General > General Technical Chat
Working for yourself advice.
Wilksey:
Hi, I have a friend, yeah yeah I know the cliche, but I really do on this occasion!
My friend has worked in the electronics industry for the best part of 20 years here in the UK, he is a product designer and has only ever worked in a small lab environment so not exposed to customers or anything that might be considered social.
The company he works for has undergone a buy out and they are removing the need of product design and going fully off the shelf (because that always works so well!) so his job is goneski and is being made redundant.
He is in his late 40's and wants to explore doing his own thing, he has enough savings and is getting a pretty sweet payout that he can live over a year without any kind of financial input (lucky sod!), he has asked me if I have any suggestions on certain things and I did ask him to think about viability of starting a company whilst the chip shortage is in place but he ensures me he has thought about it and is happy to proceed.
Anyway, some of the questions he has asked I have no clue as I am not in that position or have ever done it before, so i'll post them here and see if anyone has any advice if you don't mind.
1. How do you find out what products are in demand if you don't have a contact within a particular company?
2. How do you get clients or find clients if you have no contact with the company, is it too niche to just advertise?
3. How to know what to charge? (for this I said cost *2.5 but is that still a good guide?)
4. Dealing B2B is it best to form a LTD company to protect the director. (I thought yes but good to clarify).
5. What insurances do I need (I said liability but are there any others?)
6. Any other advice? (I'll throw this one to the room too!).
Thanks in advance for all of your replies, I think it is quite overwhelming going from paid 9-5 to working for yourself, but I guess everyone has to start somewhere and he seems quite determined to try it which I admire.
pardo-bsso:
Be prepared to a lot of anxiety, responsibility, lack of proper rest and sleep and work 24/7.
And don't take employees unless you really need them and have about ~4 months of salary buffer in case things go sour.
nctnico:
If you want to have any succes then you'll need to be able to do firmware development as well. Also don't compete on price and try not to get projects on a blanque check. I always give customers a ballpark estimation of hours which I try to adhere to. Customers work with budgets so you can't confront them with financial surprises they didn't budget for.
Product liability is something you have to limit in the terms & conditions / contract. You can't get any insurance for this. Some insurance policies claim they do but if you read the small print, they actually don't and you are sinking money into a black hole. What does make sense is to have an accident liability insurance. So if you knock a Ming vase over, it is covered by insurance.
AndyC_772:
I've been working for myself for about the last 10 years, under very similar circumstances. A few tips...
- Know, confidently, what you're going to work on and who your first customers will be BEFORE becoming reliant on contract work.
- See above, it bears repeating.
- ...multiple times.
- Find a good accountant, ask them about the tax and liabiity positions of going self-employed vs Ltd company. Grill them on IR35, make sure you know what the tests are for "disguised employment" and ensure your contracts are drafted accordingly.
- Also find a good solicitor specialising in company law and intellectual property. Ask them to explain the law surrounding IP ownership as it applies to your kind of business, and get them to draft (or at least, check and revise) your contract T&C's. It's expensive, but worth it 100 times over if it means the difference between collecting royalties on your IP vs losing it entirely.
- Don't ever believe someone who tells you what's in a contract; always read it in full for yourself. I've lost count of the number of times I've been told a contract says one thing, only to discover it's nothing of the sort.
- As the 'little guy' you can expect that some companies will try to assert themselves and screw you over. Respond robustly. "No" can be a valid, correct, and occasionally therapeutic response.
- You should have a web site, for the benefit of people who hear about you by other means who want to check you out. Don't expect that it'll attract new customers independently, though.
- A good customer is worth bending over backwards to support. So is a bad one, unless they don't pay their bills, in which case they're not a customer at all.
- There will be gaps between contracts. Accept these unplanned holidays. Embrace them. Don't spend the time staring at an empty schematic and feeling uneasy about being unemployed. (This is *hard*!)
voltsandjolts:
--- Quote from: nctnico on September 27, 2022, 12:42:23 pm ---If you want to have any succes then you'll need to be able to do firmware development as well.
--- End quote ---
Yup. Everything has firmware these days. Be prepared for some customers to dictate Microchip or ST or Freescale etc.
--- Quote from: nctnico on September 27, 2022, 12:42:23 pm ---Customers work with budgets so you can't confront them with financial surprises they didn't budget for.
--- End quote ---
Yup, which makes it important to highlight any technical risks you foresee at an early stage. Presenting these risks in the correct way doesn't put a customer off but actually makes you look more competent ;)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version