The Freelancers' Show

01:40 - Prepayment, Deposits, Trust, and Risk 14:55 - Pricing a SaaS (Software as a Service)

• Tier Pricing
• Grandfather Clauses
• Beta Test Features
• Unlocking Features

27:02 - Scope 30:07 - Tier Pricing (Cont’d)

• The Win Without Pitching Manifesto by Blair Enns

38:49 - What’s a marketing/lead generation channel that’s been successful for you that you hadn’t expected to be successful for your consulting business?

• Podcasting
• Speaking Engagements

45:03 - The Get Clients Now Approach

• The Freelancers' Show Episode #20: Get Clients Now! with C.J. Hayden

46:47 - If you could give yourself two or three bits of advice when you first started out, what would they be?

• Specialize
  • Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port
• Charge More
• Don’t Be Afraid to Make Mistakes

51:03 - Mastermind Groups Picks Pay Your Love First (Eric)
The Consulting Pipeline Podcast (Eric)
Drip Sherpa (Jonathan)
Double Your Freelancing Conference (Jonathan)
CodeNewbie Podcast (Chuck)
This Is Your Life Podcast (Chuck)

02:02 - “Budgeting” 04:01 - Incentive

• Jesse Mecham

11:09 - Time Cost/Emotional Cost 14:47 - Approaching a Budget

• YNAB Features (Desktop)
• YNAB for iPhone
• YNAB for iPad
• YNAB for Android

21:31 - Keeping Up a Budget (Discipline)

• Financial Accounting
• Managerial Accounting

39:14 - Amending Budgets

• Budgeting for Taxes
• Depreciation Expenses

46:19 - Expense Division?

• Dave Ramsey

54:15 - Getting Started

• Buy YNAB

55:56 - Default Questions

• Cash Flow Statement
• Is it worth it?
• Do I have enough extra to invest?

59:34 - Reconciling Accounts (Transfers)

• Using PayPal

Picks The Positioning Manual for Technical Firms by Philip Morgan (Jonathan)
Econtalk (Reuven)
Blair Enns: 5 Reasons You Should Offer Guarantees (Eric)
YNAB (Chuck)
Serial Podcast (Chuck)
Startups For the Rest of Us (Chuck)
Aftershokz AS500 Bluez 2 Open Ear Wireless Stereo Headphones (Chuck)

Get your Ruby Remote Conf tickets and check out the @rubyremoteconf Twitter feed for exciting updates about the conference.   02:09 - Philip Morgan Introduction

• Twitter
• Philip Morgan Consulting
• The Positioning Manual for Technical Firms by Philip Morgan

02:30 - Thinking About Positioning and Communicating What You Do

• Expensive Problem: The Benefits of Pigeonholing

27:08 - Finding Target Markets 35:25 - Acquiring New Skills to Support a New Position 39:00 - Refining Your Positioning

• Marketing, Publicity

56:07 - Positioning Exercise Picks Kurt Elster: Email Templates for Freelancers (Jonathan)
Expensive Problem: Market Research Cold Email Template (Jonathan)
Bryan Harris: How I Made $10,000 in 24-hours With My First Product (Case Study) (Reuven)
Jewish guide to visiting China by Reuven Lerner (Reuven)
Spark by Readdle (Eric)
AmazonSmile (Chuck)
Listen to other people’s views (Chuck)
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries (Philip)
Rolls MS111 Mic Switch Latching or Momentary Microphone Mute Switch with Passes Phantom Power (Philip)
The Consulting Pipeline Podcast (Philip)

07:06 - Finding Work on Sites Like Elance and Upwork (formerly oDesk)

• Danny Margulies The Non-Scuzzy and Totally True Story of How I Earned 6 Figures in 12 Months by Mastering the “Hidden Elance Economy”
• Danny Margulies: How to Make Money On Elance – My $100,000 Year
• Fiverr

14:24 - What sort of project/scope documentation do you generate for clients to supply time/budget estimates?

• ROI (Return On Investment)
• ChiliProject

23:26 - How much time do you spend with the client defining the scope of the work before you sign a contract? 27:20 - Do you have a timeline to review deliverables (weekly) or is it ad-hoc based on when the work is finished? 33:12 - You have mentioned, at least in the early podcasts, that you do about 20-30 hours of billable work per week, and you also have multiple simultaneous clients/contracts. I'm currently working a W2, 40+ hour week with a large product backlog that has me busy all week, so I'm struggling to visualize what a week in the life of a freelancer looks like. If you only work 20-30 hours per week, and have at a minimum of 2 clients, does that mean you only dedicate 10 or so hours per client? 42:50 - What sort of non-development tasks do you bill for that fill up some of the extra time? 46:12 - How much development time per week do your clients expect you to dedicate to the project? 49:58 - Have you ever had a client specify a maximum number of hours per week in your contract? 50:27 - Is the feedback loop so slow that you always have time to work on another contract while you're waiting? 53:54 - Do your clients ever feel like you're not putting in enough time per week? How do you respond that? Picks Danny Margulies The Non-Scuzzy and Totally True Story of How I Earned 6 Figures in 12 Months by Mastering the “Hidden Elance Economy” (Eric)
MicroConf (Chuck)
Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results by Stephen Guise (Chuck)
Habit Stacking: 97 Small Life Changes That Take Five Minutes or Less by S.J. Scott (Chuck)
How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie (Chuck)
Slate's Whistlestop Podcast (Reuven)

01:47 - Rob Walling Introduction

• Twitter
• GitHub
• Blog
• Startups For the Rest of Us
• MicroConf
  • @MicroConf
• Drip
  • @getdrip

02:46 - Rob’s Background in Email Marketing

• Rob Walling: The Number One Goal Of Your Website @ Business Of Software 2010

04:32 - Email Marketing ≠ Spam

• Personalization
• Small vs Large Companies

10:07 - Drip Features

• Tagging
• Targeted Emails

14:25 - Templates 19:20 - Best Practices    

• Email Capture Forms Everywhere
• Autoresponders
• Lead Scoring
  • Eric's Mailing List

25:58 - Frequency and Growing Your List

• Patrick Mckenzie
• Software by Rob
• James Clear

29:01 - Exclusivity

• Permalinking
  • Nick Disabato P
• Public, But Not Visible
• Social Shares

35:20 - Updating Content

• Michael Port

40:06 - Vanity Metrics 46:07 - List Segmenting

• NeverBounce

52:04 - Lead Magnets (Opt-in Rewards)

• Clay Collins

Picks Saas Marketing Essentials by Ryan Battles (Rob)
Bloxels: Build Your Own Video Games with Blocks by Pixel Press (Rob)
Circa Notebooks from Levenger (Jonathan)
Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling by Michael Port (Jonathan)
Content marketing isn’t the dirty word you think it is (Eric)
LEGO Mindstorms (Reuven)
Brixton Brothers Books (Reuven)
Pleco (Reuven)

Check out Ruby Remote Conf! 01:56 - Alex Hillman Introduction

• Twitter
• Blog
• The Coworking Weekly Show
• Indy Hall
  • @indyhall
• Amy Hoy
  • Unicornfree
• 30x500: Build and Launch a Profitable Product Business Without Venture Capital

02:57 - Collaboration and Coworking Spaces 08:34 - Nights and Weekends? (After Hours/Night Owl Working)

• Unconferences and BarCamps

13:05 - Coworking is NOT a Talent Agency 15:02 - Isn’t Coworking Distractive?

• Choice Architecture
• Full-Time / Flex-Member Separation = Bad

22:33 - Forming Relationships for Collaboration

• Examples:
  • Parker and Jake
    • Flycops
      • @flyclops  
    • Domino
  • Amanda and Christine
    • Lanternfish Press
      • @lfpbooks
    • The Legend of Sherlock Holmes Kickstarter Project

35:13 - Interns 36:54 - Collaboration vs Cooperation

• Choice vs Forced Collaboration
• “Half Baked Ideas”
  • Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson

45:20 - Committing to a Coworking Space 49:39 - Should You Cowork?

• Self-Management
• Confidence: “If I can do it, you can do it.”
• Honest Exposure

01:03:58 - Starting a Coworking Space

• Core, Committed People
  • Community Barn Raising
• Resources:
  • How To Fund Your Coworking Space
  • How Much Does It Cost To Start A Coworking Space?
  • The Three Necessary Ingredients For Community. Do You Have Them?

Picks The Tim Ferriss Show - Lazy: A Manifesto (Eric)
Kai Davis: How to Hire a Part-Time Employee (Jonathan)
Working Podcast (Reuven)
Startup Podcast (Reuven)
Fundraising While Female (Reuven)
CodeNewbie Podcast (Chuck)
Ask Me Another Podcast (Chuck)
Ruby Remote Conf (Chuck)
Reply All Podcast (Alex)
Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone by Mark Goulston M.D. (Alex)

Check out Ruby Remote Conf! 02:36 - Estimates

• Offering a Range
• Educated Guess
• Confidence Score
• When Clients Balk
• Trail Map
• Adding Buffers

12:09 - Roadmapping

• Eric’s Sample Trail Map
  • Identifying and Reducing Risks

18:12 - How to Sell It 23:06 - Roadmaps vs Estimates (Defined & Differences)

• Wireframes

30:21 - Dealing with Conflict (Estimate Pain Points)

• Communication: Feedback & Check-in Points

33:10 - Budget and Value

• Hourly Billing / Fixed Bid / Weekly Billing

39:43 - Mismatched Expectations (Communication Cont’d)

• Red Flags Episode

44:47 - Productized Services and Consulting

• Kurt Elster
  • Website Rescues
  • The Freelancers’ Show Episode #131: Tiny Sites and Productized Consulting with Kurt Elster

Picks Eric's Sample Trail Map (Eric)  
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Eric)
The Terrible Two by Mac Barnett (Reuven)
INBOX PAUSE (Jonathan)
CouldApp (Jonathan)
Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman (Chuck)
99Designs (Chuck)
Fiverr (Chuck)

04:07 - At what point does it make sense to register as a corporation? Apart from liability, I assume. If you have profits to reinvest in the business?

• Types of Business Entities:
• Sole Proprietorship
• Limited Liability Company (LLC)
• S-Corporations
• “Piercing the Corporate Veil”
• Errors and Omissions Insurance
• Annual Minutes and Organizational Meetings

13:25 - Do you umbrella all your products, brands, DBAs, etc. under a main corp?

• DBA (Doing Business As)

18:32 - What was the comical, but legit contract you mentioned on a show recently? (Contracts)

• Contract Killer
• Sue => Fold

21:35 - Expensing Home Office for Tax Purposes

• Tax Deductions
• Tax Credits

31:12 - Errors and Omissions Insurance (Cont’d) 34:38 - Marketing to Launch

• Jeff Walker of The Product Launch Formula

41:26 - Contract Resolution 43:29 - If expensing a home office, do you pay for bills, utilities, etc. out of a personal or business account? 45:44 - Prototyping Tools 50:20 - Partnerships and Investments: “My friend has an idea!! ... I actually like this one!!”

• Even small-scale apps or services?

Picks Just Fucking Ship by Amy Hoy (Eric)
The Brain Audit: Why Customers Buy (and Why They Don't) by Sean D'Souza (Jonathan)
The Silkworm (A Cormoran Strike Novel) by Robert Galbraith (Jonathan)
The Positioning Manual for Technical Firms by Philip Morgan (Reuven)
WASD CODE 87-Key Illuminated Mechanical Keyboard with White LED Backlighting - Cherry MX Clear (Chuck)
Grifiti Fat Wrist Pad (Chuck)
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (Chuck)
Mastery by Robert Greene (Chuck)   Join us for our next Live Q&A on Tuesday, May 26th 2015! Sign up and get The Ultimate Guide of Marketing Tools for Freelancers here.

02:44 - “We just fired our last dev. Can you help us?” 05:40 - Temporary Gigs 07:42 - Unrealistic Timeline 09:26 - “Our developers are above-average smart!”

• Lake Wobegon Effect

10:40 - Lack of Communication / Communication Skills Suck

• Prescreening Questions

14:15 - Bad CEOs / Crazy Personnel Changes 19:27 - When Clients Go Dark 28:03 - “We’ll pay you in equity!” or “We’ll give you a share of our profits!” 29:59 - Ridiculous NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) 32:04 - Vetting Processes 37:06 - Payment 44:56 - Low-Budget Companies Picks Kai Davis: Microconf 2015 Recap (Eric)
Pricing with Confidence: 10 Ways to Stop Leaving Money on the Table by Reed Holden (Jonathan)
CleanMyMac 3 (Reuven)

01:32 - Nathan Powell Introduction

• Twitter
• Blog

02:05 - Why move away from doing UI/UX consultant to a product? 03:38 - Nusii

• @nusiiapp
• Michael Koper, Co-Founder

06:01 - Getting Started

• Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup by Rob Walling

10:41 - Finding a Co-Founder 12:46 - Customer Feedback 14:36 - What Makes Nusii Unique? 17:46 - Nusii as SaaS Proposal Software

• Alan Weiss
• Brennan Dunn

25:57 - Templates

• Episode #153: Workshop with Robert Williams

35:08 - Transitioning From Consultant to Product Owner

• Mastermind Groups
• Get a Co-Founder

40:17 - What Would Nathan Have Done Differently? (Advice)

• Find a Co-Founder Right Away
• SaaS’ Are Big
• Have a Mentor

45:43 - Pricing 46:25 - The Creator’s Guide to Better Proposals (Coming Soon!)   Freelancers’ Show T-Shirts are available! teespring.com/freelancersshow Styles include unisex up to 3x, ladies', sweatshirts, and long sleeve tees. Teespring also offers international shipping so that all of our listeners have a chance to buy! Picks LeadDigits: Why We’re Betting Big on Mobile SMS Marketing (and a Sneak Peek at Our Newest Product) (Jonathan)
Revive Old Post Pro (Nathan)
Nick Disabato: Solving the Best Problems (Reuven)
Gastropod (Reuven)