Hi Colin. I am sure that the situations vary very much according to location, business specialties, etc. And, I know nothing of Canadian laws so I won't speak to legal issues. But in terms of getting up and running, marketting, sales advice... I have found that nothing beats word of mouth, and taking advantage of current contacts.

I was an independent from 1994-1996, and again since early 2000 until the present. About 80% of my work has via ex-fellow employees (in other words, someone from a previous job has now moved to company X and hears [from me!] that I am available, etc.)....

So, with that in mind, my advice is to call (or possibly email if you think they'd prefer it) just about everyone you've worked with in the past who might in any way be in a position to bring in a consultant, or who might have the ear of someone who is in such a position. And, keep in touch with them -- don't harass them, just give a call every couple of months to keep your name in the back of their minds.

I am not sure of the economic climate in Hamilton, but in New York, this kind of networking is pretty simple, and works pretty well. There's such an extensive business community that there's plenty of work for good developers. Since I have many friends in banking, it seems like there's always *somebody* looking to have some work done. Phone calls beat just about any other marketing strategy I have heard about.... while I have gotten a few small jobs from folks who saw articles I had written, and I did get one small job from a business networking conference, these were very very small fish compared to the ones I landed via word-of-mouth networking.

Good luck with this! I find independent contracting to be very very rewarding and I hope you will too.






>Hello all,
>
>I've been developing database applications for over 10 years, from dBase III, FoxPro DOS and now VFP6.
>
>After recently being downsized from my last position, I'm giving thought to using some time off to attempt going it alone as an independant contractor.
>
>I would appreciate any advice, tips, pitfalls, etc to getting things started. i.e. marketing/sales advice and anything else.
>
>Also, for anyone already doing this in Canada, do I need to register myself as a business and get a GST number and all that? Or, can I attempt to make a go of this first and then, if successful and continuing, worry about that?
>
>TIA