Entrepreneur Musings

Having all your eggs in one basket

2009-10-28T13:40:00.003+05:30

One of the most common fears for a freelancer is now knowing from where your next job is coming from. What do I do once this current project ends is a question that hovers on most of our minds, if we don't have a list of projects on the pipe line.

A balanced business development program (I prefer the term business development opposed to marketing for freelancers), should have a couple of projects that are waiting on you to start, and a few more in various early stages of discussion/negotiations. Such a order pipeline would also mean that you have accurately planned your current projects and they are going to end on schedule with minor variations at most. You need to be able to move on to the projects on the pipeline is a reasonable time frame, otherwise those clients are not going to wait on you forever.

In my case, I never could work on a pipeline mainly due to this reason. The first client that I started to work with, started to treat me as an extension of his team and his company and he got me involved with most of the projects that he was working on. And at that time, HE has a lot of projects on the pipe line. So by extension I also had a lot of projects on the pipeline.

After 6 months down the line we have cleared most of the backlog. Now we are at the tail end of his last major project. In about a month or so, this project is going to move out of development to maintenance. It is already live with a few more features to be added. I am starting to feel the pressure of continuity. For the past 6 months, I did not have to worry about business development. I had work, more work than I could actually do. Now my work load is showing signs of diminishing.

While my client, being the nice guy he is assuring me that he will find enough work to keep me busy. But I do not wish to become a burden on a client. After all, there is no obligation for him to keep giving me work. There are a few small projects and maintenance projects that we had put on hold due to increased workload with new projects. He is planning to work on those while he markets his services and lands new projects.

For the first time in my freelance career I am feeling the pressure to market my self. I also had become lethargic and made the classic mistake most freelancers make in leaving marketing and business development for the last stages. As a technologist, my first love is technology and when there was a new project to be built from scratch, using the latest technologies, I jumped at it and deferred my least preferred task of business development.

There was another issue which prevented me from working on new project leads. That was I wasn't sure when I was going to become free. I was working full time and more for the single client I had. His projects had shrunk schedules and we crammed and met them. We delivered all right. And some projects just kept growing. His clients liked what we churned out and wanted more and more features. And we happily churned them out as well.

So essentially I have all my eggs in one basket. I like what I am doing and I kept doing it. My client demanded my full time commitment and I was happy to give it, as that meant I was meeting my financial targets. But as a result I had risked my whole business upon a single client and have been putting all my eggs in one basket. I think it is time for me to 'diversify' and look for at least one more client. Ideally I should start off by reducing time spent on my current client to 75% of what I do now and try to fill that 25% with work from another client.

Another one of the things that I wanted to do when I started freelancing was to build my own web applications and market them. I had a couple of ideas but I never really pursued them, mainly due to lack of time. I gladly welcomed any work sent my way as I wanted the money. But me being the bad financial planner that I am , though I earned more as a freelancer, I have already spent all that extra income as well. I need to plan and save up an emergency fund and maybe, if I can save enough, I would like to reduce my client work even more and start putting in my time to develop and build some of the application ideas that I had. Better still, I should brainstorm and come up with more novel ideas and work on the best ones!

I would love to hear from other free lancers on the strategies they adopted to diversity their client base and to maintain a healthy project pipe line.

So you’re a freelancer.

2009-09-01T15:28:00.001+05:30

This is one of the trickiest questions that I have to answer. When you meet people, relatives and friends, inevitably they want to know what you are up to? And the typical question is something along the lines of “so what do you do/” or a “where do you work now?”

This is a kind of a trick question because the concept of freelancing is not very familiar in Sri Lanka. And depending on to whom you are talking this leads to more probing questions to figure out what exactly that I seem to be doing for a living.

I have various ways to describe what I do. And these are some of those answers.

“I am a consultant” – this works well with outsiders. But for long lost relations, sometimes this turns out a bit suspicious. For one, they still seem to think of us (as in our generation) as kids, and they refuse to believe that people our age can actually be consultants.

“I have my own company” – I hardly use the word business. For some reason, identifying myself as a businessman does not appeal to me. I am in a knowledge based business and hence the term consultant is more appropriate, in my personal view.

“I am a freelancer” – I say this when I am in the company of people in the same industry or who are familiar with the concept of freelancing. There are still people out there who think that if you have no job, you cannot possibly be serious.

The typical follow up questions are to figure out how one can make a living by not having a regular job. And I have a fun time playing with their minds!

Technorati Tags: Freelancing,entrepreneurship

A review of the first quarter

2009-08-17T15:37:00.001+05:30

I had written a review about the first month as a full time freelancer, but apart from that a proper review was not blogged.

This was mainly because I could not think of anything significant and new to write about, without repeating my self or what has been written elsewhere on freelancing blogs.

My freelancing career was off to a good start as my first client turned out to be a keeper. We somehow clicked and he appreciated the effort I put in as well as the value proposition that I brought to the table. Therefore he got me involved in most of the projects that he had. And currently I am serving as his tech lead/project manager for all his projects. And he is quite confident to let me run the projects as I see fit and to take decisions about technology and architectures.

I think one of the best outcomes were him increasing my weekly limit from 20 hours to 30 hours and then up to 40 hours. Currently my limit with him stands at 60 hours which basically means that I can work all I want for him.

But one of the hardest things for me as a freelancer was settling down to a regular schedule, Initially I worked like a dog. then my schedule went haywire and again it has come back to a phase I am working for most part of the day. As a result I had a couple of very low income months which out a lot of pressure on my financials. But eventually, with a more disciplined schedule I am now on a pretty good financial footing, month on month. For the last couple of months, I have earned far more than I had earned during my time as an employee, ever!

What I have been trying to work out with my wife and my family was a schedule that would allow me to spend time with them when all of us were at home and also at times when they needed me to be around. I think I have managed to stay on that schedule on and off and it is quite a bit of an effort to balance.

What I like about the freelancing options are the fact that it gives me the freedom to attend to family matters as and when needed, without having to give excuses or requesting leave! I can take time off and spend time with my family and cover up later on. But I faced two health related issues where my schedules were put off completely. At those times I promptly informed the clients of the situations I was facing and also informed them about the impacts on the schedules. I also offered them alternative schedules and workarounds as much as possible. I think that effort was also appreciated and uplifts your credibility as a responsible freelancer.

During this period I went for just one job interview. That too was out of curiosity. It was a company I admired and would have liked to work for, if I was hunting for a job. And their HR was pretty influential in getting me to say yes to an interview. I went through their process and got selected. I got the job and a package I think was one of the best, a job at that level could get. But in the end I turned it down, as I had a pretty good feeling about my freelancing career. I was chased quite hard in an attempt to convince me to take up the job. But the freelancing freedom I had experienced along with the promise of a future built on my own terms was more appealing to me. I still have the option to go back to them if I change my mind. But that, I doubt!

Currently my freelancing operation is growing beyond me as a single person. I now have one person who works for me on part-time basis and very soon will be adding another to my team. I am essentially running a small development shop, completely virtually. This is probably the first fully virtual software company in Sri Lanka. I would love to explore the opportunity to expand the virtual operation, where everyone works out of their homes, enjoying the same freedom as I do. But at the same time I recognize, that being a freelancer, requires a certain amount of maturity and responsibility which all may not posses.

I had such an experience. I had enlisted two guys to do work for me. Both of them were personally known to me and I had a great respect for their coding abilities. But only one of them worked out. The other guy, though being the better option at coding, never really delivered. So I had to let go of him, before it came to a point where his unreliability was going to reflect a bad impression about my ability to deliver. So this will be something that I will have to look out for, and gauge, when I get people to join my operation. Eventually, one day, I do not mind opening up an physical location. But I am reluctant on it, as it would again take me back to the square one, to a nine to five job, though at a different capacity.

So in conclusion, if anyone out there is contemplating on going solo but is holding back due to uncertainty, I say take the plunge! The feeling is unexplainable!

Technorati Tags: Freelancing,entrepreneurship,freedom

Handling work overload

2009-07-23T18:56:00.001+05:30

In the process of progressing a freelancing career, there may be a fortunate position of you being inundated with more work than you can handle. If this is happening to you, what are the possible ways that you can handle such a situation. Though it is a fortunate situation, it requires careful handling in order to not to damage the client relationships.

Ok, to the possible ways that you can handle it:

Turn them Down

You can politely turn them down. Almost all clients will understand that you are not able to take on their projects due to your current commitments. This is something that you can do maybe a couple of times to a client and then the chances are that they may not come back to you in the future, because they may develop the presumption that you are fully booked.

Refer

You can refer them to a friend or a fellow freelancer. The clients will in most cases appreciate this option as you are recommending the another person and they will be a bit comfortable.

Again there are two downsides to this. If the person that you referred the business to does a good job the clients may give him/her preference over you for future projects. Almost all freelancers would not let go of a good client very easily. So if your client happens to be one of those gem of a client, the chances are your fellow freelancer will go out of his/her way to retain them.

The other end of this is if the person does a shoddy job, it will damage your reputation as well as your relations with the client as well. Since their decision to go with the person you recommended depended also on the trust your client has placed on you, this will result in clients’ trust in due getting diminished or even completely destroyed. So this is something that you should do with care.

Of course depending on your relationship with your colleague, you may earn a referral fee for the project that you referred as well as for any future work the client may give him. Or even better if you can get into a formal agreement with them both to say that this is a one time arrangement and that they cannot work together in future without your consent in future.

Subcontract

You can take on the job and subcontract it to another. This way, you are eliminating any risk of you losing your client in the long term. The client may feel comfortable as they are dealing with the same old you. But this option might end up adding an additional workload on you as now you will have to manage the subcontractor as well as ensure the output meets the quality level that the client is expecting from you. Also, be prepared to spend a significant amount of time in communications as now the communications flow through you.

Expand/Evolve

You can expand single you to a entity. This is the natural evolution of a freelancer unless you have a strong preference to stay as an independent freelancer. This is the birth of a company and there are quite a few successful companies that have started off in this manner, specially in the IT domain.

Personally this is my preferred option as well. I would like to build my freelancing career into something that is not solely dependant on my time. As a freelancer, my most precious commodity is my time. The amount of work I do is directly proportional to the time I can put into doing it. So my income becomes a direct function of my available time.

As with most of us, I came into freelancing seeking financial, creative and of course time independence. So the natural step I would take is to expand or evolve. I would like someday to be not working but still earning an income. The way to do this is to have others do the work for you. Of course, the chances are, even if I can afford to not to work, I’d still be working or developing something as I love what I do! But it is good to be working because you like what you do rather than because you have to!

Free tools for a freelancer/start-up business

2009-07-16T20:40:00.001+05:30

One of the first things that I did when I started off as a full time freelancer and entrepreneur was to look for those applications that would help me do a variety of things. And one of the criteria that I had was that all these tools had to be online tools, allowing me to use them where ever I am, if there was an Internet connection and also which would allow me to share them with my future accountant or other admin staff members, where ever they also may be. What ever I did, I was keen on building a business that operated on through the Internet as opposed to through a traditional office building.

The other reason for looking for web based applications was because of my keenness to build a virtual business operation where the employees were telecommuting. This would allow me to tap into the best people immaterial of their location, allowing the business to scale up and down with the demand for its services, and allow the employees the freedom to work from the comforts of their homes.

Here are the applications that I looked at and eventually settled on.

Email / Calendar / Web Presence / Document Sharing

Google Apps for your domain without a wink of an eye. I had used this before for my personal domain and it was a no brainer. You get so much of services for free if you have less than 50 users. And the limits on these accounts are more than enough for my use!

The older version of Google Apps had Google pages which were pretty good to design and host a basic web site. But with the phasing out of Google Pages and introduction of Google Sites, the new wiki style web site structure may not be ideal for a company wanting to project a professional image.

Invoicing / Accounting

Since I am not an accountant and my exposure to accounts are really minimal, I am not sure what an accounting application needs. But for the purpose of sending estimates, tracking time spent on clients and projects and invoicing, which were the things that I needed to do, FreshBooks.com met my needs perfectly.

So far I can live with the limitations of the free Freshbooks account. The one that I am going to exhaust the soonest is the limit on clients. It allows three and I already have three on my account. But it allows unlimited projects and that is a relief.

But I am not entirely happy in the way in which it manages projects, which seems like a bit of an unorganized approach. I think it works fine for Freshbooks as its intention is just to record time spent on each task on each project.

I have already hit the ceilings of the free account in Freshbooks. But I am still not in a hurry to upgrade as my main client is through oDesk and oDesk tools are what I am using for him. So I can scan stick to the free plan on Freshbooks, at least for sometime, with creative using of clients.

Actually there were a couple of other tools that I evaluated, LessAccounting, CurdBee, Blinksale being some of them. One of the main issues I had with those were the lack of an integrated time tracking module. Though they had integrations with other Time Tracking apps, none of those apps were easy enough to use or were free!

CRM

This is not an application that I am using much now due to the fact that most of my project chasing happens on oDesk and others are happening through word of mouth. But Tactile CRM is my choice. There are a few limitations on the free version, but I think it is a decent start.

But if you are creative enough you can use Google Contacts also for this purpose.

As my business continues to grow I may outgrow some of these applications. But that will be a long way to go, until I reach that point and at such times I will stick to these choices. At some point you have to stop evaluating and start using them!

With these kind of free services available on the net, it is pretty easy for companies to start operations. There is a whole lot of infrastructure available, at our disposal at no cost. So all you need to do is to concentrate on the business.

Gmail and Tasks comes out of Beta

2009-07-15T20:34:00.001+05:30

This might be a little bit of stale news, but I could not resist making a note of it when I noticed it. Two of my favorite apps have graduated out of Beta: Gmail and Tasks.

I have been hooked on Gmail ever since I got an invite, back then when it was an invitation only system. What hooked me to it initially was the enhanced storage, but eventually I got hooked to it unconventional user interface and the powerful search features. I was never an email organizing person anyways. And Gmail suited me just fine. Just let the messages be and search and retrieve when you want them.

Since my dabbling with GTD started I have been looking for that perfect task management system and was glad to find something right inside my Gmail inbox. I know there are plenty of other darn good web based GTD systems, but the fact that this lived right inside Gmail sealed the deal for me. The only thing that I would really like to see with Tasks is the ability to sync it with third party apps. Particularly I would love it if there was an iPhone app that synced with Tasks. That would have made my day as I am not a great fan of web apps on the iPhone.

But since I sync the iPhone calendar with my google caledar, at least those tasks with due dates appear on my iPhone as well. But I would like to see:

Google publishing an API for Tasks as part of their GData API.
A native iPhone app that would sync with Tasks.

When Google publishes an API for Tasks I should maybe write the iPhone app and make a few millions!

Windows Live OneCare – Pain or Blessing?

2009-06-22T09:42:00.001+05:30

Technorati Tags: Live OneCare,VPN,Firewall,Windows Security

I got a new laptop and in the process of setting it up there was this offer that popped up to use Live OneCare for 60 days. I signed up!

Things were all right as long as I tried connecting to the VPN’s that I need to connect to. One was connecting through a CheckPoint client software and the other was a Windows VON connection. Both of them did not connect.

So I checked the usual culprit, which is Windows Firewall and found that to be Off. Then only did I realize that my Firewall was OneCare. And it was playing havoc! Rather than tinkering with its settings I uninstalled it and fell back on Windows Firewall and AVG (One care was telling me that AVG was redundant and that I need to uninstall it!)

Everything is back to normal now. What I don’t realize is why does MS create two Firewall programs. I understand OneCare needing a firewall to provide the level of security that it requires. But why does it install another firewall program? After all Windows Firewall is its own product and it should have used that as part of OneCare? Oh wait? Does it mean that the Windows Firewall is a product with a lot of holes and that MS does not trust it’s own Firewall? So they are shipping a new Firewall with OneCare which is essentially a paid service?

But so far, Windows Firewall and AVG have served me pretty well and I don’t see the reason for me to switch to a new paid service from MS? After what is MS’s credentials on security? Not so great I’d say!

Review of the first month

2009-05-03T22:09:00.001+05:30

I have successfully concluded my first month as a freelancer, the keyword being successfully. I have been lucky to capture two opportunities at the start itself.

Both opportunities were things I started to work on, (negotiations and interviews) about a month before I was to start. One opportunity was confirmed on a couple of weeks before my official step out and the second one also got confirmed during my first week as a full time freelancer. Work wise also they are the right combination that I was seeking. One is a project with a fixed and the other is a more long term hourly paid collaboration.

The good news is I have been getting work that was keeping me pretty busy. In fact I was crawling to get things done. And the bad news is, I am still trying to get into a proper cycle. I still kind of feel as if I am at home on leave from work. And as a result I am not in my optimum work mode when I am doing work.

I get easily distracted when my kids are playing down stairs and too many a times I have stopped what I have been doing and gone to play with them. There were more times when I ignored their calls for me and continued what I was doing. But what I am saying the distractions are far too many.

And I think my family also doesn’t see a clear separation between my work hours and family time. Since I have to do some work in the night as well to accommodate my US clients, my work seems to be spread out through out the day. This also gives them the feeling that I am working all the time.

So this month I am planning on concentrating on building and internalizing a few rituals in to my work practices. These include me trying to work out practical work hours and also carving out some quality family time. And these are going to be some pretty good learning experiences where I can draw upon the lessons from other veterans in this field. But finally what will work for me would be my unique set of practices. And I will be sharing them through these pages.

Technorati Tags: Freelancing,Entrepreneurship,Starting up,ISC,oDesk,Outsourcing,Contracting,Balance

Socializing for freelancers

2009-04-18T23:38:00.001+05:30

Becoming a freelancer can become quite a monotonous life specially if you happen to be loaded with work. And this monotony is quite hard at the transition period. And especially hard if your time also happen to be fully booked.

I am lucky that my transition to freelancing has been quite successful that I managed to find work which fully booked my time. But it also meant that I was glued to the computer all by myself most of the time without much social / professional interactions. As all my clients are overseas and my interaction with them has been limited to emails/IM’s and at best, VOIP over Skype.

Sometimes I feel as if I’m on an extended vacation. Since I am living on the out skirts of Colombo and most of my friends are working in the city, it is very impractical for me to go out to meet them as that will require me sacrificing a good part of my afternoon in travelling for the occasion. Such meet-ups are also restricted by one of my assignments as I am required to be online in the evenings for a couple of hours for meetings.

So what is it that I can do to keep my social aspect in vogue while I build my freelance career?

Luckily in Sri Lanka we keep in touch with our extended families and they are quite involved in our lives. Therefore we interact with our parents, brothers and sisters and cousins very often. And our families have some function or other that brings the families together quite often. This certainly helps.

But this is hardly any professional networking as most of my extended family are in fields other than IT. Therefore, I feel the need to get involved in industry associations. One of the easiest and the best options for me are the .NET User Group in Sri Lanka. These guys arrange a meet-up once a month with a discussion on a up and coming technology topic. This participation will help me update my knowledge as well as to network. This network will also directly help me in identifying potential technical resources that I can collaborate on future projects while I build my network of collaborators.

Other than that I am not aware of many industry associations that I would like to participate in. Most of them are business chambers which at this point of time seem like an overkill for my time investment. If anyone knows of any associations or industry groups that I can be a part of, I would certainly like to hear.

Also, social life should not be limited to professional networking. Therefore I am going to make a concentrated effort to keep in touch with my friends and past colleagues, whose company I enjoyed. Also, I am thinking about investing time in an activity that I would enjoy, or a hobby. Preferably some sports/fitness activity or a social activity such as dancing. I am keen on a sport activity as being a freelancer gives me very little physical exercise while working from home and I badly need to shed some extra pounds.

Technorati Tags: Freelancing,Social Life,Networking

Full time freelancing off to a great start

2009-04-08T02:01:00.002+05:30

I was planning on updating this blog on a more regular basis now that I am a full time entrepreneur/freelancer. But due to a heavy workload, a little bit beyond what I can cope up with at the moment, that had to be put on back burner for a week.

Getting back to the topic, as I mentioned in my last post, I was converting to a full time freelancer/entrepreneur from the beginning of this month. I hung up my boots as a paid employee on the 31st of March, handed over all the company equipment that were in my possession, gave up all the corporate benefits that I enjoyed (really? Were there any?) and stepped out to the uncertain world of freelancing.

Luckily I had a project lined up, which was a short term one month project for a client/friend in UK. They were already pushing me to start it ASAP, so I knew that there were not going to be any work less days for me. I was going from one project for my employer to another project for my own boss! Then there was another prospect that was hanging by a rope because the client and I could not seem to find a convenient time to discuss the project. I only had half a hope pinned on that.

So I started on the project A and at the same time started to chase the project hanging on a rope. For my luck that too worked out. I had attempted to secure that project as it had mentioned that was a part time project which required only 20 hours a week. So I started it at that. But just three days into it, the client informed me that he may have 40 hours a week worth of work for me. This put me in a little dilemma as I wanted to work on a freelance gig for only half my time and wanted to dedicate the rest of the time towards building my business.

But I opted to take up the offer as this client is also looking for a off shore team to carry on his work. He has no intention of building a team in the USA but wants to work exclusively with outsourced developers. If I play all my cards right, this should open up an opportunity for me to convert this client from being a personal client of mine to a client of my company, where the company can set up an offshore team for him. With this idea in mind, I agreed to take up the additional workload.

So in a nutshell, my freelance career has had a very good start as far as the assignments are considered. Now I am concentrating on completing my project A and the tasks for my second client and am not even looking at any other opportunities out there. When I was in the planning stages I was hoping to spend about 10% of my time in actively marketing/bidding on projects and was considering expanding my search beyond oDesk to my professional network, other freelancing/job sites like eLance.com etc. But so far, I have not had the need to explore these other avenues.

To be honest I think I will need to focus more on being productive at home and learn to manage the distractions. Being with the kids the whole day has its share of distractions and it is very easy to drop the work and do something else. I feel as if I am on leave from work and this naturally brings in a lethargy. But I am slowly trying to develop a rhythm and working pattern to overcome this I am on leave mood. And I will keep those strategies I adopt to become productive as a freelancer recorded on this blog.

Cutting off the safety net and followig my dream

2009-03-22T16:00:00.002+05:30

Apparently, a lot of great companies were started at times of economic slowdown or recession. And the current economic recession is bound to give birth for numerous companies and a few great ones.

It is during these recession times, when job cuts are at all time highs and unemployment rates soar to record numbers, people tend to finally unleash the burning desire that they had for striking it on their own, finally get to put their dreams to work. It is during these times that the so called job security keeps getting pulled under the employees feet that they realize the myth of the job security and the risk of living pay check to pay check. Trust me, I am talking through experience.

When the so called job security kept becoming a distant dream and every day at work started to become another day to keep your job and the division from becoming a statistic in a lay-offs number I decided it was time to re-kindle the entrepreneur in me. Actually it was more of a necessity of the situation, but rather than becoming a hunter for a job, I decided it was time that I finally tried to make my ideas work, and create a company that I would like to get up and work for every day, gives the freedom for the employees creativity and talents to be unleashed, gives the kind of flexibility that I yearned for to work where I want and when I want.

Taking a serious look at the kind of questions that were raised in my previous post, this time I rallied in two business partners that complements my skills as well as gives me the required support. First I got my significant other also involved, initially in the capacity of a director. The fact that she agreed to become a part of my venture signifies that she is also serious about the success of the venture and would give me the required support and the understanding in the face of all the time and leisure sacrifices that I may have to do in building this business up.

As I am more of a techie and an introvert I needed someone that was more of an extrovert and an experienced seller. For this I enlisted a professional marketeer and a seller and my longest standing friend; my brother. This should be a nice compliment in the areas that I am not strong in. He has a MBA and has a better understanding of running and building businesses.

I will continue to look for freelancing work until the business comes to a better standing where I can rely completely on the business. I know oDesk can also be a good platform to look for new business opportunities, but for the time being I am going to keep oDesk as an avenue to look for freelancing work and to rely on more traditional avenues to build the client portfolio of my new company. I have already landed a project through a networking contact even before the company registrations came through.

I am looking at freelancing as a way of bankrolling my new company. This way I am easing the pressure on the company to build its product portfolio and become profitable, as freelancing supplements my income. On the other hand the company will provide an entity for my clients to deal with when they want to deal with a business entity rather than an individual. Ironically the same sentiment is also explored at the FreelanceSwitch and they have termed it as "Netsetting".

The negative side of this is as the company is essentially going to be a one man development team in the near future it is going to eat into the time that I will be left to develop the companies product line. But in the near future I am planning to expand the company into an eco system of freelance experts so the product development will not be limited to my efforts alone.

So, it is the last week where I will be working for another for a salary. Some April I am joining the wonderful world of freelancers and entrepreneurs!

Have you got what it takes?

2009-02-26T15:28:00.002+05:30

So, You want to Ben an Entrepreneur is a great article from Wall Street Journal that stems from a lot of observations. And the good thing about it there is a 10 question questionnaire that would help anyone asses whether they got the traits that would eventually determine you would do well or not. It was an eye opener for me as well. Just as many others, I also HAVE lofty dreams of becoming a successful entrepreneur without giving much thought to what sacrifices it would take or how I could cope with the ups and downs.

Here's my take to the 5 questions from where I stand now. These answers may change over time, but for now, this is it.

1. Are you willing and able to bear great financial risk?
This is the biggest thing that is holding me back and making me moonlight. I have financial obligations like a mortgage and a lease that puts a fixed strain on my financials month by month. Though the lease is only another three years my mortgage runs another 13 years. SO unless I find a way to settle that first or build a recurring additional income that can pay the mortgage, this is my biggest drawback.

2. Are you willing to sacrifice your lifestyle for potentially many years?
This is something that I don't have a problem in doing. I can sacrifice my lifestyle for many (few) years. I have less risk here as my wife is on a pretty stable and well paying job and there is a fall back when it comes to supporting our lifestyle.

3. Is your significant other on board?
I think so! I did send her the link to the original article and asked for her response. My wife basically supports my goals as long as it doesn't put a lot of strain on our family time. But any new undertaking will take up quite a bit of time to be invested on it. I think the answer would lie in finding ways to improve the quality of the time spent with family, so even if you spend little time, you make that time count.

4. Do you like all aspects of running a business?
Yes and no. So far, from what I have experienced, I am good at certain things but not on somethings. I think the answer to this will also lie on the question 10, by finding a partner who likes to do the things that I don't necessarily enjoy doing.

I have recently joined a consortium of people to re-start an online venture that we planned sometime back but never got around to actually launching it. I think the arrangement that we have there is a good way for me to move forward. Stick to my knitting, and do what I am good at and enjoy doing and specialize in, and get other partners on board to handle the other areas.

5. Are you comfortable making decisions on the fly with no playbook?
This is something that I enjoy doing. I like making decisions and to keep things moving. I hate it when decisions are not made and are waiting for others to analyze and revert back. Like in most things in life, it is the decisions that you make that will make your business go forward or backward. You basically start with a clean sheet of paper and then write your story.

6. What's your track record of executing your ideas?
This is definitely one area that I would have to put a lot of effort in. With my recent dabbling with productivity improvement and what not I have improved myself slightly. But I was one of those people who had a lot of things that were put off. Procrastination was second nature to me. But thank god I am moving away from that self of mine.

7. How persuasive and well-spoken are you?
I do consider my self to be well spoken and this is something a lot of people agree with me on. And I am comfortable in selling, but just not so much on cold calling. I am a good presenter and can convince people. Again, what I need to do is to find a partner who is good at the pure selling part and I can sell the concept once the initial ice is broken. I am good at taking but not in breaking the ice!

8. Do you have a concept you're passionate about?
YES! I do have a broader concept that I am passionate about. I am passionate about the way the mobility and connectivity is changing our life styles and any business that I so must revolve around these concepts. Though I think real estate is a good line of business I will not get into business in that line.

9. Are you a self-starter?
I tread the middle path on this one. I would consider myself a self starter. When an idea energizes me I tend to be impatient until I try it. But I also do tend to get somewhat discouraged from the failures. This is another area that I am constantly working on, in not getting too down. But I generally have the ability to pick up from my lows pretty fast.

10. Do you have a business partner?
From the analysis above, it is critical that I have a business partner who would complement my strengths and weaknesses. I think I have a few people in mind, some of them that I have worked on a few projects with, and who are willing to join in with me in a new venture.

One test will be the new partnership that I am working on with a few others. If things go on well in that, I can draw the partners in that into the new ventures that I am passionate about. I just need to get them passionate about them as well. That is where my selling skills will be put to test.

Getting free consultancy from freelancers

2009-02-24T12:18:00.004+05:30

Recently I spent quite a bit of time with a potential client, after I was invited to an interview on oDesk, discussing his project. I discussed a lot of technicalities of the project, even before he prepared the spec, giving my input and expertise in preparing the technical specifications of the project.

This was a Windows Mobile project and involved printing from the device using a Bluetooth printer. The client, though he was a techie, did not have a clue on how to accomplish the printing task, as I had already done this before on another project.

That was one of such incidents, there were quite a few other issues. In terms of how the applications was going to communicate with the server application, how to store the settings, how to store the application data in the device, how to handle situations when the connectivity is lost, etc.

After all of that, I was informed by the client that they had decided to go for another provider who quoted a lesser rate. I had spent hours of my time and shared my expertise free of charge. I basically feel robbed.

How do you handle situations like this in free lancing bidding phase? You need to share your expertise in order to convince the client that you are the best man for the job. And then the client gathers this expertise and goes elsewhere.

I assume this scenario also applies more to the web designing jobs as well. The clients may ask us to submit a proposal, which would include a concept for their web site. And then they run with our concept. What are the safe guards, us freelancers have to protect ourselves from such scenarios? Any ideas?

Freelancing on the surge?

2009-02-20T16:39:00.003+05:30

Contrary to my earlier posting about what I have noticed on the free lance job market, oDesk blog has a post which states, with actual data from oConomy to back it up, that free lance jobs are on the rise.

Their commentary also makes the point that though companies are laying off employees the actual work that needs to get done remains more or less the same. And the smarter and leaner companies are turning towards free lancers to get these work done, rather than having full time employees to this work.

From a company stand point, this makes perfect sense as having a free lance employee costs them a lot less overall. They do not need to pay them any other benefits rather than the fees for the assignment. Also, since more and more people are joining the freelance workforce, with the rising un-employment rate, the competitiveness in the freelance market is going up, driving prices down. There simply is more supply than demand.

Another interesting factor they have noticed is that the number of home-shoring projects have gone up, meaning more US based freelancers are being hired. That is not very good news for other providers from the other part of the world, like India and Sri Lanka. According to their statistics, the number of Russian providers who were hired on oDesk have gone down, while India is still pretty much holding on to it. USA providers being hired are on the rise. So the out-sourcing market is turning out to a home-shoring market and not an off-shoring market.

The facts in this post are pretty bad for my situation, as a provider from Sri Lanka, I am one of those who are badly affected according to this data. And with the current employment situation in Sri Lanka also being on a hiring freeze, this leaves me in a rather perilous situation.

So what can I do to make my situation better? What creative ways can I use to make myself an attractive prospect to the buyers?

Should I strive to acquire the niche skills that are in demand? If I do, what are the chances of breaking into a project without any references to show for that skill being used prior?
Should I lower the rate I charge? As I have mentioned in my previous post, I have lowered my rate already? Lowering it more would require me to work night and day, just to earn enough to stay afloat.
Any other ideas?

Are freelancing projects on the decline?

2009-01-27T14:05:00.002+05:30

Has anyone noticed this or is it just me? Are freelancing projects on the decline? The decline is on two fronts. First the number of projects on offer seems to have gone down. And secondly, the project budgets have gone down. And I suspect the number of freelancers have also gone up due to recent lay-offs.

Something I have noticed for the past few months is the number of projects posted on sites like oDesk and Guru seem to be declining. Ok, I have not done a scientific observation and anyone can prove me wrong. Maybe it's this whole thing about recession that is so full in the media that is cluttering my mind. But that is what I have been feeling.

Apart from that, even on the projects that I bid on, a lot of them seem to be going to providers who are offering very low rates. Even the trend analysis shown at oDesk seems to suggest that the current going rate for freelancers in a lot fields seems to be around $10/Hour. And here I was quoting $15/Hour. No wonder I was getting rejected.

So to try to prove my theory I quoted a $10/Hour for a project and guess what? I got hired! So now I am working on my $10/hour gig, which is a decline of 50% from what I was expecting. Guess that's what happens when the supply far exceeds the demand!

Getting my ISC income back!

2008-08-18T22:44:00.003+05:30

One of the main reasons of me taking up my new role was the hope that once things settle down, I will find more freedom to engage in my ISC activities as me being my own boss would give me freedom to adjust my schedule as needed. And not having anyone to look over my shoulder and having my own private office were pluses that would allow me to freelance by managing my time. Also, it was offering me the flexibility to work from home part of the time, so that too would help me further my ISC income.

With that in mind I was searching for a log term ISC/freelancing contract that would earn me a fixed amount every month. Why I was looking for a long term contract was, I had realized that I spent quite a lot of time bidding on projects. These bidding time does not earn any income for you. So I can actually save a quite a lot of time if I had a continuous project to work on.

The other thing is, it is a bit difficult to keep persistently bidding on projects. After a while, if you don't win any projects that becomes a bit demoralizing. Finally, it is difficult to plan your ISC income when you are working on short projects. Some months will be good. Some will be dry. At this point of time, what I wanted was a regular supplementary income.

I had been in a few regular on going projects in the past but they had one major drawback. That was almost all of them required me to be online at certain specific times of the day, all working days. This was a very inconvenient thing as that tend to make my schedules inflexible. So this time around I was looking for an on going assignment which did not require putting in regular hours. Basically a project which allowed me to wok on my own schedule.

Keeping these things in mind I kept applying for jobs on oDesk. The keywords I was looking for were part-time, .NET/.NETCF, Project Management. I found a few and applied to all of them. Got interview requests for a few of them and got interviewed by about 5 clients. Carried on discussions with about 2 of them and settled with one. Of course, as it was the first time that this particular client was out sourcing work it took some time to get things sorted out and he required a lot of hand holding. I sent him sample NDA's that I had singed before and helped him draft a NDA for him to hire me. Gave him the confidence through oDesk as it was his first time on oDesk as well. All of these work on my part helped me land the job.

After landing the job I realized that much of the project management was to be done on myself as the developer in the west was working for a plan that I was not aware of. But I was also given a set of tasks and ended up being a developer myself. But since I was always happy doing coding this was not something that I mind. I am still putting in the same number of hours I promised, whether I am developing or managing this project and I am getting paid what I was promised. So all in all there is nothing much for me to complain about. I get my money as well as the freedom to work my own schedules. And most of the time I get left alone as well.

There is one thing that I realized. If I was to work as a project manager or any kind of management role, the chances are I would be required to make some regular hours for team meetings, status updates, etc. But if I steered towards a more development role, the chances of me being left alone are higher. So I am happy to be working on my developer centric role. So here I am, running my own freelance ISC operation by my side and earning an additional steady income. Well, now my target is to keep this side job going on for a while!

Settling down on the new role

2008-08-08T22:20:00.003+05:30

I blogged about a new role I had taken up to set up a software development team for a US client in Sri Lanka. This is a post to review the first month of my operation with the new team in place. For a few months it was just me ding all the work and I was mainly playing a coordinating role. I had the hardware setup in an office, but since the development was happening at yet another remote location, I was playing a more of a hands off role when it came to maintaining source codes, databases, backups, etc.

But when my team was coming on board that required me to setup the infrastructure to support a proper software development team environment. I managed to set that up with the arrival of the team members. Now the office has a proper software development environment that supports team software development. This infrastructure is currently being used by the on site and off site teams. My biggest worry was mainly in setting up this infrastructure. As I am not very good with setting up network infrastructures, I had to adopt a few trial and error methods to get the setup up and running.

Now that the infrastructure is in place, my next target is to get the team up to speed. My performance will greatly depend on the performance of the team. A leaders effectiveness is seen in his followers. A managers effectiveness is seen in his subordinates. In my case the effectiveness and the future of the whole off shore operation is in the hands of the team that I have recruited.

I think these guys have settled down in their role pretty well. They are very receptive to new ideas and the fact that they are relatively fresh, without much experience means that they can be moulded in the manner they want.

I too have seemed to settled down in my new role after these few months. I am no longer 'new' to the work that needs to be done and feel pretty comfortable with the work. My contribution is also a lot more productive. I still seem to run a lot of things by my CEO, but I think even that is gradually decreasing. I feel more and more comfortable to make decisions independently. I am also starting to think more entrepreneurial and make decision as if it is my company. This is a direct feed to my entrepreneurial streak that I have. And it is a good training for a future entrepreneur.

Getting paid (after delivering the work)

2008-07-07T16:36:00.003+05:30

Getting paid can be a little tricky when you are doing freelance work. The fact is, some clients tend to take their freelancing contractors a little bit less seriously when the time comes to make the payment. They will engage you very enthusiastically while the project is in progress and during delivery. But once everything is completed they tend to forget what you had done for them.

Sometime back a friend of mine and I did a project for a large Telco here. They wanted a helpdesk management system and when they looked around and got quotations from established companies they were quoted thumping amounts. So they came to us and we agreed to do the project for a fraction of the cost. No we were not under quoting, but with no overheads and based on their requirements, we quoted a price which was fair and square.

While the project was in progress, the key person who wanted the project, their head of IT changed jobs and moved to a different company. And his replacement had other priorities and this project was no longer a key project in their portfolio. We delivered the product and for a while they kept putting it off without even attempting to use it.

Then after sometime, the interest on the project got renewed. We were called in and were asked to take them through the system. Then they used it for a while and asked for a few changes. We quoted for the changes they requested and they agreed and we delivered the chagnes as well. Then we sent in our invoices, to get paid for the time and effort we had put in.

They were in complete silence and after numerous followups they asked asked for specs and what not, all of which we submitted. Then again total silence. Then after another lot of numerous followups they said the invoice is being processed by their finance division. They wanted another 101 clarifications as well. Again, they are now in utter silence. Our emails and calls go unanswered. And payment is nowhere in sight.

One of the conditions they laid down at the start of the project was as we were freelancers that they cannot make an advance payment to us, as we are not a registered company. We agreed as we were not interested in incorporating at that point.

But now, after delivering the initial software and after delivering their requested changes as well, we are being ignored and not being paid.

Our queries through other means tells us that they are holding to our payment because the system is not being used by their users. Now that is one thing that we cannot help them to do unless they tell us any specific areas that need to be enhanced in the system. If it is a matter of usability we can look into that and improve it. But seems the issue there is there is no proper champion to drive the adoption throughout their enterprise.

In any case, is it fair for them to not to pay us because they cannot get their users to use the system? Can they do the same if we were not freelancers? My conclusion is they are as unethical as they can be! Trying to milk the small guys!

Starting operations

2008-07-03T22:14:00.002+05:30

Since my last post in mid February about hunting for an office space, I managed to find a quiet location in the suburbs for a decent rent. It is an ideal location for an IT operation as it is in a very quiet neighbourhood, mostly residential. Still it is not far away from the main roads so travelling is pretty convenient.

After the finding the space, negotiating the lease and getting approval from company directors for the place, finally signing the lease took a quite a bit of a toll. All this time I never had to deal with such nuisances and personally I am not a very good negotiator. I hate negotiations!

Then another set of activities: Wiring the place, getting Internet and Phones, buying furniture, buying the other equipment, etc, etc. it was exhausting but interesting. It was exhausting at times as there was nobody else but me to do all the things. And the thing I hated most was having to run around to do things.

Then when my stuff arrived in Sri Lanka from the US, getting them cleared from the customs was another story all together. And talk about starting a bank account. It took nearly 2 months to get the bank account opened and get my self added in as an authorized signatory to operate the account. The fact that some of my directors are overseas is what hampered the whole process as they had to sign two resolutions, and I was told about them at two different times. So there were documents couriered up and down. Good business for courier companies!

So there I was. After two weeks of signing the lease agreement, there I was, the one and only employee of the company, working alone, using makeshift furniture, working on a borrowed laptop. Then eventually my furniture arrived, in four batches and so did my computers. A wireless router took 5 weeks to be delivered as the shipment was blocked by the Telecom Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka because they thought 802.11 n spec was a security threat to the country!

When the basic infrastructure was in place, my next task was to get the right people in. Well that was a another story. I will write a separate post on that when I get some time. But in conclusion, it has been a pretty interesting experience. Terrifying at times, tiring sometimes, but nevertheless, very interesting and a learning experience. Also, it gave me a lot of freedom to set it up the way I wanted, more or less like setting up the operations for my own business. And now, I am ready to rock!

Hunting for an office

2008-02-18T17:03:00.008+05:30

I have started the hunt for a an office space to house the new operation that I will be incharge of in a couple of months. Before I move on to take it up completely, I need to find a place and set-up the infrastructure in-place. So the top item in the agends is to find a decent office location.

When yo talking about offices in Sri Lanka, there are two paths you can take. One is the more traditional way of renting out space in a commercial building. Commercial buildings are the easiest palces to setup offices as they provide most of the amneties needed for such a place. Also, you have the option of sharing some of the costs such as security and janitorial services with the other occupants of the building. Plus, if you are lucky, you may find a place which is more or less in a ready to move in condition, provided you can source the furniture at short notice.

But commercial spaces tend to have a few nuisances as well. Parking is a problem with most commercial areas. Plus, since you are sharing the building with other establishments, given the current security situation in the country, commercial establishments are at a higher security risk. Add to that some commercial building have restrictions on the working hours, equipment, etc.

The second path which you can take is to rent a decent house and convert it to an office. This is a path a lot of small offices take as it is easier to find houses and they tend to cost a little bit lesser comparatively. Plus, by getting a house converted to an office gives you enough freedom to set it up the way you want. You can create provate spaces for the teams in your company using the rooms of the house without spending on partitioning. Also, you have the privacy and the freedom to work in an environment which can be located in a more calm and quiet environment.

The added headaches are you need to worry about security and janitorial services exclusively for the location as the chances of sharing those costs are almost non-existant. Also, you may need to do some modifications such as lighting to create an office environment, and electrical and network cabling.

Finally there are the neighbours that you have to be concerned about. Some neighbours do not like an office being setup in thier next door. They might consider it to be a invasion of thier privacy. Also, you have to be careful about your employees not disturbing the residential neighbourhood.

With all these things in mind, I am on the lookout for a office space! I prefer a commercial space as it will give us the fastest route to setup the operations with the builti-in options that are available.

Stepping out

2008-02-18T17:03:00.003+05:30

I have made a major decision towards becoming independent. It is not as profound as quitting my day job to concentrate on a Freelance career, but more like stepping out to a more entrepreneurial role in a start up operation.

Since my dream always has been to make a start-up a reality, I took the most logical step towards doing the whole exercise for someone else, by starting up an off-shore operation for a foreign company. I figured this was the best way for me to get the exposure that I need to get my fingers burned without actually getiing them burned.

In a couple of months, I will be stepping out of my comfortable day job to set up an off-shore development office. I will be responsible for setting up an office, procuring hardware, recruiting a team and managing operations. Personally, it is an upgrade for me because I am currently used to operating in an environment where there is a lot of support services in place. Most of my job functions were limited to managing only the project team. There was a Finance division to take care of the financial matters, there was human resources to take care of human resources matters, there was admin to take care of the administrations matters and if I really could not handle the projects or the clients or the team, there was my higher management who were there to step in.

But in this start up operation, there is no body that I can run to or to hand over my responsibilities to. I am going ot be solely responsible for the success or the failure of the local operation as I am completely incharge of it.

It also gives me the freedon to set up an opertion the way I always dreamed of. When you work in a established company you have these ideas of how you would do things differently, only if you were in charge. Well now I AM going to be in-charge. So it is up to me to design the processes and systems to make them work the way I want. And these days I am giving those things a lot of thought as much as to the process of setting up a physical office.

I also plan to record on this blog, the process of setting up this operation for the benefit of all of us.

There goes my freelancing dream

2008-01-26T21:01:00.000+05:30

Well, my dream of going into full time freelancing goes for a bit of a six, at least for a little while more.

I took a 15 year mortgage. This requires me to make a hefty payment every month. I do not want to take a risk of a fluctuating income putting my repayment capacity in jeopardy! I signed a piece of paper giving the bank to right to auction my property if I miss my payments. So there's no way that i can take that kind of a risk right now, considering the fact that I have only paid one installment out of 180!

And also, it was a prerequisite for me to have a permanent, full time job in order to get the loan. And they even made sure that my company transferred my salary to their bank, through the SWIFT banking system before they approved the loan! So one month down the line, if they suddenly realize that there is no fixed amount coming into the bank and that is also not coming through a SWIFT transfer, I might be in their radar! It's a bit too soon to get into that.

Then there is a current market slow down in the US. Well, actually there has been a bit of a slowdown on oDesk also lately. oDesk may refute this, but something I noticed was now, oDesk budgets for projects are on the decline. There are a lot of jobs that are getting posted putting low hourly fees as prerequisites. I always considered oDesk to be more of a high value market than RentACoder. It was RAC which used to have postings asking for a clone of eBay for $500. Now oDesk seems to be getting there as well.

Just the other day, there was a posting asking for the best PHP programmer in the world. But there was a condition saying the rate has to be less than $ 10. Also there was a post for a maverick project manager for less than $5/hour! How funny can that be! Anyway, more on that on a separate post.

Getting back to the subject of this post, so my dream of going freelance seems to be getting pushed back a bit. In the meantime, I am looking into the possibility of getting more high worth projects to help me pay off my loan ASAP.

Benefits of the Home-Office

2007-11-12T17:47:00.000+05:30

The Benefits of the Home-Office is a thought provoking article about the impact of freelancing phenomena on the general society. I have never given a thought on how freelancing would have an impact on the general society on a more general per-se.

For me, the main concern has been around acceptance of freelancers on the society. Because I know first hand in Sri Lanka freelancing is loosely interpreted as unemployed. There could be a few high flying consultants having successful freelancing careers but for the majority it is interpreted in a completely different way. I mean, you cannot get a mortgage on house if you are a freelancer.

On that note, I look forward to the day the freelancing phenomena changes the general rules by which the society operates and in the process gains legitimacy on the societal pillars! As for my freelancing career, well it will be on hold for a while as I am going for a mortgage and they require me to have a salary coming in from a permanent employment for the next 15 years!

Damn!

Focusing on family - striking a balance

2007-10-16T18:58:00.000+05:30

I have been focusing on improving my life with a huge emphasis on personal development. I was focusing on improving my productivity, with the intention of improving my output at work. I was learning the art of managing teams and clients. All that is good, but I think I have missed out on the target.

When you really think about it, you do all of that, because you want to give the best for your family. So we work harder and longer, in order to provide for them. But is it what they expect from us?

In this process I have deprived my wife and my kid, what they treasure the most. My time with them. In the quest to do better professionally and financially, I have significantly reduced the time that I spend with them. Is this really what I want? Do I want to achieve all that I want to achieve and stand there at the top all by myself? No WAY!

So I made some changes in my life. After discussions with my wife, I set aside set working hours for my ISC work and for time with the family. And whether I meet my financial targets for a month or not, I am not going to allow my ISC working time eat into my family time! I had practiced this for about 1 and 1/2 weeks before I had to travel out of the country for an assignment. But it worked out pretty well. Somehow I started to feel fuller and more complete. A different satisfaction was creeping into my mind.

Now that i am away from home for a week, I am spending almost all my free time doing some ISC work, as my family is not with me on this trip. So this week I am hoping to get most of my ISC work done, so when I get back home, I can spend a little bit more time with my family playing catch-up!

I think it is essential for any freelancer to concentrate on striking some balance between their family and their work. It is perfectly all right to spend your days and your nights when you are single and not in a relationship. But if you are married and have a family, it is essential that you put aside dedicated time for them, so they are not left out on your quest for success!

My next target is to master some time management technique to help me improve my productivity. Right now I am a bit torn between GTD and First Things First by Covey, as they come from two different perspectives. More on that later!

Too much to do...

2007-10-04T22:50:00.000+05:30

I got too much of work on my hands. I have three projects going on in parallel right now. I guess this is a freelancers dream, having more work than you can handle. The trick is to keep it at a pleasant dream, without allowing it to become a nightmare!

So far I have managed to satisfy two of my clients. So I can buy a little time from them. They will allow me to delay their work a bit. But I have one client who I am about to drive off the cliff! Now he has been waiting for me for a week and I don't think I can keep him hanging any longer. So I am doing my best to give him some deliverable to keep him with me...

The process is draining me. I have to manage my freelance work in parallel to my day job. There's a lot going on in my day job as well. That leaves me a very little time to attend to my freelance clients. The stuff at work is also mentally draining me by the end of the work day so it is really tiring to attend to my freelance work during the evening.

Under the current situation, I cannot give up my day job as well as I need the security it offers. i am planning to go for a mortgage and for that I need the security of a permanent job. The bank wont even consider lending me money if I was a full time freelancer. And I am preparing for a hefty monthly payment on the mortgage and hence I need the freelance for the additional income it brings in.

So I got it all going right for me now. I got the security of a permanent job and the additional income from freelance gigs. So I get to take the mortgage and at the same time maybe not get buried by the monthly installment thanks to my freelance income. Only if there were more hours in a day so I can do all of this!