We use blimp (http://getblimp.com). Works very well.
Readit NewsAndrewLuke commented on Ask HN: What non-email tool do you use for internal discussions? · Posted by u/syedkarim
AndrewLuke commented on So You Want to be A Freelancer samuelmullen.com/2013/07/... · Posted by u/samullen
So my freelancing business that I started with 2 friends in 2005 is about to put me and ~20 of my Chicago coworkers onto a chartered bus to Three Floyds Brewery for the day and I'm a little pressed for time, but let me get a few things out really quickly and maybe someone on HN can flesh out my bullets to links to any of the 200 1000-word posts I've written about them:
* Your bill rate isn't correlated with your salary
* Any bottom-up bill rate you back out of your salary is likely to end up with you undercharging
* Bill weekly or daily, but never hourly, never hourly, never hourly; you are not a furniture mover
* Don't rely on rules of thumb for accounting; find an accountant (get them referred to you) as soon as you're reliably making money
* Part of the point of running a freelancing business is to have your eyes out for opportunities to bring junior people on to your team; read Patrick McKenzie's most recent piece about "productizing" consultancies to see one way to do that. Consulting companies don't scale to VC-palatable multiples, but they do pretty nicely for a couple founders, and they tend to pay their teams well.
If you're in a full-time job now and have never tried consulting/freelancing, and you're the kind of person who thinks about one day starting a company, I emphatically urge you to hang up your shingle and start a consulting business. If you're the kind of person who will do well in entrepreneurship, and you can handle 50% more job stress than you have now, you'll make more money consulting and learn an amazing amount about running a business.
May you link to patio11's article on productizing? Can't find it on his blog.
I work for a supermarket in Japan...doing some IT grunt work + db admin + CRUD apps. Itching to try out new things...preferably remote.
Trying to get pgxplorer.com off the ground as a side project to "vacation" profitability.
I was actually looking for something like that today. Looks very good. Will try it out.
I own and run http://andrewluke.net, a software/hardware development firm. In there I mostly program all day, but do take time to talk to clients. Love it.
AndrewLuke commented on Becoming a Freelancer Again sparklewise.com/becoming-... · Posted by u/toumhi
It's all about risk.
It's risky for a business to hire someone to "write code", which is how the average freelancer positions themselves. The act of writing code doesn't necessarily translate to the hiring business being better off than they were before they hired you.
Consultants positions themselves to align with the underlying business problem and recognize themselves as an investment vessel, not an expense. "Ah, so your employees are wasting dozens of hours a week on dealing with this crazy Excel spreadsheet that runs your business? Let's find out how we can put together a solution together that will dramatically lower the time spent fiddling around in cells. A quick back of the napkin calculation... your employees dump about 30 hours into this spreadsheet a week. If you're paying $50 an hour to keep these people on payroll, that's close to $100k a year in spreadsheet overhead. Here's what I'm thinking..."
To add:
If this is a new product project, a firm is simply positioned better than a sole freelancer. Business value stability, and a firm provides the perception of stability.
AndrewLuke commented on Becoming a Freelancer Again sparklewise.com/becoming-... · Posted by u/toumhi
Can you expand a bit more on the difference. What do you say exactly?
Why do you think it makes a difference?
It is very simple.
As a freelancer, I was seen as disposable. Akin to a construction worker standing in front of Home Depot waiting to get some work. As a firm, people see it as a place that provides solutions to their problems. If they need some software written, they can come to the firm, and it will be done dependably. As a freelancer, they would call me, and hope I was available.
The only downside to the firm is that people believe it is more expensive to employ it, than to hire a freelancer. I still work for the same rates as before (lower than in the Valley). If another developer has to be sub-contracted, then I start to negotiate from the developer's rate. I only charge a bit more to cover risk (insurance, mostly). But all of the people in the my network have proved to be reliable and hard workers. Once (we) programmers find a good source of work, we treat it with love and respect.
I will take the opportunity to invite anyone who might be interested in getting to know the firm to contact us through our website(in my profile).
AndrewLuke commented on Becoming a Freelancer Again sparklewise.com/becoming-... · Posted by u/toumhi
One thing freelancers should consider is how they present themselves to the market. I used to simply knock on doors as a sole freelancer. That would get me some work, but it was inconsistent. I would be booked for two months, then out of work for three. After reading patio11's blog, and some marketing books, I decided to stop marketing myself as a freelancer. From that point forward, I would lead a software/hardware development firm. It made a big difference. I now market more easily, and land better clients. Plus it allows for me to hire other developers and share the work between all.
It also allows for me to launch products through the firm. Which improves our market presence, and increases our workload. Its a win-win.
http://andrewluke.net
You may contact through site.
AndrewLuke commented on Show HN: Minecraft Ipsum, my first side-project ever · Posted by u/lewisgodowski
Thanks! Yea, that'll be my next step forward. Because of the absurdly strange way I came up with of generating the sentences, I'm having a difficult time figuring out a way of doing that without completely re-writing my function. I'm sure I'll get that functionality working eventually, just need to learn more about JavaScript at this point in time.
A loop and an array is all you really need.
for amount of lines needed:
array.append = function call()
CONTACT ME IF YOU WANT TO GET THINGS DONE.
Python/Flask/Django/MYSQL/PostgreSQL/Jquery
Experience in e-commerce, search, automation, testing, QA, API design/deployment, and more.
inquiries@andrewluke.net
http://andrewluke.net
PS. I do hardware based projects, too. Contact me.