Anyone doing (remote) freelance work?

[noob_saibot]

Hello guys,

Just thought I'd ask this one to everyone here.

Do any of you do freelance work for people all over the world? (Where you may be using sites like oDesk, etc or have even built up a client-list on your own site of sorts)

What has your success(es) been so far?

Have you experienced issues with exchange control and high transaction costs?

Anything valuable worth sharing on freelance-related stuff will be welcome.

 

[HavocXphere]

My sister did. Essentially it comes down to 3 things:
1) Expect to do mindnumbing work to build a reputation
2) You need to be better than the rest in some fashion. i.e. Hard work doesn't cut it. "I can write English technical user guides" gets you peanuts while "I can translate technical language across languages" gets you paid. Even then rule 1 still applies
3) Check your spam folder - sister lost a good contract because

The people earning big bucks are at a point where they have enough rep to skip the entire platform thing. i.e. They get mission impossible style mails from a corporation. "You're mission, should you chose to accept it, is to..."

Unless you've got a specific ace up your sleeve that lets you corner a market (See tech + language skills) you're going to have a rough time. Even my sister had a rough time and well she is good at pretty much everything (I on the other hand seem to have missed the "everything" gene ).

Sounds tricky & it is, but it does have its appeals. e.g. I've got a relative that sits on a farm in Namibia and does engineering work. Nobody gives a fk where he sits as long as it gets done fast & well.

 

[semaphore]

Wrote a micro accounting package for a company in Spain, was the most painful experience ever.

 

[envo]

You'll find you'd have to whore yourself out a little in the beginning, but once you have an established base of clients (they usually contract you instead, and I've heard some say they're tired of dealing with the guys in India/Philippines), work should keep coming in steadily without having to really apply for any more positions.

As for exchange control, it's not really an issue. Working through PayPal, you get cash money in your bank account within 5 days or so. You're responsible for your own tax on that etc and the only issues you'll run into is if you make more than R500k a year doing this, otherwise, declare as gift and get paid for working from home.

Also be prepared to work weekends and/or weird hours because of the time difference. The only days I really had to myself was Saturdays

 

[Ro87]

How do you guys charge for working remotely like this?

Per hour or per project?

 

[shauntir]

Some interesting advice and questions here.

I contract out to a digital design agency in Cape Town. I am based in Durban. They choose to outsource the dev side of things to someone local (me).

I work in the evenings and weekends. I hardly have time for myself in the sense that even if I am too tired to work on a particular day, I constantly will think about the work (X-men movies and series seem to be helping right now lol).

In actual fact, I landed this long-term relationship and client on this very forum. The guy needed a .Net dev and I produced the sample code as requested and then dove head in with client work.

At the moment, I have a monthly retainer for server maintenance and charge projects/tasks on an hourly rate - I shot myself in the foot by setting this too low but that is fine for now since it is still higher than my salary

With regards to money coming in from overseas, I did work on a project for the guy who recruited me and he was based in NZ. Money was paid into my account, bank contacted me and asked what this is for (rendering of trade services) and they then cleared the money into my account.

The hardest part is not having time to do things like learning more things. For me personally that means mobile development. However, I have taken the plunge and just resigned from my "job" to focus on building my freelancing into "private contracting" and developing my own products.

 

[semaphore]

How do you guys charge for working remotely like this?

Per hour or per project?

I charged per hour for the project, and gave them detailed time sheet logs on what i was working on.

 

[envo]

How do you guys charge for working remotely like this?

Per hour or per project?

I rarely charge per project since you'll quickly find scope changes and the client expects it to fall within the project's originally quoted price and it's quite difficult to tell them otherwise.

Charging per hour saves you from that ball-ache and when scope does change, you get paid for those changes

 

[noob_saibot]

As for exchange control, it's not really an issue. Working through PayPal, you get cash money in your bank account within 5 days or so.

Doesn't the combined PayPal and FNB service fees go up to like 10% or something? I remember looking through the multiple levels of fees, and both PayPal and FNB seem to like "chowing down" as much as they can.

 

[Ro87]

I charged per hour for the project, and gave them detailed time sheet logs on what i was working on.

Seems like the norm is to charge per hour. Detailed time sheets is a good idea.

 

[envo]

Doesn't the combined PayPal and FNB service fees go up to like 10% or something? I remember looking through the multiple levels of fees, and both PayPal and FNB seem to like "chowing down" as much as they can.

Nope. If you want to get R500, then the cost is obviously going to be quite big. But speaking from experience, pulling out R15-R20k from PayPal costs you max R200 in fee's (I think it was R115)

PayPal doesn't charge you anything for it, it's FNB that charges the extract. PayPal charges the person that sends you the money, but that cost shouldn't be passed on to you unless they're *******s