Working for yourself - still feasible?

[andy91]

After graduating in June with a degree in internet software development and thus far not quite got the job I had been hoping for Iv started wandering if I should actually try to work for myself and start a business.

I Have a total grasp of XHTML/ CSS, JavaScript and I'm a fairly competent PHP programmer and database developer as you would expect from somebody with an Honours degree. I am however not that great a designer, competent but not great. Ideally in the long run Id hope to work with partner to take of design.

I was thinking of starting off simple with perhaps a PSD to XHTML service and then expanding into PSD to Joomla templates, and then full Joomla site set-up and customisation as I am pretty much an expert in Joomla. Then if all is going well move into full bespoke dynamic site development.

Is this still feasible in UK as I know the internet is saturated with people in third world country's doing similar things for what seems like peanuts.

Also how do you work out how much to charge for your services to be competitive?

All advice welcome...

 

[sparkey196]

Certainly it is possible but if you want to earn top dollar freelancing, you need to have a lot of top notch digital agency work behind you. Shoot for least 2 -3 years with good agencies before trying to freelance.

 

[andy91]

I'm not after top dollar mate just a semi-decent living

 

[AJK]

Going straight from inexperienced graduate -> semi-decent living as a freelancer in a busy market will be hard. You seem to have the right idea in starting off small and developing a full service as you go. Starting with local clients can help too, building up contacts and business from word of mouth at first and taking opportunities as you go. CMS skills (eg. Joomla) are certainly useful at the moment!

How much practical experience and what kind of portfolio do you have, aside from your degree? From my experience a degree isn't worth much in the agency/freelance market.

 

[andy91]

I have a fair bit of practical experience Although not much of a portfolio at the moment as Iv always seen that as designer's thing and Iv always went the developer route. Most of the sites Iv done for people in the past are no longer on-line. I'm not even sure what you mean by digital agency.

Yeh I basically plan to build up a portfolio as I go by starting small and working cheaply.

I'm really looking for advice on how to go about it and how determine what sort price to offer ect.

 

[GravyMonster]

Don't forget that when you go freelance being able to do the work suddenly becomes half the job. You have to manage clients expectations, deal with support, manage your own accounts and all the other stuff that you just don't think about until you've jumped in.

In all seriousness I would get a job at an agency first. You'll learn the ropes. You'll learn how to deal with clients, how to steer them and advise them to do what you know is best, even though they're adamant they want all their headers in 24pt red comic sans.

You'll get time to learn everything you need to to a high standard - not just a competent one. Then you'll start to make a few contacts with your clients and colleagues and you can build a reputation and portfolio.

Finally, I would say building templates from PSDs would be a good side business, not a main one. Bearing in mind I can get a 4 page PSD sliced and integrated with all the jQuery fluff I need in around 2 days for about £100 by my dear friends in Mumbai, it would be a very very modest living.

 

[MikeHiow]

If you don't have a job, there is nothing to stop you from freelancing until you find one, as you have nothing to lose.

It isn't something I'd set out to do, though. It is very hard to become established and get the work flowing.

 

[Russinating]

It's certainly possible, but hard. The quick thing you'll realise about working for yourself is no matter what the work is, 90% of the job involved is sales. And if you're not good at sales or don't enjoy it then it'll make things much harder.

 

[tsinc80697]

I setup a PSD to HTML online service after I graduated and it helped me get a job at an agency. Definitely worth doing, check out the other PSD to HTML services online and see what you'll be up against.

A lot of similar services undercharge, in my opinion, and even with higher rates I managed to get clients through online advertising and via social media. If you are willing to put the time in, it works

 

[andy91]

yeh I'm gonna give it a go. I'm only really doing it because I'm finding it hard to get a Job. The employers are soo picky up here in Scotland and its not really a new media hot spot lol

 

[Moley]

Get some customers, do some work for them, get paid for said work.

THEN decide if you can work for yourself.

 

[Redgie]

I am pretty amateur with HTML / PHP but I have made a simple cpanel system that uses databases to record sales. It's online based and could be knocked up in a few hours. I spent a day or two making it and my boss then sold it on to a company for £700, they agreed to buy it and have been messing around since.

The point being that it is definitely feasible if you put the effort into finding clients, because the big money is in the original sale, not the continued support / hosting (IMO). But at the same time, the risk you face is the same as with every business, so it depends on your current financial situation.

It's definitely something I want to do when I have the time, need to finish uni first tho!

 

[UncleBensSauce]

If I were you I'd go for it. But always try and remember how you can add value and make your services more appealing to others (don't just make something because its "cool").

Get yourself onto salesforce.com and build some example apps, build a rich Adobe Air/Silverlight/flash client for your app, get yourself onto Microsoft BizSpark too (and play with azure). Get yourself on LinkedIn - some good stuff on there.

 

[jonneymendoza]

After graduating in June with a degree in internet software development and thus far not quite got the job I had been hoping for Iv started wandering if I should actually try to work for myself and start a business.

I Have a total grasp of XHTML/ CSS, JavaScript and I'm a fairly competent PHP programmer and database developer as you would expect from somebody with an Honours degree. I am however not that great a designer, competent but not great. Ideally in the long run Id hope to work with partner to take of design.

I was thinking of starting off simple with perhaps a PSD to XHTML service and then expanding into PSD to Joomla templates, and then full Joomla site set-up and customisation as I am pretty much an expert in Joomla. Then if all is going well move into full bespoke dynamic site development.

Is this still feasible in UK as I know the internet is saturated with people in third world country's doing similar things for what seems like peanuts.

Also how do you work out how much to charge for your services to be competitive?

All advice welcome...

sorry not to be a kill joy but i seriously doubt you have a "total" grasp on php, XHTML etc from a degree.

impossible unless you worked part time as a developer outside university.

a degree only teaches you the VERRRRY basics of subject. not enough for the real world mate. trust me know. been there done that. a degree aint worth much. developing in the real world is A LOT more demanding and challenging then in uni. stuff that it took you a month to learn prepping you for a practical project in uni, you would need to learn and prep yourself in the real world in a day or two. not a month.

I am currently a mobile app developer and last year i had to create a web app. i basically had only 2 weeks to achieve it dispite not having a single clue about web apps(web services backend stuff) but i managed to do it as i have learned how to pickup things and learn quicker then when i was in uni.

infact. i just landed a new job doing web service stuff in j2ee of course where there are lots of big money to be made compared to php/html but thats a different story

Point is, it is a lot different in the real world then at uni.

 

[andy91]

I agree with you that a degree alone probably aint enough but thats not me your making assumptions.
Iv been playing with web development for years mate, before I ever went to Uni. I basically knew XHTML/CSS and basic programming before I set foot in the class room. And to clear it up I am working right now as a web developer but its not a great job and low wages for the type of job.

 

[UncleBensSauce]

I have to agree with the comments about uni only covering the essentials - far to many graduates rock up at our place and get the shock of their lives.

 

[Sagalout]

There is plenty of scope to work for yourself, but I'd doubt if a PDF to HTML service is going be worthwhile. You might scratch a living out of it but I can't see much job satisfaction in it.

Freelancing is mostly about contacts - and you want contacts that have decent budgets. You'll want at least £20/hr so you need contacts at agencies that are charging enough to mark that up....ie not the typical 'site for £500' crap that you tend to get at local level.

The industry is very incestuous - if you have worked and done a good job at 2 or 3 good agencies you will make those contacts as within 3 years the people you met will be dispersed around a lot more agencies and you'll be in demand.

You'll also need to be good with people as you'll be communicating directly with clients, account managers, other staff etc - it's amazing how many people font have the social skills for this.

One more thing about freelancing - you never really build up a business because you're dealing with other peoples clients, and they can switch freelancers at any time. You're much better off making an alliance with a good designer and working directly for clients. You'll earn more (at least £50/hr) and be building your own client base. When we started up we had a mix of direct client work and supplemented it with white label work for big agencies, but now we have enough clients of our own we don't really do any white label work now

 

[UK-AL05]

Decent computer science degrees teach things like turing machines, lambda calculus, lexing, parsers and code generation the point being if you are capable of learning that stuff, learning php/java/python/c#, relational databases, html and jQuery and javascript should be a pinch. They don't teach the trade you want to go in.

To be honest web development such as php/mysql/html/css tends to over saturated with workers and thus drives salaries right down. I think the best paid work is in 'enterprise' work which includes web services/soa basically JEE, and it's not that hard once you study up on EJBs, JPA, JPO and all the other standards that go with it. The salaries for this can be over 80k if you specialize in certain stacks like oracle.

 

[jonneymendoza]

Decent computer science degrees teach things like turing machines, lambda calculus, lexing, parsers and code generation the point being if you are capable of learning that stuff, learning php/java/python/c#, relational databases, html and jQuery and javascript should be a pinch. They don't teach the trade you want to go in.

To be honest web development such as php/mysql/html/css tends to over saturated with workers and thus drives salaries right down. I think the best paid work is in 'enterprise' work which includes web services/soa basically JEE, and it's not that hard once you study up on EJBs, JPA, JPO and all the other standards that go with it. The salaries for this can be over 80k if you specialize in certain stacks like oracle.

yes my new job will be j2ee and im happy. was doing mobile apps and games for 3-4 years. i have no j2ee experience so went for a junior role that is actually paying MORE then what i am earning now lol

 

[namnoc]

Andy, I may be able to help if you want to email me offline.

Cheers,