I’ve done software freelancing on the side when I was studying, before getting my first job. Things like websites for small businesses, software for small businesses, software products I’ve sold, network/IT infrastructure for small businesses. It was good money at that time.
However, It is not exactly the “be your own boss / work as much as you want” experience. On one hand, it was a lot of fun building all of the software, web sites, and stuff from scratch. On the other hand, (as I am aware now), software has a lifecycle, so shorty afterwards, you start to get bug reports, change requests, and most of the time you are fixing some problems, and you’re oncall all the time. Most of the money in software is made with boring stuff, such as maintenance. As an example: If you have an Android app, you’ll probably spend more time upgrading it for each new Android release and fixing bugs resulting from incompatibilities with devices, as you’ll spend on building the app itself.
In the end, you won’t have a boss, but the customer will end up being “your boss”.
When you have a good linkedin profile which signals strong industry (and/or domain) knowledge, you’ll have an opportunity to get contacted by expert consulting firms. These are firms which work for clients who want to gain more knowledge in a specific area. These firms then do the leg work of finding these experts, setting up interviews, etc. In my case, more often than not the clients are investment banks or similar who are looking at certain investment opportunities and want to understand the market better.
It’s not a regular gig - it comes in waves and then you typically know something is moving in the market. 1-2 months go by without anything, and then all of a sudden I’ll get 2-3 requests from different firms (typically on a similar topic) in the same week.
Given my seniority and track record of facilitating these request, I now typically command 500-750 CHF for a 1 hour phone conversation.
You just need to be sure that you do not disclose anything confidential or material non-public info.
It’s an easy gig and the money is transferred into your account without any ‘complications’.
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