Struggled to come up with a title, I'm quite new to this so please bear with my ignorance.
1) I just finished my CS degree at 34 (career change). Looking for a job atm but...
2) I want to get into freelancing as I think it will suit my personality but...
3) I don't have much of a portfolio (just projects that I thought would be interesting, like a crypto wallet/news site, etc) or any formal development experience on my CV so...
4) I took the last 2 weeks to (for free) redo my wife's company website and create a web application with Django that automates some of their work and...
5) The company director was quite impressed and has said he's always wanted the company to have it's own system so now...
I have a meeting on Monday to discuss developing something for the company. Probably a web application. I'm very out of my depth here
So the company has a system already that they license from a provider. Their line item employees capture data on this system and it has some basic querying/reporting features that the administrator/analyst employees then use to make nice reports using MS Excel and Powerpoint (my wife is the non-technical manager of said administrators and analysts)
There are also quite a few add-on products that derive from their data, but do not use the above licenses system for, and all of it is done on Excel then put into a neat document and sent to their clients. The demo I made takes one of these add-on products and automates it, producing a spiffy dashboard with some charts and tables and basic analysis/insights.
The director knows about my situation and is likely so eager/positive about this because he knows he can get me for cheap
Off handedly, he suggested that I create a separate company that then provides services to his company, and he provides the capital while I provide the expertise, or something like that. So as I understand the intention is not to bring me on as an employee, but some kind of contractor or service provider?
So... my dilemma then...
I have no idea what to do. How does one approach this kind of opportunity?
My experience is mostly with developing web apps using the django stack for python.
Basically I feel like I have a neat opportunity here and I'd like to approach it correctly so as not to let it slip through. I know their business pretty (the problem domain?) well and have been doing some off-the-books data analysis to help out my wife for a while, which puts me in a bit of a unique position. The director is a pretty 'get it done now' kind of guy (no one would accuse him of overthinking anything) and he's more than happy to invest into things if he see's an opportunity.
Thanks
1) I just finished my CS degree at 34 (career change). Looking for a job atm but...
2) I want to get into freelancing as I think it will suit my personality but...
3) I don't have much of a portfolio (just projects that I thought would be interesting, like a crypto wallet/news site, etc) or any formal development experience on my CV so...
4) I took the last 2 weeks to (for free) redo my wife's company website and create a web application with Django that automates some of their work and...
5) The company director was quite impressed and has said he's always wanted the company to have it's own system so now...
I have a meeting on Monday to discuss developing something for the company. Probably a web application. I'm very out of my depth here
So the company has a system already that they license from a provider. Their line item employees capture data on this system and it has some basic querying/reporting features that the administrator/analyst employees then use to make nice reports using MS Excel and Powerpoint (my wife is the non-technical manager of said administrators and analysts)
There are also quite a few add-on products that derive from their data, but do not use the above licenses system for, and all of it is done on Excel then put into a neat document and sent to their clients. The demo I made takes one of these add-on products and automates it, producing a spiffy dashboard with some charts and tables and basic analysis/insights.
The director knows about my situation and is likely so eager/positive about this because he knows he can get me for cheap
Off handedly, he suggested that I create a separate company that then provides services to his company, and he provides the capital while I provide the expertise, or something like that. So as I understand the intention is not to bring me on as an employee, but some kind of contractor or service provider?So... my dilemma then...
I have no idea what to do. How does one approach this kind of opportunity?
- Should I aim to provide a service as a freelancer for an hourly rate? And what's a normal rate that I should consider?
- Or should I charge for increments based on features/deliverables?
- I don't really understand what he envisions by me starting a company to render a service for him and I'd rather not be on the back-foot here.
- How do I handle expenses like hosting, licensing, etc? The "IT department" consists of one ol' chap who moonlights as a desktop support tech, so no help there.
My experience is mostly with developing web apps using the django stack for python.
- Must I be open and honest about my limitations and lack of experience?
- He's not at all familiar with the technical stuff and will likely not know python is anything more than a snake. Probably best to keep it simple then.
- So should I focus on what I can do and just trust that I can figure everything I need to out, as I go?
- I'm not much of a SQL person, or a creative design person (while I can do front-end CSS nitty-gritty it's not really my thing), so I will probably need to buy some resources and maybe hire a freelancer to help make sure I don't screw up the DB parts (data is their business so can't afford to half-arse that)
- I just know the basics of DevOps, so will also need some help deploying and maintaining this thing.
- As I go I will probably just find more and more things I have no idea how to do - is that normal? How do I plan for it an factor it into this meeting?
- Should I go into it thinking of an SPA with something like vue and use the django rest framework to handle the backend stuff? My demo works just fine but might run into scalability issues soon as it's front and back ends are django powered. Basically should I just take the lead and recommend a solution based on what I can do?
- Based on how I currently understand their need, I'm guessing 6-12 months of development...
Basically I feel like I have a neat opportunity here and I'd like to approach it correctly so as not to let it slip through. I know their business pretty (the problem domain?) well and have been doing some off-the-books data analysis to help out my wife for a while, which puts me in a bit of a unique position. The director is a pretty 'get it done now' kind of guy (no one would accuse him of overthinking anything) and he's more than happy to invest into things if he see's an opportunity.
Thanks
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