Comment by BjoernKW | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BjoernKW | Hacker News Reader

This idea keeps coming up as stephengillie said and he made a good point as to why it's the other way round right now.

I think it's more important to cultivate an entrepreneurial attitude and business skills with consultants / freelancers. Many freelancers still see themselves as mere coders / temporary employees whereas I think they rather should consider themselves business problem solvers and entrepreneurs.

The IT freelance market pretty much depends on recruiters, who are nothing else but expensive middleman and gatekeepers. At least part of the reason for this is that freelance developers apparently can't be bothered with lowly stuff such as the everyday problems of running a business.

This attitude is a fallacy in my opinion. Not only are business problem solvers paid better than developers but approaching your work from this perspective is also a lot more rewarding in the long run. Using JavaScript framework A or B or Java technology C or D? I couldn't care less. Solving an interesting business problem? That's something entirely different.

Besides, seeing yourself as an entrepreneur instead of a temp worker will allow you to talk more confidently with recruiters and clients alike.

> Many freelancers still see themselves as mere coders / temporary employees whereas I think they rather should consider themselves business problem solvers and entrepreneurs.

Many freelancers are coders and temporary employees.

There are freelancers who have the skills and experience necessary to become members of the consultant class, but there are many freelancers who don't. Just because you can code doesn't mean you're a business problem solver or entrepreneur, or want to be.

If I need to hire somebody to knock out some code for a few months, I'm not going to hire somebody who is pitching himself or herself as a panacea for all of my business problems. Solos should be thoughtful about the personal and professional implications of their positioning. It's one thing to want the financial rewards of consulting, but it's another thing to deal with the day-to-day demands.

There is a clear distinction between being a freelancer and an employee - whether temporary or not: However small it might be, a freelance business is still a business. If you don't want to deal with all that marketing, accounting, business development and management stuff that comes with that you shouldn't be a freelancer in the first place.

Then there are different degrees of business problems: Somebody churning out cheap logos on Fiverr solves a vastly different and vastly smaller problem than someone who say troubleshoots manufacturing processes at a large plant but both are still business problems. That doesn't mean that someone being able to solve them is a panacea nor should he probably market himself as such.

Also a very good point. Stop seeing ourselves an consultants and start to see ourselves as a product, a business solution even. This makes a lot of sense honestly. This tends to speak towards what others have said in the past about increasing rate. Stop trying to sell temporary labor and start selling solutions in order to give the most business value and attain the most financial benefit for yourself.

To be introspective, I will admit when I have built product based businesses I have done that. I wonder why my mindset is so different when I am in the consulting space.

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