>I have finally decided to drop the corporate wheelstone and go independant. Although, the initial jump is scary, I'm sure the water is fine after the initial plunge!

You may want to review previous threads on UT about this topic.

I was one for 15 years. Why did I quite? I got tired of traveling and being on the road for 6-8 weeks at a time. Jobs that were 12/6 for weeks at a time because the orgininal crew got behind schedule. And, my kids grew up, finished college and got married. My wife said we didn't need that level of income any more, if I could consult locally and be home on evenings and weekends. One of my local clients turned out to be the Nebr Dept of Revenue. The rest is history. :)

It will be both fun and scary at times. No benies like paid vacations, but double FICA payments, liability insurance, division of bills between house and business and car travel between personal and business .. :) Try to keep at least THREE months living expenses in the bank for a safety net, and some extra cash for new tools and training classes for them. (I use three months because that was the longest dry spell I had without a contract.)


BE SURE you create your own standard contract and only work under that signed contract. It should stipulate milestones in both product delivery and payments, preservers your prior art and intellectual knowledge, grevience outlines and termenation clauses. Never punch a client's clock or let him/her dictate when and perhaps where you work on the project, otherwise you are an employee by IRS rules. You should download a copy of those rules and memorize them.

Don't work for head hunters. They often play you against the client for their own advantage. Besides, why should they take a lion's share for your labor?

When your friends ask you to do a favor tell them your rates are $XX. If you do a freebie they will keep coming back expecting free changes and free support, even for things not related to your software. The same is true for church and charitable orgs, unfortunately.

Remember, "USE THE CONTRACT, LUKE!"

Oh, stay out of company politics and don't get too friendly with the natives. Many think you are out to eliminate their jobs and would love nothing better than to explioit or misconstrue what you say or do to their boss. Part of your contract should be that all actions be documented in writing and signed... requested changes, additions, deletions, signoffs, etc... Be especially careful of organizations where management battles are taking place. A good pre-contract test to evaluate a potential client is to check their employee restrooms. Management that doesn't care how dirty the employee restrooms are won't care how they treat you, especially if you've bid your services too low. Poor programmers being paid higher rates are valued more than good programmers bing paid at lower rates. You can work 1,000 hours for $80/hour or you can work 2,000 hours for $40/hour and make the same money, but have more expenses on the lower paying job. So what that you don't get as many jobs at the higher rate.
JLK