It seems like everybody is or wants to be a freelance web developer. Of course, this makes sense because it enables such a glorious and carefree lifestyle. Rather, that’s what everybody envisions.

Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as creating a web site and cashing checks. There’s a lot more to running a business that isn’t sexy or fun. Parts of owning your own business are downright boring, tedious, and expensive.

I thought it might help if I pulled together the less glamorous aspects of “going solo” as I’ve come to call it to help others have realistic expectations. Hopefully being aware of these often overlooked matters, and some mistakes I made personally, can help you create a more successful plan before you take the plunge.

Money, Accounting, and Taxes

Your costs will be cheaper than running a large business, but office space, taxes, computers, internet access, health insurance, office equipment, and legal fees can be costly surprises to your bottom line if you don’t plan ahead.

Pricing

This is one of the most challenging aspects of running your own freelance web development business. You can’t calculate your salary alone. You have to factor in all of the above expenses as well in order to determine how much you need to charge.

Hidden Time

Accounting, collection, taxes, sales, contracts, and networking are all very necessary for successfully running a business. And, not surprisingly, they take away from your development time. You can easily spend 25% of any given day, if not every day, taking care of these aspects.

Business Development

This is an extension of hidden time that deserves its own section. This includes updating your skills, making an entry on your company blog, attending a conference, and updating your web site, or learning a new skill. They are all necessary, and require additional time.

Sales

When you’re working for a large company, it’s easy to be idealistic about sales. On your own though, chasing down leads, writing proposals, contracts, and statements of work can be extremely time consuming. Don’t take sales for granted. It’s one of the hardest parts about running a business.

Health Insurance

It’s easy to overlook the cost of insurance. What many people aren’t aware of is that for every dollar you pay towards insurance, your company could be paying another 5 to 10 times that amount for you. When you go solo, that means you can expect your insurance costs to go up dramatically. If you have a family, this can be even more of a concern. Of course, you could always gamble and go without insurance, but if you’re the type that likes the security, you could be in for a shocking dollar amount when you’re footing the whole bill.

Your Health

When you’re the only employee, there’s more to be lost when you’re out for a day. Nobody else can cover for you, and anything could go wrong. Staying healthy becomes much more important than if you’re working for the man.

As much as I hate this kind of stuff, good legal documents are necessary. They may never come into play, but having a good signed contract is part of running a professional business. Again, they aren’t cheap, and planning is what matters here.

Personal Time

This was my biggest weakness during my 2 years on my own. When running your own business, it succeeds or fails based on your efforts alone. From my point of view, that meant that any moment not spent working, was money lost. I learned the hard way just how wrong I was. Make sure to take time for yourself, this makes you much more productive in the long run.

Focus

With all of these other aspects of the business needing your attention, it’s very easy to run out of time for billable work. As such, staying focused becomes incredibly important. So balance that personal time with focus on your goals.

Organization & Time Management

In addition to focus, all of these tasks can quickly overwhelm you if you’re not organized. Figuring out a system that works for you, putting it in place, and sticking to it is of the utomost importance. I was so focused on billable work during my time, that I had a mess of bookkeeping by the end of the first year. That’s one mistake I’ll never make again.

Conclusion

This is just a little bit from my experience. It’s not meant to deter anyone from going out on their own. However, with more and more big names going out to start a business, I thought it might be beneficial for others to be aware and temper action with wisdom. Feel free to take advantage of my lessons to start your business a little more prepared than I was.