From freelancer to entrepreneur - one step

The work of a freelance programmer is often compared to work in an outsourcing company: theoretically, you always have a clear task and a deadline, so the developer’s job is to pedal. In fact, the experience of many freelancers shows that working on oDesk and similar exchanges is not only closer to developing startups, but also helps to start your own project with experience.


Sunset over Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia), from Konstantin Sokolinsky's album


About this, in particular, says Stephen Kasriel from (now) the combined company Elance-oDesk, who came to the IDCEE conference in Kiev last week. According to him, American and European startups “tasted” the freelancing exchanges - in the conditions of an eternal shortage of money, programmers from Eastern Europe and the CIS often become the best solution for young teams who need to quickly create product iterations.
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The same is repeated by Igor Shoifot (@shoifot), who has been living in Silicon Valley for many years and is represented there by a venture capital fund with Russian roots TMT Investments. He confirmed in his conversation that freelancers of technical specialties from Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria, etc. very often found in teams of local startups.

So, let us return to the differences between freelancers and outsourcers programmers in the annex to the Valley and other startup hubs. Due to the fact that a startup team is usually quite small, a freelance techie usually becomes an integral part of it and works the same way as the others - well, unless it is a co-owner and does not incur losses if the startup does not take off.

Konstantin Sokolinsky, a 30-year-old freelancer with experience from Kharkov, who has had time to work in his and other startups, and at the same time travel around Southeast Asia and South America, speaks for this opinion.

“I had to work in startups both through oDesk and outside of it, for the last three years of freelancing and building my own outsourcing company. The geography of startups is the States (California, New York, Tennessee) and Australia, and customers from Europe are mostly already established companies. ”

About the differences between the work of freelancers with startups and large customers:

“In startups, there is more development volatility. Changing requirements, hourly pay and (depending on the size of the account) modest budgets.

Big companies are more interested in budget predictability and are often willing to pay more but a fixed price. In such cases, you have to carefully manage the changi, but on the whole it is more profitable and more comfortable to work. ”

About the benefits of freelancing experience:

“First of all, on oDesk you learn to find a common language with people, identify their deepest needs and sell your services. You are the first seller, and then the programmer. Man and business. Then business, if you want.

So the experience of freelancing is invaluable, if you do not want to sit out all your pants in another office. You can sit in your. :) Or go for a drive, see the world - such a work & travel. "

Here it should be noted that Sokolinsky answered questions from Pokhara (Nepal), where he and his wife run a small distributed outsourcing company for 10+ employees and “saw their product in the field of mobile marketing”.

In general, representatives of all three parties - exchanges, venture business and freelancers - agree that it makes sense for technicians with an entrepreneurial spirit to gain experience in a start-up team. Again, if your future project does not take off, you can always return to the nomadic (well, or settled, as you like) life of a “free lancer”.