I work with established businesses to solve their problems through custom software. Typically this is building a customized CRM to store and act on your specialized data once you’ve outgrown spreadsheets and off-the-shelf CRM products.
I can take you from initial problem realization all the way to a minimum viable solution, with maintenance and further enhancement available once the solution is in use. I have over 7 years of professional experience handling everything from small one-trick-pony billing apps to CRMs that manage an entire company from the ground up.
I don't just build something and then disappear, I want to be a long-term partner that grows your business.
What I’m Looking For
Long-term, slow-burn projects. Approximately 10 hours/week. I don't move fast and break things, I help improve your business carefully and methodically.
What I’m Not Looking For
* Full-time "whale" clients that need undivided attention to their project.
I work with established businesses to solve their problems through custom software. Typically this is building a customized CRM to store and act on your specialized data once you’ve outgrown spreadsheets and off-the-shelf CRM products.
I can take you from initial problem realization all the way to a minimum viable solution, with maintenance and further enhancement available once the solution is in use. I have over 7 years of professional experience handling everything from small one-trick-pony billing apps to CRMs that manage an entire company from the ground up.
I don't just build something and then disappear, I want to be a long-term partner that grows your business.
What I’m Looking For
Long-term, slow-burn projects. Approximately 10 hours/week. I don't move fast and break things, I help improve your business carefully and methodically.
What I’m Not Looking For
* Full-time "whale" clients that need undivided attention to their project.
I work with established businesses to solve their problems through custom software. Typically this is building a customized CRM to store and act on your specialized data once you’ve outgrown spreadsheets and off-the-shelf CRM products.
I can take you from initial problem realization all the way to a minimum viable solution, with maintenance and further enhancement available once the solution is in use. I have over 7 years of professional experience handling everything from small one-trick-pony billing apps to CRMs that manage an entire company from the ground up.
I don't just build something and then disappear, I want to be a long-term partner that grows your business.
What I’m Looking For
Long-term, slow-burn projects. Approximately 10 hours/week. I don't move fast and break things, I help improve your business carefully and methodically.
What I’m Not Looking For
* Full-time "whale" clients that need undivided attention to their project.
Regardless of what you paid for a piece of software, if it is critical to your business operations you should be paying someone to maintain it for you.
If you were a small lawn mowing company and happened to receive a free mower for your operations, you wouldn't just run it into the ground without regularly paying someone to keep it in good repair (though this analogy does raise some interesting thoughts about companies in general and their maintenance policies).
In exactly the same way, you shouldn't be using software of any kind, paid or not, without having some plan for maintenance and repair.
If free software can cover the same business needs as paid software, there's no reason to not use it. But you absolutely cannot sacrifice maintenance just because you did or didn't pay money for the software itself.
1) I'd argue that what they're paying for is less your time and more your knowledge and ability to provide them with answers. They're only going to complain if you're specifically charging them for an hour of your time on the invoice. If you instead are charging a fixed-fee amount for an expert consultation, it doesn't really matter how much time they take. You set a timebox so they don't take advantage of you, but if they don't need more than 10-15 minutes of your time to get the value they wanted out of the discussion, there's nothing wrong with that.
2) It sounds like you could benefit from showing initial value in some other way, such as a newsletter, case studies, or knowledge-base.
3) From a client perspective, it feels odd that I'd walk into a free initial-consult meeting and then get an invoice afterwards, even if I got value out of it. I think most clients would feel the same way. If they're paying for a consult, they'll want to know up-front. The other way feels like a bait and switch.
That said, you know your clients best. If you think that they'll be receptive to that sort of thing, give it a try.
I work with established businesses to solve their problems through custom software. Typically this is building a customized CRM to store and act on your specialized data once you’ve outgrown spreadsheets and off-the-shelf CRM products.
I can take you from initial problem realization all the way to a minimum viable solution, with maintenance and further enhancement available once the solution is in use. I have over 7 years of professional experience handling everything from small one-trick-pony billing apps to CRMs that manage an entire company from the ground up.
I don't just build something and then disappear, I want to be a long-term partner that grows your business.
What I’m Looking For
Long-term, slow-burn projects. Approximately 10 hours/week. I don't move fast and break things, I help improve your business carefully and methodically.
What I’m Not Looking For
* Full-time "whale" clients that need undivided attention to their project.
As a consultant (as opposed to a pair-of-hands freelancer) you want to be providing solutions to businesses that solve their problems, at a higher level than "work on this software solution the client designed and just needs me to implement".
From that perspective, I'd argue that adding more technical skills on top of your existing ones will have diminishing returns past a reasonable level of competency.
Instead, focus on being able to provide business value. Learn how to take general problems a business has and find solutions for them. Not just code solutions, but new processes and procedures.
If you can solve an expensive problem for a business, you can command a far higher price than if you're just a pair of hands writing code. Those are a dime a dozen on Upwork, and clients have trouble seeing any difference in skillset.
From a technical skills perspective, machine learning and "big data" processing are in-demand skills with large enterprises, where you can make the most money solving problems.
I'd be glad to continue this discussion if you have questions about my answers. My email is in my profile.
I'm a developer by trade, but the nickel and diming of time tracking is something I'm well familiar with. A few thoughts:
1) If you can, give a fixed-fee model a chance. Since your deliverables currently are, "We meet on Skype for a discussion about your needs and possible solutions," you could very easily charge a set rate for each meeting and just make sure you set a hard timebox on it. Set a pair of timers, one at 15 minutes to remind you and them that there's only 15 minutes left on this consult, and one when the time slot is over. Stick to your guns as if you have another appointment afterwards (and you should have one in that slot; that appointment is for compiling your deliverables for sending off).
2) Getting paid is a pain everyone experiences, freelancer and traditional business alike. A good way to deal with that is to require payment up-front. A fixed-fee model is perfect for this, but you can do it with hourly billing models as well. If your consults are always at least half an hour long, require a minimum up-front payment for that half-hour. Or have it be for a full hour, just to cover yourself. This also gets rid of the tire-kickers who just want your knowledge without actually wanting to pay you. Forcing them to put money on the table up-front, even if it's not the full amount, leaves you with the serious clients only.
3) For invoicing and time tracking, I recommend Harpoon (https://harpoonapp.com/). For your purposes, you'd use the time tracking functionality during your consultations, and then create an invoice for that time and send it off. Click start on the timer at the beginning of the call, click stop when you've ended the call, create invoice, add time entry, send to client (via email through Harpoon). You can even integrate it with Stripe for online payment collection, which reduces their barriers to paying you. It also has automatic reminders sent to the clients for unpaid invoices.
I'd be happy to discuss more on your specific needs. My email is in my profile.
I work with established businesses to solve their problems through custom software. Typically this is building a customized CRM to store and act on your specialized data once you’ve outgrown spreadsheets and off-the-shelf CRM products.
I can take you from initial problem realization all the way to a minimum viable solution, with maintenance and further enhancement available once the solution is in use. I have over 7 years of professional experience handling everything from small one-trick-pony billing apps to CRMs that manage an entire company from the ground up.
I don't just build something and then disappear, I want to be a long-term partner that grows your business.
What I’m Looking For
Long-term, slow-burn projects. Approximately 10 hours/week. I don't move fast and break things, I help improve your business carefully and methodically.
What I’m Not Looking For
* Full-time "whale" clients that need undivided attention to their project.
The tracking and forecasting it provides are absolutely excellent. It absolutely lets you specify income, expenses, budgeting, existing and proposed projects, and since it lets you add estimated income for the future, you can get an excellent view of what your actual needs are in terms of future work and income.
For example, with my most up-to-date data I know that I'm booked solid with good income for the next two months, but for the rest of the year I need at least 1 project a month to meet my financial goals. I'm abstracting a bit, but it actually gives you hard numbers for where you're at and what you need in the future.
Feel free to toss me an email if you'd like to discuss this further. My email is in my profile.
I work with established businesses to solve their problems through custom software. Typically this is building a customized CRM to store and act on your specialized data once you’ve outgrown spreadsheets and off-the-shelf CRM products.
I can take you from initial problem realization all the way to a minimum viable solution, with maintenance and further enhancement available once the solution is in use. I have over 7 years of professional experience handling everything from small one-trick-pony billing apps to CRMs that manage an entire company from the ground up.
I don't just build something and then disappear, I want to be a long-term partner that grows your business.
What I’m Looking For
Part-time, slow-burn projects. I’m aiming for no more than 10 hours/week on any particular project (though that’s flexible if the price is right). I prefer fixed-fee engagements, but depending on the project a monthly retainer would also be acceptable.
What I’m Not Looking For
* Full-time "whale" clients that need undivided attention to their project.
I work with established businesses to solve their problems through custom software. Typically this is building a customized CRM to store and act on your specialized data once you’ve outgrown spreadsheets and off-the-shelf CRM products.
I can take you from initial problem realization all the way to a minimum viable solution, with maintenance and further enhancement available once the solution is in use. I have over 7 years of professional experience handling everything from small one-trick-pony billing apps to CRMs that manage an entire company from the ground up.
I don't just build something and then disappear, I want to be a long-term partner that grows your business.
What I’m Looking For
Part-time, slow-burn projects. I’m aiming for no more than 10 hours/week on any particular project (though that’s flexible if the price is right). I prefer fixed-fee engagements, but depending on the project a monthly retainer would also be acceptable.
What I’m Not Looking For
* Full-time "whale" clients that need undivided attention to their project.
Much like @muzani below, I've tried to apply checklists at much as possible after reading The Checklist Manifesto. It's a solid book with actionable advice and examples.
For business, I have multiple SOPs, which are all effectively checklists:
* My daily marketing routine, with what to do and links directly to where I need to go.
* Monthly invoicing procedures.
* How to perform my roadmapping service (send this, update that, schedule this, etc.)
* Every README I write for dev projects will include a checklist of deployment procedures and how to update critical things.
I'll also occasionally write down a physical "ToDo" list, which ends up being a checklist that I just go down. This is more for reducing executive function in the mornings, and making sure I don't forget anything.
For my personal life, I don't operate off of a specific checklist day to day. Instead, I have an alarm app with absolutely everything I need to do each day, and when it needs to be done. I also rely on my Google Calendar for reminders.
Ultimately, knowing what to do is important, but knowing when to do it is also important.
One of my friends came up with an excellent tactile checklist for his mornings. He had the entries all on a clipboard, and he used binder clips next to each of them. When he completed something, he would flip the binder clip over. Keep the board next to your bed at night, go down the list in the morning.
Something important that might be in play is the company insurance policies. If the insurance company comes back and says, "No, we won't cover any activities that this felon does, you're taking on that risk yourself", the employer isn't going to hire you.
Typically this comes up where you're hiring someone for a similar (or the same) sort of work that they got in trouble for.
The same thing will happen if you lie on your employment application; the instant that the employer finds out you lied, they have to fire you or their insurance will stop covering anything you do.
It's possible that insurance is at play, or that their HR department is being overzealous about avoiding risk to the company via that method.
What I Do
I work with established businesses to solve their problems through custom software. Typically this is building a customized CRM to store and act on your specialized data once you’ve outgrown spreadsheets and off-the-shelf CRM products.
I can take you from initial problem realization all the way to a minimum viable solution, with maintenance and further enhancement available once the solution is in use. I have over 7 years of professional experience handling everything from small one-trick-pony billing apps to CRMs that manage an entire company from the ground up.
I don't just build something and then disappear, I want to be a long-term partner that grows your business.
What I’m Looking For
Long-term, slow-burn projects. Approximately 10 hours/week. I don't move fast and break things, I help improve your business carefully and methodically.
What I’m Not Looking For
* Full-time "whale" clients that need undivided attention to their project.
* Equity
* Brand-new businesses
More Information
Website: http://inceptivecss.com
Portfolio: http://inceptivecss.com/portfolio
Email: [email protected]