that in the future I make more money. Truth be told, it may take quite some time to get back to my current income in this model and during that period there is risk. All things considered I am too happy to try and change it.
That said, I am considering different avenues. Consulting ebbs and flows, there are good projects and bad projects and the fact I can't make something I truly love, something I think is masterful, is weighing on me. Right now I am doing some work in commercial real estate and what I am building makes my client happy but it does not realize my vision for it. The truth is it never will because my vision is my own unique manifestation of what I believe it could and should be - and that vision does not align with my clients business goals (or their budget!).
Finding the right startup to build, something I am deeply passionate about, something I felt I was put on this earth to do is my next big career step. The problem is I have lots of ideas that may even make for good businesses but that spark of passion has not yet been there on any of those ideas.
If you convert salaries to hourly rates, the greater portion of us (outside SF/NY) make between $35-$70/hour.
How did you get to such exorbitant rates? Is your work very uncommon, or require an extremely refined skill set? Or is just "I charge whatever I want because I know they'll pay it"?
$150 an hour can be quite reasonable, given the right situation. For starters, if a regular employee makes $50 an hour, they are really costing the company more like $100 an hour when you add in benefits, taxes, insurance, and other perk costs. So $150 for a subject matter expert on short notice is not a stretch at all.
But more importantly, do a cost/benefits analysis. Let's say there's an important project coming up, and you lack the internal expertise. Let's say it could be done in 3 months by an expert you know. Now, 3 months of $150/hr is $72k, which seems like a lot, but if your alternatives are 1) spending 6 weeks trying to hire an expert and hoping they agree to a low salary, 2) spending a month training internal people to do it, and then having them do a novice job at it, or 3) missing a crucial business opportunity that could easily run in the millions... you get the idea.
Anyway, the moral of the story is, learn enough tech to get the job done, learn the business realities of your industry, and then charge what you are worth to the company.
User group meetings are the flip side of that, while some people are there to meet others, most come to learn something and their motives pivots around that point.
People who are looking for jobs or work, are rarely you ally in finding more work for yourself.
50-60% of my revenue is sub-contracting. I have a few firms that often take on projects that they are not suited for or do not want to increase staff to cover and they often sub out all or parts of the project to me. These relationships were built through networking with other developers who worked for these companies - never the bosses per se. Meet other devs and when the company needs help, they remember and recommend. In my experience this kind of introduction is about 5x as fertile as a cold intro.
Roughly 30% of my revenue is from direct relationships between myself and another company. These tend to merit a higher rate but also increased risk.
Very few of my direct relationships start from cold calling/intro (not sure if any ever did actually); most came via word of mouth recommendations of other people. Networking at the right kinds of events can also increase your profile and help you meet the right people.
ProTip: Networking at networking events is a terrible idea.
Lacking a sales force the best pseudo sales force you can create are acquaintances who understand your skill set and respect you as a person. They don't need to see your work, they don't need to have hired you before - to drop your name to someone who asks. They need to know your name, what you do and have a generally good feeling about you. If you pay them back for this, even with a simple thank you or lunch - they will continue to be an advocate for you.
Another tip which probably falls into the anecdotal evidence category - get off of ODesk and ELance. You are right about the price war. Your name and value to people also gets damaged because you seem to be just another guy among thousands who need to find work that way - it is a 'dime a dozen' mentality and they will always see you as that.