Post by thread:[OT] Contracting business

Hi, Recently the idea of becoming a contractor has crossed my mind. For all the contractors out there, how did you start your business? Where did you find your customers? Thanks, Juimiin

#1: Don't quit your day job until your side work is so heavy you can barely keep up. #2: You really should be geared towards business.. dealing with late bills, people skills, negotiating, etc... things that most engineers are not. #3: Your first year or two will be thin on income. REAL thin. Unless you have high quality business lined up already. #4: Don't EVER quit on a project. Word travels fast in our high tech community. Eat the loss if you must. Juimiin Hong wrote: > Hi, > > Recently the idea of becoming a contractor has crossed my mind. For all > the contractors out there, how did you start your business? Where did you > find your customers? > > Thanks, > Juimiin

>#3: Your first year or two will be thin on income. REAL thin. Unless you have high quality business lined up already. Sometimes other years, too. Been there, done that. Chris' other advice is good. Personally, I found that if I ever want to go out on my own again, I will have a SALES FORCE who can do the initial contact for me. FWIW, my local FAI guy has been really good about this. But only because I've brought several $10K+ customers (repeaters, not one-time-buys) to him. And be LOYAL to the guy, whoever it is. Never say anything bad about other customers to anybody (even your wife), no matter what jerks they are. We all get to act that way from time to time; be as forgetful of their inadequacies as you'd like them to be of yours. NEVER EVER EVER tell them a lie. "It's almost ready." etc. Andy

> >#4: Don't EVER quit on a project. Word travels fast in our high tech >community. Eat the loss if you must. To expand on this.... Don't take on a job unless you KNOW you can do a good job of it, and if there are potential problems areas, make sure the customer knows this right from the start. In general, deal with people the way you'd like to be dealt with. If you do a good job you will get repeat business.

Andy, I have long thought that the tech-head engineer would need a smooth talking salesman as a partner to make it a go. Apparently, you solve this by making good allies of people in the selling business anyway. (smart.) An Mchip rep or FAE would be a really good ally to have! I've been working on ally relationships with a couple of other manufacturer's reps - baiscally "If you need in-depth tech support and programming for my parts, see this guy" It helps if the supplier has some kind of certification program similar to Mchip's "Certified PIC Geek" or whatever they call it program. How else does one go about drumming up business? Advertise in the classifieds next to the used bicycles?<G> Scmoooze with the bigwigs at the Chamber of Commerce dinners? Post a web page under "Inventors and Crackpots - Get your Invention built here"? -- Lawrence "one foot in the independant consulting business" Lile {Original Message removed}

Howdy All, This is a subject close to my situation at the moment, about 2.5 years ago I took a part time job at a local University doing general electronics design / maintenance to fund my private development work. Since then I have taken an additional half time contract for 6 months with the same employer. The worry is that I can earn far more for general electronic work in a wage environment than while contracting for hourly work in which I am working at a considerabley higher and more focussed level. I have to face the possibility that there is not a living to be made in contract PIC programming... at least in Australia ( and I suspect most of the rest of the world) at the present time. In Aus at the moment, where I live, ycan earn considerabley more driving a bus than developing PIC products. I am not angry about this but it is hard to understand why it is so. Glen Torr TorrTech (for the momentt)

> > In Aus at the moment, where I live, ycan earn considerabley more driving a > bus than developing PIC products. I am not angry about this but it is hard > to understand why it is so. > > Glen Torr > > TorrTech (for the momentt) Its no better in New Zealand. Basically what I can see is that the electronics industry sees technically minded folk as cheap labour, geeks that do it for the love of it, easy meat. The only trouble is these same employers, business people etc are bleating they cant get enough skilled people to run their businesses and need cheap foreign migrants to fulfil the shortfall. You want a decent income ... become an accountant or make and sell your product direct to the consumer. _____________________________ Lance Allen Technical Officer Uni of Auckland Psych Dept New Zealand http://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz _____________________________