The Adventures of a Freelancer or the Life I Live
About one and a half or two years ago, this very story of my life story was placed in a sandbox on Habré. Then it made me very happy, because before that 3 of my articles had not been accepted. I remembered the past, added a little, basically correcting some errors and decided to share with you (if you did not read).
The article was inspired by the publication of habrahabr.ru/blogs/freelance/55143
Who am I? I will try to evaluate myself soberly. A mediocre site designer and graphic designer and a php programmer of a rather low level of writing code (well, for example, I rarely use classes ... this is enough for me to implement practically any project I undertake)
For about 8 years I worked as an “uncle” and decided that I would no longer do it, that I could earn a lot more on my own, sitting in a respectable office chair, but at home. I will not explain why it’s bad for me to work for my uncle. Everyone should understand this for himself, and there are already a lot of materials on this topic. If you also decide not to work for your uncle you can read further.
I started with freelancing before working for my uncle and tried to combine all 8 years. I mainly worked as a graphic designer and a little art director, and at home I riveted websites. So, I left home office. Almost immediately I had to think: should I not become an “uncle” myself? I read a lot on this topic, talked to people who have been “spinning” for a long time.
The first conclusion I made for myself is to pay for the office unreasonably:
1. I mainly do the main work myself (and not bad at home either)
2. I rent an apartment anyway (although this is, of course, personal, someone may live with their parents ...)
3. Customers do not really want to come anywhere - it is easier for them when they come to them.
The second conclusion is that it is not necessary to register as a state of emergency, individual entrepreneur or limited liability company if it is a question of earning less than 250 tr. per month (and usually it is)
What to do with the "cashless"? It's quite simple - just open the SberBook in Sberbank and specify the details of this branch + your full name. By the way: if any accountant does not understand (by inexperience) where exactly to transfer money - tell him that the Recipient is the name of the branch of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and your full names.
I tried to go home before , but this experience was unsuccessful - I stayed at home for six months and returned to the “uncle”. Later (it took 1 year) I figured out why it was so difficult for me - I tried to combine a bunch of professions: project manager, designer, HTML coder, programmer and manager.
When I left for the second time , I filed with online newspapers and other websites announcements about finding a manager with good percentages (20-25% of the order). There was a difficulty: I met with more than a hundred different people, they ALL agreed, but then no one worked. At first, I thought it was because I did not have an office, but then I saw the exact same situation and with it. I phoned these people and found out that almost all of them didn’t even try to start, finding the work extremely difficult or, on the contrary, very easy to get such earnings and continued to look for work further. Later, I still found the manager - a good person, with whom I became friends and planned several projects. But this is another story that did not end with anything good - the manager turned out to be rather weak and finding one worthwhile order literally stopped. One and a half years later, fate brought together an old acquaintance who had already become a director thanks to his “language”, joined our efforts, finally opened and LLC ... it will be seen there what the end of this story is.
Back to the work of a freelancer. Yes, constant customer support was waiting for me, and coding began to slowly move to second place. But when there is a problem, you need not to run from it to what has already happened, but to think and solve it!
First you need to make sure that the customers themselves fill the site, and for this CMS should be the most "friendly" and understandable. Therefore, for 3 years now I have been writing such a CMS. Already, it has more than 15 sites.
To be continued…
')
Question: Is it possible to avoid customer support in the future?
Answer: No, otherwise it will be called "everyone threw." So, of course, some do (mostly they are those who make websites on free engines), but they spoil the attitude of customers not only to themselves, but to all developers, causing the first to have increased mistrust and misunderstanding of the value of one or another work.
Question: I'm already tired of making all sites, and then making any of them any amendments, updates, additions ... How to be?
Answer: Alternatively, you can bring all the sites to one universal CMS with the ability to update it from a specific server. But, it is desirable that clients do not know that the update is automatic - let them better think that they spend a lot of time on them. And to customize the site, you can use a separate folder of site design images + an unchanged configuration file (config) + basic configuration information to keep in the database (or also files).
Question: What about support? Enikeyschik is also not willing to be, I want to write and create!
Answer: You can organize a support forum and try to drive all customers there. This may seem difficult, but it's worth a try. Ask to write more specifically and pre-use the search on the forum. And it would be nice to make Help and the CMS Knowledge Base (if it is not intuitive enough) and generally about filling any sites with information. Another option - to find a person who will be engaged in filling and updating sites.
BASIC Conclusion: Work “for uncle”, freelance, “uncle myself” ... The fourth option is the support service of a universal software product (for example, your CMS) or several products. By the way, universally does not mean cumbersome. A bad example is Bitrix.
The article was inspired by the publication of habrahabr.ru/blogs/freelance/55143
Who am I? I will try to evaluate myself soberly. A mediocre site designer and graphic designer and a php programmer of a rather low level of writing code (well, for example, I rarely use classes ... this is enough for me to implement practically any project I undertake)
For about 8 years I worked as an “uncle” and decided that I would no longer do it, that I could earn a lot more on my own, sitting in a respectable office chair, but at home. I will not explain why it’s bad for me to work for my uncle. Everyone should understand this for himself, and there are already a lot of materials on this topic. If you also decide not to work for your uncle you can read further.
I started with freelancing before working for my uncle and tried to combine all 8 years. I mainly worked as a graphic designer and a little art director, and at home I riveted websites. So, I left home office. Almost immediately I had to think: should I not become an “uncle” myself? I read a lot on this topic, talked to people who have been “spinning” for a long time.
The first conclusion I made for myself is to pay for the office unreasonably:
1. I mainly do the main work myself (and not bad at home either)
2. I rent an apartment anyway (although this is, of course, personal, someone may live with their parents ...)
3. Customers do not really want to come anywhere - it is easier for them when they come to them.
The second conclusion is that it is not necessary to register as a state of emergency, individual entrepreneur or limited liability company if it is a question of earning less than 250 tr. per month (and usually it is)
What to do with the "cashless"? It's quite simple - just open the SberBook in Sberbank and specify the details of this branch + your full name. By the way: if any accountant does not understand (by inexperience) where exactly to transfer money - tell him that the Recipient is the name of the branch of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and your full names.
I tried to go home before , but this experience was unsuccessful - I stayed at home for six months and returned to the “uncle”. Later (it took 1 year) I figured out why it was so difficult for me - I tried to combine a bunch of professions: project manager, designer, HTML coder, programmer and manager.
When I left for the second time , I filed with online newspapers and other websites announcements about finding a manager with good percentages (20-25% of the order). There was a difficulty: I met with more than a hundred different people, they ALL agreed, but then no one worked. At first, I thought it was because I did not have an office, but then I saw the exact same situation and with it. I phoned these people and found out that almost all of them didn’t even try to start, finding the work extremely difficult or, on the contrary, very easy to get such earnings and continued to look for work further. Later, I still found the manager - a good person, with whom I became friends and planned several projects. But this is another story that did not end with anything good - the manager turned out to be rather weak and finding one worthwhile order literally stopped. One and a half years later, fate brought together an old acquaintance who had already become a director thanks to his “language”, joined our efforts, finally opened and LLC ... it will be seen there what the end of this story is.
Back to the work of a freelancer. Yes, constant customer support was waiting for me, and coding began to slowly move to second place. But when there is a problem, you need not to run from it to what has already happened, but to think and solve it!
First you need to make sure that the customers themselves fill the site, and for this CMS should be the most "friendly" and understandable. Therefore, for 3 years now I have been writing such a CMS. Already, it has more than 15 sites.
To be continued…
Questions and answers:
')
Question: Is it possible to avoid customer support in the future?
Answer: No, otherwise it will be called "everyone threw." So, of course, some do (mostly they are those who make websites on free engines), but they spoil the attitude of customers not only to themselves, but to all developers, causing the first to have increased mistrust and misunderstanding of the value of one or another work.
Question: I'm already tired of making all sites, and then making any of them any amendments, updates, additions ... How to be?
Answer: Alternatively, you can bring all the sites to one universal CMS with the ability to update it from a specific server. But, it is desirable that clients do not know that the update is automatic - let them better think that they spend a lot of time on them. And to customize the site, you can use a separate folder of site design images + an unchanged configuration file (config) + basic configuration information to keep in the database (or also files).
Question: What about support? Enikeyschik is also not willing to be, I want to write and create!
Answer: You can organize a support forum and try to drive all customers there. This may seem difficult, but it's worth a try. Ask to write more specifically and pre-use the search on the forum. And it would be nice to make Help and the CMS Knowledge Base (if it is not intuitive enough) and generally about filling any sites with information. Another option - to find a person who will be engaged in filling and updating sites.
BASIC Conclusion: Work “for uncle”, freelance, “uncle myself” ... The fourth option is the support service of a universal software product (for example, your CMS) or several products. By the way, universally does not mean cumbersome. A bad example is Bitrix.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/86103/
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