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Comment by dopeboy | Hacker News Reader

Good points Mike.

"Be honest about what you can and can’t do."

Yep. Got burned on this once in my short time freelancing. Got cocky and thought I could pull off implementing something in a technology I've never used under a fixed contract. Live and learn.

"Question whether you’re building the right thing – within reason."

I really appreciate this point. I deal with mostly non-technical clients who sometimes don't always know what they want. Being able to get to the core of what they're after and say no to things that would make me a lot of money but be useless to them is crucial.

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To me, the interesting bit here is that you have to be honest with yourself about your limits as well - and in particular, be very good about understanding those limits.

I think in this instance, ethics and economic incentives align - your expertise is part of your value-prop to clients, and having a good grasp of your limits makes you substantially more valuable. You get things done on-time, with clear expectations set, and do a prompt and thorough job providing what you're being paid for.

Personally, as a natural optimist, one thing I need to be especially careful about is not saying "yeah that's doable!" and setting expectations too high - it can potentially lead to a messy situation. That said, one of my favorite parts of freelancing is that I get confronted with new, unique challenges that I've never dealt with before - there's a balance to be struck here.

Thanks dopeboy. I think we've all gotten burned at one time or another for that reason.

Back when I freelanced, I had the opposite problem (saying "no" too often), but I don't think it was my skillset or the project-type that was the problem as the author suggests. I have a real self-confidence problem that makes me pretty bad at freelancing. I've worked on that a bit, but in the end I ended up going back to FT work. I'd eventually like to give it another whirl if/when I can learn to get self-confidence where it needs to be.

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