From Freelancer to Firm
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- CheDouglas0
Agree with univers – it is a really well thought out and executed book
- Dancer0
disagree – see notes above
- You have some nice work there Dancerroundabout
- thanks roundaboutDancer
- scrap_paper0
The bottom line is always the issue. If you have the money to float you for a few months and you have a solid plan you can make things work.
I did some rough calculations for a 5 person firm for a year and the numbers really freaked me out. Once my breathing returned to normal and I talked to a couple of people that seem to know better I realized that to start up I don't need to have float for a whole year for five people. I only need to account for 1-2 salaries outside of my own for about 3-4 months and have the money to cover rent and comm bills.
Equipment can be leased. Space can be shared. Freelancers can be hired on a job to job basis. Seems like there are common sense ways to do this thing.
- so when we say "f you have the money to float you for a few months " are we talking 50K+roundabout
- jamble0
I'd have thought the money side could be taken care of with a business startup loan of some sort. Providing you've got a good business plan (which you should have if you're thinking of setting up) then you should be in a good position to borrow some money to get you going.
Two of my friends went into business themselves a few years back with little more than £10k (I think) but they weren't hiring staff and lived frugally until it took off but I think it's an indication that you don't needs hundreds of thousands to get going as a company.
- Dancer0
I suppose if you are buying all new machines and furniture.
This is how I am doing it:
When I bought my house it had a derelict outhouse which I have converted into a studio, this will hold 3 to 4 people (at a squeeze)Freecycle has loads of, heaven forbid, free stuff: desks, chairs filing cabinets etc... this has been very useful indeed.
http://www.freecycle.org/groups/…The only thing I am paying ££££ for is a new Mac.
Other than that all I need is a business partner, I have yet to decide if that will be another designer or an account handler (probably the latter).
so I will spend around £2.5k to start out with, and grow outwards from there the only thing I worry about is upping the fees to cover for 2 peoples salary but this will be progressive.
now where's that business partner gone....?
- jamble0
Freecycle is good. I work from home with the wife and I opted to go to the timber yard up the road and built my own desks from MDF and fence posts .. that saved a few hundred quid!
I don't know how you can't find someone who doesn't want to work with you in your outhouse though!
I guess in terms of finding a partner, it's tough, I don't think you need an account handler if there's only a couple of you. It's not rocket science handling accounts. It's just something most creatives don't tend to want to take up lots of time to do. I have to do it as well as design and build, and accounting, chasing bills etc but it's not really that hard if you're organised.
Are you "rebranding yourself" Dancer? I mean in terms of setting up a new company name etc? If so, you should be fine to increase your rates to reflect the fact that you're no longer a one man band.
Sounds fun, I do miss having someone to bounce ideas off when I'm designing but the wife has enough creative experience in the industry to be more than helpful and she works from home with me so it's good to have the company but we both do different work so we don't need to worry so much about covering two salaries.
- Dancer0
"I don't know how you can't find someone who doesn't want to work with you in your outhouse though!"
hahaha...
is that a piss take
- exador10
one of my best buds from college is in the exact same situation...he pretty much has followed the advice given out here, and it's done him a world of good...he landed a few big name clients first, (such as Harley Davidson) which made him enough money to hire a junior designer. He also established a good working relationship with someone in sales, but doesn't have to pay her...she's an independent project manager type that has her own business, but needed a solid design firm to hand the work off too...now he's bought a house and converted one floor in to a studio...
- scrap_paper0
Thinking about what everyone is saying here I think the sales part is something I am totally missing. With someone around to hunt down new work it leaves me to focuss on getting the work done or managing freelancers to pull it off.
So, exador1, your friend is basically outsoucing his sales and project management eh? Interesting prospect. Again, anything to offset hard costs helps.