• Entrepreneurship in Computing II

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    To continue with this short series I started a couple weeks ago, I want to talk about the next part of my presentation, starting the business.

    Why Start a Business?

    This was a topic of particular interest. Many people see too much risk in actually putting yourself out there, leaving a steady job, and running your own business. I knew for me I had to start my own business when I wasn’t happy with any of the jobs I had (aside from working my first real job at the deli). My experiences were primarily negative working retail (which is usually the case), but also with jobs in my industry. So I felt if I wanted to be happy I’d have to be my own boss. But that is not the only upside to starting your own business.

    The payoff is greater, and not just in terms of money. That might not be the case, especially starting out. However, you will get the opportunity to create work of your own and take the lead on projects. You will also do what you love to do, not just what you are told to do. I for one enjoy programming. At my last couple of jobs however, I was strictly XHTML/CSS. I wanted to do innovative and cool things. Running my own business, I can do that.

    It’s your ideas that manifest themselves into real products, not some upper management person or company. It’s also very rewarding to see people use what you create. You won’t get that working for a company.

    Have I convinced you yet? Next time I’ll be talking about some tips to running a business.

  • Entrepreneurship in Computing

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    Recently I gave a talk on campus about Entrepreneurship in Computing. I talk about my experiences as a freelancer and consultant and give some advice to the undergraduate Comp Sci and Comp Info Systems students, and anyone else who would listen. I’d like to break my presentation down to a few posts here, starting with how I got my start.

    How I got my Start

    I was a sophomore in high school and my parish approached my about a website. At the time I wasn’t too savvy, but I figured I had Microsoft Frontpage; what more did I need? (I had a lot to learn). In any case, the gig just fell into my lap. I really enjoyed doing it and decided to look more into web development.

    Throughout high school, I did small site for other students, mostly bands or skateboard groups (this was about the time CKY/Bam Margera got big, so every skateboarder had a camera) who needed the five basic pages: Home, About, Shows (or Vids), Media, Contact Us. I’d charge them $50-100 for the whole site and be on my merry way. It wasn’t until my freshman year of college that I really became a web developer. In those first few years, however, I learn my most valuable lessons.

    Have Confidence
    If you don’t believe in your work, why should someone who is paying you?
    People Skills
    Communications is key. You need to be able to speak the client’s language. Put what you are doing in their terms, because if you don’t, they won’t get what they want and they won’t be happy about it.
    Specialize
    When I started out, I didn’t only want to do websites. I wanted to do everything- web development, graphic design, computer repairs, network set-up; you name it. However a Jack of All Trades is a master of nothing. So pick something you really enjoy and learn everything you can about it.
    Proper Business Workings
    I was at least smart enough then to start a spreadsheet with my basic revenue and expenses, though I didn’t realize what could be an expense at the time. I also learned what documents were important to try and protect myself and my business.

    Next time I will talk about running the business, why it might be the right choice for you and what to keep in mind.

  • The Student Freelancer

    classroom

    Over at FreelanceSwitch they have a nice write up on Student Freelancing. As all I’ve really known is student freelancing, I could really relate to this. If I could take one tip from the article to really pass on to other student freelancers or students who want to, I would say this:

    You know what? I’m proud to be a student. I’m proud to be studying something I really do consider a benefit both to myself and society. My clients know that. They know I’m a student and sometimes I don’t have time to do some of their projects. What they also know that I’ll try. As I said before, be honest with your clients. There’s a good chance they also went to college, isn’t there?

    When I first started I was always worried that because I am a student, my clients might look down on me, or try to take advantage of that fact. And you will have those people; except those people will try to take advantage no matter what the situation. Most clients understand that you are a student and are very understanding of deadlines and balancing their work with school. That said, you shouldn’t take advantage of their kindness, because they will also remember that.

    The hardest part is definitely the balancing act, which I feel I’ve mentioned here but is worth reiterating. You need to gage your semester and see what kind of workload you will have as to not over-burden yourself. There will be times where you want to take on one more client, but you may have to put it off. What I am doing now that I am a little older and somewhat established is taking on one or two underclassmen that I think will do a good job. I teach them what I know and send a few jobs their way. That way the client gets the work they need done and you network a little for the future, while giving someone else a good opportunity they may have not had otherwise. College is the best place to network and I suggest everyone take advantage of that fact.

    So am I glad I freelance as a student, even with my free time doing a disappearing act and the stress piling up at times? Absolutely. I have gained a lot of professional experience that I otherwise would not have, and that will help me when I do get out into the real world.

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    Freelancing: Distractions

    work

    As a freelancer that’s still in school, I move back home for the summer into a house with my parents and three younger brothers; and we are all close in age. That translates into a lot of distraction when I am trying to get work done. Between my parents asking me, since I am home, to do chores or run errands and my brothers bothering me to hang out, play cards, watch a movie or just plain bothering me, it can be pretty tough to get work done around here. So here are some tips on getting some work done if you face distractions like these.

    Close and Lock your door
    This might be the best method since when people see my door closed they usually know not to distract. Without people coming in and out of my room, it’s much easier for me to sit down and focus on what I need to do.
    Headphones
    My friends at school like to make fun of me for them, but I have a pair of big headphones that really do a great job of drowning out any and all ambient (and not so ambient) noise. With my music and nothing else in my ears, I find even in crowded rooms I can focus.
    Work when your friends work
    The nice thing about freelancing is you make your own schedule. So if you find yourself tempted by going out or working, just find out when your friends work and get your work done then. That way you get to work free of distraction (from them anyway) and get to hang out later when they get off work.
    Saying No
    My parents and friends don’t like this one so much, but when it is crunch time and my friends want to hang out or my parents need me to go to the store, sometimes I have to say no. It’s tough to draw a line between work and play (or whatever not work is) when you don’t have set hours, but when it comes down to it they will understand you need to get your work done.

    For me, the first three methods work better than the last one. As many of my friends know, I have a hard time saying no to people. That’s actually why I have so much work, which is what lead me to write this post…

  • Freelancing: Promote Yourself

    Promotion

    As a freelancer, it’s important to make sure you get your name out there. Promote yourself, let people know you are doing whatever it is you do and well, and people will come to you. Here I will talk about the most important way to promote yourself: networking. It cheap, it’s easy, and it’s effective.

    I’ve been known to say to my friends, “Every opportunity is a business opportunity.” When I say that I mean always look for an opportunity to put your name out there. Talk to people about what they do, see if you can help them out by offering what you do. Make some friends. Whenever a comedian or band came to the school, I would always make it a point to talk to them about their website, which I would check out before hand. If they mentioned they were looking for a developer or were not happy with their current one, I would tell them why I was their best bet. And I always had cards on me.

    Business cards are something that are pretty easy to produce on your own if you have a little bit of skill and a printer. I’ve been making my own cards since I started freelancing and it’s been fairly cheap to do. I just keep a few in my wallet and give them out when appropriate. Another cheap (free) way to promote yourself is social networking websites. I’ve put my business information up on MySpace, created a profile on LinkedIn and have put my resume on Craigslist. However, possibly the best and most fruitful was the marketplace listing I put on Facebook [last week]. I simply listed myself as a freelancer with my rates, skills, and specializations and have gotten a few responses back already. And all of the methods I just listed, including the Facebook one, are free.

    When promoting yourself, it’s also important to keep in mind what to promote. Make a portfolio of your best work and mention anything you specialize in. For me, it’s PHP/MySQL, and WordPress development. If you don’t have a specialization or know at least one tool well, I’d suggest learning one. Not only does it give you a specific skill set but it shows you take initiative and have the ability to learn new things well.

    I mentioned it a little before when I mentioned business cards, but face time is the most important, crucial part of promoting yourself. When you are pitching yourself to someone it’s an interview. You have to appear confident and know what you are talking about. If you impress them enough, they will take a closer look at you. If you can do that, and have a solid portfolio, the work will come.

  • Getting Gigs

    Working

    The most important thing about being a freelancer is you need to find enough jobs to support yourself. If you don’t have paying clients, you don’t have income. For the most part (especially getting started), my clients are “who you know” people. Friends or family of friends that needed websites for their business or their idea. But over time I have found a number of resources to find gigs. These are great for me at this stage of the game.

    • Craigslist: A free website where people can go and list information on anything they are looking for, Craigslist is pretty good for finding gigs. The site is broken down by region, and they recently expanded to a lot of new ones. I’d be careful with who you are dealing with on Craigslist though, because it is free and anyone can post.
    • FreelanceSwitch Job Boards: As a resource for freelancers, FreelanceSwitch provides lots of great advice for the freelancer, as well as job boards broken down by designing, programming, writing and misc.
    • 37Signals Gigs: Another set of gig boards by 37Signals.
    • Authentic Jobs: This is my favorite site of the ones listed. It’s organized by full time/freelance, design/development, and most of the jobs for freelance have a location listing of “Anywhere,” which opens up a lot of options for someone like me.

    I should mention that with FreelanceSwitch and 37Signals, they also have a listing for “Anywhere,” but Authentic Jobs has much bigger numbers (at the moment at least). The last three also are people paying for that space, so it might be a little more legit than Craigslist.

    UPDATE: Today (6/12), FreelanceSwitch had a nice post on How NOT to Apply for a Freelance position. Pretty good timing if you ask me!

  • The Freelancer’s Interview

    Many of my friends are now going on interviews that will hopefully land them a job, giving them a start on their new future as a functioning person of society. My brothers and their friends are going on smaller scale interviews to land them a summer job so they can make some spending money. Amidst all of this, I sit at home, programming, doing my own thing to make money. That doesn’t mean that I don’t go on interviews. As a matter of fact, for a freelancer like me at least, I go on a lot of interviews.

    You see, the freelancer has a job interview every time he gets a new client. That interview manifests itself in the first meeting or proposal that secures the job for him. As a freelancer, in that first interview you not only have to prove to the potential client that you can in fact do the job they want to hire you to do, you also have to justify your methodology for doing it, the amount of time you will take to do it and of course, the price you will charge them for it. You have to sell yourself every time a new client walks in that proverbial door.

    I’m not saying it’s harder for a freelancer, just different; something I hadn’t really thought about until a few days ago when I thought to myself I haven’t been on a “real” job interview in a while. Of course, when my friends land a job they really like, they won’t be interviewing for a while, assuming they can keep their job. For me, I’ll be interviewing for as long as I decide to freelance. But that is a price I am willing to pay, because quite frankly, freelancing is awesome.

  • Freelancing

    In the days approaching graduation, the number one question I was asked is, “What are you doing after?” Most of my friends were relaxing for some time and finding a job, a few had jobs lined up, and some were going to grad school. I fall in the third category. What exactly does that mean for me job wise for the summer now that I actually have a degree? Freelancing. I am finally at a point, I feel, where I can make freelancing my main source of income. I have grown a lot as a developer and a business man, and I actually have clients. More than one. While I have spoke about my business and some tips and advice, I have never talked about the subject of freelancing. Until today.

    As many of my friends know, I think this is the best thing anyone can do. Start your own business. Work for yourself. Do what you love to do and do it your way. My brother and friend are into photography- sell your pictures. Take pictures for people. My friend is a teacher- tutor on the side. Why not? Anyone going into the workforce I encourage to open their own firm. Working for myself is an amazing experience that has helped me grow as a person. I get to work with people to attain some goal or idea they have. I get to learn new things as I go along, and get paid to do it. With web design, I have a tangible product on the web that anyone can view whenever they want.

    So what do you do if you want to get into freelancing. Well for me it was a no-brainer. I was in high school and really had no expenses. I figured if people are willing to pay me to do what is essentially my hobby, why not. As I got older, I really started seeing value in my own work. It’s not just a hobby, it’s a commodity that people need and I am part of the few that can actually provide it. That is the most important lesson I’ve learned, and something anyone who wants to freelance should keep in mind. Do not short change yourself. I’ve spend a lot of time “cutting people breaks” and charging way less than I should have because I thought it was fun. I should have seen the value in my work. So that is the first thing you need to do to get into freelancing.

    There is a lot more I could cover here, and maybe I will. But for now, Freelance Switch has a nice write-up on the basics of freelancing.

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    The Business: Project Tracking

    BackPack

    In the second installment of this series for 2007, I would like to talk about another ‘problem’ I have run into since getting a higher volume of clients; keeping track of projects. If you do not stay organized and on top of what you have to do for each client, you will ultimately fail as a business. That’s why you need to set up something that works for you. The system I am about to describe is something I find works very nicely for me.

    Backpack is a well-developed web interface by 37 Signals that allows you to keep pages and within those pages notes, tasks, files, and Writeboards (a collaborative tool, also by 37 Signals). Also included in Backpack are reminders and the calendar(if you pay for it). When I get a new project, I create a new page, put in general info about the site, notes on ideas and brainstorming, all of the tasks, etc. I have also been toying with the idea of buying the Basic account, which would include the calendar, file and image storing and a lot more reminders. And at $5/month, I can’t go wrong. By having a calendar and reminders ‘in house’ so to speak, I would be able to keep track of all deadlines, billing, and other important dates.

    So far, Backpack has been working out great for me- I just bring it up in a web browser where ever I am and get to work. And when I do collaborative work on a project, the writeboards are perfect. If I were to build something to help keep track of projects, it would be Backpack.

  • The Business: Finances

    All About the Benjamins

    One of the things I want to do more of in 2007 is blog about my business. How I manage it, problems I encounter, and some tools I use to help me. With the redesign, I will have a page that showcases some articles of mine (much like Alex King), and series will be there. Today, since it is the beginning of the year, I want to talk about some tools that help me manage Finances.

    I think I have biggest problem with money. Up until last year, JLC Web Design was a very small operation, getting a client here or there. Since the summer, I have been working on multiple projects pretty steadily. This means I need to keep track of who is paying me, when, what they owe, and what their account consists of. Since I often offer server space and purchasing the domain, I will need to bill my clients annually. To keep track of these things, I use a simple excel document, with a sheet for each year, domains I pay for and servers I pay for. I use the simple adding and subtracting formulas to automatically display how much I have paying and making, and the profit so far. I have also started using Wesabe for my finances. I simply upload an online bank statement, and it shows up on Wesabe for me to tag and edit. This means I can make more meaningful names for “Deposit” and “Domain Rebels #0997.” And I tag all my expenses and revenue as such, as well as JLC Web Design for all transactions. Wesabe automatically calculates spending for the month, total spending, and the money I have made or lost based on the tag. It creates spending and earning reports and allows you to set goals for yourself. I can also upload multiple bank accounts, so my business and personal finances are in the same place. It’s easy, it’s free and it’s web based. For me, it’s everything I need.

    In the coming days I would also like to talk about project tracking, deadlines and sending the invoices, and contracts.