Felipe Gaucho's Blog

How modern is your job?

I'm just moving from my current job to a new challenge: open my own company, as a IT consultant based on my home-office. After drinking coffee for fifteen years on traditional enterprises, I decided to drive my own destination - changing my career in a business perspective. No more hush hour, no more useless meetings and getting dress every morning just to obey an employee traditional behaviour and... no more safety money at the end of every month :).

Talking to friends, I heard several different opinions about my freedom act, including applauses and some laughs. Much of them are afraid about a possible poverty in my life next few months and other ones claims the freedom spirit as the only way to survive in the software industry. After some discussion, I enumerated the most common questions we use to detect our happiness: How long was your last vacation? Are you earning enough money? How much time do you dedicate for you and for your family per week? How many cups of coffee do you drink a day? How funny is your day-by-day? How many useless documents have you been produced? how many hours do you spend on traffic ? and the most funny question: How many days would you continue to work (in the same way you do today) if you won a lottery?

My dream for 2006 is to follow my own schedule, including time for surfing on the beach near my house, time to appreciate my family, time for play with my son and my dog, time for learning, time for teaching and time for fun - every day should be a good day. My expectation is to get a production rate based on the happiness and comfort - a high level production based on time to figure out the best way to do the things.

I have worked for fifteen years to acquire the privilege of choice and now I´m ready to put all that old ideas on practice. If you are not ready to leave your current job and work for yourself, don´t worry - your time will come some day. If you already are a self-made man, perhaps you can bring me some tips about how to be productive at home.

Comments

• Great news! I promise I will do that someday, too...

  Fabiano Franz
  http://www.fabianofranz.com

  Posted by: fabianofranz on December 16, 2005 at 07:56 AM

• I have worked at home since 2004. It's good! Think in three points when you to open your own business at home: noise, focus and time to finish.

  Think in private providence too.

  Posted by: hbeto on December 17, 2005 at 07:15 AM

• Congratulations and good luck!!

  Posted by: raphaelpaiva on December 17, 2005 at 07:18 AM

• Hoping to do the same...good luck

  Posted by: subash_anjuru on December 17, 2005 at 09:35 AM

• I've done this and have the following advice for you you may / may not hear. These are the hard facts:

  1) There is a lot of money to be made, but not at first. Use software that has some idea of a job profitability calculation (Quickbooks, ect.). It's a lifesaver. Don't do jobs that will lose you money, even if just to "get your name out there". You'll be tempted at first to reach for the low hanging fruit. Low hanging fruit is often rotten. Give yourself an hourly rate, mark it up, and don't EVER discount below your hourly rate ever. You'll be popular, but poor.

  2) You have to be able to talk business. Most technology folks don't know how to package a custom JBoss portal with custom portlets as "a business integration solution to show you real-time purchase data". You have to frame the technology as a solution for business, not as a technology in abstract.

  3) EVERY CONTRACT MUST HAVE A DISPUTE RESOLUTION CLAUSE THAT FORCES ARBITRATION. This will be the best defense you have against lawsuits from unhappy clients. You will have unhappy clients. Ask any service business from your roofing contractor to IKEA employee. You will be yelled at, threatened in vague terms and bulied by some clients even if you do your absolute best and deliver a product or solution.

  A dispute resolution clause will help stop a client from resorting to litigation, which is way too cheap for them to start and way too hard to combat without money. Arbitration is a way to force the client to understand they will have to convince someone hand picked by both you and the client, who knows that 90% of all IT projects fail, and has some technical and business sense. You get no such warranties from a judge.

  4) Always have an total price package quoted for a project, will a fall-over in to a higher tier for feature creap. Businesses want to see total cost for a project so they can calculate ROI. If they don't... get worried. They don't know what they are doing and will take it out on you. The way to do this is estimate hours to work times your hourly rate. Let's say 60 hours x $80 USD. If after 60 hours they continue to want your effort, state it will be a default $120 an hour. This will allow them to think they are getting you as part of a deal at first, that you are actually worth more, and that there is incentive to get the specs nailed down the first time.

  5) Always have an acceptance of work clause, which stipulates how long after a project is completed before it is "Accepted" by the client, list how many times through the rework process they are allowed to travel (typically 3) and then, if the product is still not "accepted" by the client, you both have the option of invoking the Dispute Resolution Clause. This protects you from open-ended projects, helps give the business re-assurance of acceptance criteria, and gives everyone an end game.

  6) Always have a lawyer look over your contract template, it'll be maybe $200+ for a quick look over, but it will be worth it if only to customize the contract to protections your particular state offers that might benefit you.

  There you go, I've given you the crown jewels of successful consulting. Have a good time and feel free to ask questions of me or other people with experience. I've learned some things the easy way, a lot of things the hard way.

  Posted by: bbjwerner on December 17, 2005 at 03:21 PM

• Oh, some tips about working from home:

  1) Have a seperate computer for work. Most people have a seperate work "area" like the online articles say but have a work computer that also doubles as their personal computer as well. Don't fall in to that trap. As soon as you sit down on Saturday night in front of a laptop with a "projects" folder in it you're gonna launch your IDE.. have another computer that is just for personal use. The way I've gotten through this is by having a Solaris X86 computer for work... it is a great OS, great workstation for code and has acceptable groupware capabilities, but I'd be damed if you can do anything else productive on the OS. You won't get distracted and you certainly won't be running to your workstation to play your iTunes music or playing your favorite shooting game :-)

  2) If you have an understanding wife/husband/whatever that understands you are working even though you are in your underwear slurping coffee then you probably won't have problems with the "since you're home, can you start the laundry today before I get home?". If they do, be flexable. Changing laundry isn't your mate's attempt to dump on your career choice, and you shouldn't treat it as such. If it gets out of hand, explain the situation and try to change expectations.

  3) The same might hold true for you being in your underwear slurping coffee as well, however. Most people still get dressed business casual and groom each day before going to their home office. You are a psychological person as well, as your mind will feel more empowered and in control if you do this. If you can feel empowered and ready to go in your bathrobe, you're a unique person indeed.

  Again, if you have any questions, I'm at http://www.brandonwerner.com. Have fun!

  Posted by: bbjwerner on December 17, 2005 at 03:38 PM

• Dear bbjwerner,

  I will evaluate all tips ... The contract template is my first goal in the next few weeks, and I´m really thinking about paying a lawyer to review that.

  thank you very much for your advices.. hope to hear from you other times.
  

  Posted by: felipegaucho on December 18, 2005 at 05:22 AM

• Good luck on your venture. Despite the potential benefits the risk is just too great for me.
  I've thought about it and decided I'd rather exchange a bit of income and spare time for the increased job security and (almost) guaranteed paycheck of an at least predictable level at the end of the month.
  Working from home is an option here but I chose not to take it.
  As bbjwerner hinted at, I know I'm a closet workaholic. I leave the office at the same time every day for a reason. While some may think I'm abandoning work half done it's actually self preservation. If I didn't leave work behind I know I'd be in there every day until security kicks me out in the evening. Working at home that's not an option, and I doubt that for me even a separate computer for work would work, after all it would still be there staring at me...

  I don't drink coffee, can't stand even the smell of the stuff ;) Vacation? You've time to take a vacation now, when you're self employed you don't as you're out of an income when not working and when not working you're desperately hunting for new jobs. (I've been unemployed, it was no vacation).
  

  Posted by: jwenting on December 19, 2005 at 01:40 AM

• Felipe is on the right track.

  No balls, no glory :)

  Posted by: jhogan on December 19, 2005 at 07:33 AM

• When the ultimate goal is happiness... glory doesn't matter. Some people find happiness in fame and glory while some might find it in the little niceties of life. I do agree with jwenting, unemployment is no vacation. Personally I think working at home is great as long as you can draw the line between working hours and off hours. Being your own boss is something special... but there is a price for everything and as the Spidy saying goes.. with great power comes great responsibility. I hope I will be ready to take up the responsibility some time soon. Congratulations and good luck Felipe. People like you are my inspiration. Keep us posted about your business.

  Posted by: sreek on December 19, 2005 at 10:52 AM

• I choose freedom 1 year ago. It was forced upon me by a company shake-up. New bosses don't remember how hard you worked at the company before them and don't care.
  I tried to do some contract work, but I don't like it much. They always have bad ideas and want you to code them. For little money!
  I like OpenSource projects better. The business model is hard, but at least my own ideas are getting into the code and I love that!
  Warning: Money can be very hard to find sometimes! But you will love the freedom!
  

  Posted by: jonallen on December 19, 2005 at 03:14 PM

• Here are a bunch of very useful articles about working for yourself : http://www.dexterity.com/articles/

  Posted by: nevster on December 22, 2005 at 06:43 PM

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