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Love this video!

I don't know if I should ask, but I am curious to know if you made any money with this app!

At first glance, I read it "Goodbye node forever, Hello PM2". Turns out PM2 is a replacement for "node-forever" and not node itself.

Thanks for advice, gesman. "Retainer" was a new term for me and I found this link helpful to learn bit about it: http://www.contractorcalculator.co.uk/charging_clients_retai...

Yep, no point in negotiating 10 hours for a loss of 6 hours. Thanks codegeek!

If we can count emails, yes there are a few things documented, my daily hours at top of the list. Yes they did acknowledge the rate, but unfortunately it was only verbal. As I mentioned in my question, there was no written contract.

Wow, this is an awesome video, I wish I had seen it before the training began. I really liked the ideas of "Kill fee", writing a new contract when original requirements change and "discussing things out over a cup of coffee because we both wanted same thing but had different approach toward it". Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for suggestion, a3n. I had a wild thought that I would either take all money or none of it and hit them morally, but after talking to a couple of people, I feel real world has its own mechanics and bargaining is an essential part of it.

One of my friends spent a month in Sri Lanka living in hostels and working in cafes. For internet connection, he bought a USB dongle which worked throughout the island. Whole trip costed him less than $800 including airfare (from Pakistan).

I am planning these days to leave my full-time job and switch over to contracting. Since I don't have any real experience, so my thoughts might be irrelevant, nevertheless, I would like to share a few things I learned from other successful contractors in my area.

1. Don't do everything. Find a niche, something that you are good at and stay focused on it.

2. Before signing up for a project, make a guess how successful it will be. Having successful projects in your portfolio will help you grab new projects more easily.

3. Try to get initial projects through your personal network. This might help both parties develop some initial trust.

4. Favor longer projects over shorter ones.

5. Don't charge for the all of the project at once. Divide requirements into milestones, and invoice the client on completion of each milestone.

You may agree or disagree with points above, I would like to learn what you think about them.

It took me sometime to understand that the link is a job site. In my opinion, it needs to deliver it's message more clearly. For registration, I would keep a single form with a radio button set with two options, company and job-hunter. Apart from the radio button set, I'll try not to include anything other than email/password fields. Similarly for login, I would keep only one form and decide from the email address whether the current user is an individual or a company representative.

Pakistan

Thanks for the post. I am looking forward to starting my business in coming months and I guess it'll be helpful to keep your advice in mind.

How is the living with 80k in SF? Is it difficult? Can a person do some savings? Can she afford a car?

In my country, folks with 6 years of experience make around 12-16k. For us, freelancing pays manyfolds higher than regular jobs.

+1 I can relate to it.

Yep, everyone has their own reality. You cannot copy/paste one person's solutions to another person's situations.

I got bit depressed when I read the article, but was cheered up when I read the comments here. You guys are awesome!!!

I think a better article could have been "Don't waste your day". Who has seen tomorrow, and they are talking about planning a whole decade!

Keep your expectations low, work hard, give more than you take and be grateful. If you are to become next Einstein, your destiny will find you by itself. That's the best I can think for myself.

"Which explains things like android’s less-than-beautiful UI". They have improved their UI a lot in version 4 and above. I really like new artifacts they introduced such as ActionBars. You can see them implemented in GMail app and you can't label it "less-than-beautiful".

Excellent read, thanks for sharing!

Excellent guide! I always wondered about the science behind typography but could never muster up courage to read boring theories. This was quick and fun!

He wants to build "something that I can build/do in few days/a week"!

Looks good, but the idea is antique, no?