/biz/ - Business & Finance

[Anonymous No.28365950]

i used to build custom software for small businesses before coronavirus. now i make 3x more working a w2 software job

ask me anything? i will drop some stories here about my motley bunch of customers who i genuinely feel bad for because they lost everything in 2020

[Anonymous No.28366164]

>>28365950
My main customer was an auto repair garage that was grossing over 1M a year USD, with a revolving door of employees. The system I built for them was a simple database of orders/cars/receipts/photos that they needed to keep for tax and legal reasons. I also built them a cool little dispatch system but probably whatsapp group chat would be much better for this purpose.

They were always getting fucked by taxes, surprise government inspections, and deadbeat customers. I don't know how that place didnt close down but they reliably paid me $300 a month

[Anonymous No.28366415]

>>28366164
my second customer was a very very small oil delivery business that was trying to compete with larger oil delivery businesses. They literally only needed excel for their workflow, but their night crew was a bunch of old men who were scared of computers, so i wrote them a custom front end with big buttons so that data entry would be a little less painful

that business was actually doing pretty well because the local oil delivery business had a good habit of not delivering to their customers and nearly freezing them to death, and then sending them a large bill if the customer tried to break their "contract". actual scumbags

[Anonymous No.28366501]

What is this?
An actual business thread on /biz/?

>>28365950
>w2 software job
What is this?
Do you mean a "real" job that gives you a W2 every year?

>ask me anything?
How would you maintain the software you'd sell?
>$300 a month
Is it like, customers would pay you per month to keep the shit you built for them running?

[Anonymous No.28366633]

>>28366415
my third customer was a restaurant that wanted me to replace their CRM system. this is actually quite hard to do because you have to integrate with a ton of other systems and the competition is disgustingly fierce. i never collected much money from these guys and coronavirus raped their business. i think theyre still open but only taking phone orders. the guys that worked their phones are like incredibly efficient demons that can do everything with pen and paper. in fact the whole restaurant is run by pen and paper, from receipts to inventory to payroll. im sure their account loves that???

[Anonymous No.28367070]

>>28366501
imagine getting real useful information from biz of all places!

>w2 software job
yeah i basically shut down my LLC because all of my customers folded up or stopped answering the phone and I was finally able to like swallow my pride and do what was necessary to talk my way into a job at a middle tier software company and work a real job with salary and insurance. the coding was easy but my resume is shit

>maintain the software
everything i wrote was html css js and node, so i never had to worry about like complex moving parts that "enterprise" software has. if a customer had a problem with a system, i would just teamviewer into the desktop it ran on or would drive by there. but it was all very basic CRUD and file system stuff

>payment structure
yes i was basically charging $300 to handle all things tech related. i tried to position myself as much cheaper than an employee and much cheaper than paying for solutions from a brand name. i also desperately needed business so i did everything post paid, like, i set it all up first and then asked for payment after they were happy

[Anonymous No.28367309]

>>28366633
all in all i think its very hard to make a living like this. i wasnt married at the time and didnt worry about health insurance. but now im married and my wife likes expensive things so I have to have the job that society expects me to have. im getting fucked pretty good right now when applying for mortgages, so it looks like we'll be living in apartments until i have more "legit" work experience on paper. it's horrible that i have the downpayment but not the work history on paper

however i think this business model would work good for mechanics because you can just do everything under the table and just sell the cars as you fix them

[Anonymous No.28367641]

>>28367070
How do you like your new job?

For your former clients.. is there off-the-shelf software that they could have used instead?

Just about everything is software-based these days. Back when I could actually go to restaurants, half the time the hostess would poke at a tablet to figure out where to seat me. I see that and think that they must have bought or be paying monthly for some restaurant management software that runs on iPad.

Or like, when I get my car serviced. I get text messages and a link to a webpage with recommendations and pictures and stuff.

>have the downpayment
If you can come up with a downpayment most banks will be delighted to sell you a mortgage.

[Anonymous No.28368035]

>>28367641
idk wtf it is with my downpayment, i literally have 200k which is like 30% of what were trying to buy, but they want to see 2 full years of w2 experience and nothing less ugh. we cant use my wife's income because it's from a different state too. and this is like the 3rd broker we went through the process with

yes, there are a lot of solutions out there for almost every industry. and what's worse is theyre all really cheap up front, like $79 a month for the food based ones. but the systems are actually hard to use for the boomers i service, and things are always bugged out and fucked up with things like toast and square and shopmonkey

so i try to come in as the local guy who wont screw them over with long contracts or fake support lines that dont fix the problem

pretty much everything could be accomplished with linux/windows and libreoffice though if they wanted to put the time in to learn it themselves

[Anonymous No.28368822]

>>28368035
>200k
>30%

If your down payment is less than 20% of the property value, most lenders require private mortgage insurance. You might find a lender more apt to give you a mortgage with less down so they can add on PMI.

Being able to see two years of real work experience is reasonable though. Did you not file taxes when working for yourself?

[Anonymous No.28368994]

>>28365950
Howd you approach these businesses to get you to make shit for them?
Just cold drop by asking them what you can do for them?

[Anonymous No.28369325]

>>28368822
i paid myself through LLC distributions, but what's worse is that there are "classifications" for the "role" that you worked in. technically i was a "manager" of an LLC and not a "software engineer" during that time. but im trying to find shadier mortgage brokers who have that easy come easy go money, instead of fucking wellsfargo

>>28368994
yeah these guys are so goddamn busy and constantly just trying to survive that you have to walk into their shop and show no fear. just spend 5 mins explaining that you helped the guy down the street and that you are no different from them, not trying to fuck anybody over. usually they dont call back but i stress to them that i dont ask for payment until theyre happy with everything up and running

one guy didnt pay me all summer but by winter time he had some money for me

[Anonymous No.28369681]

>>28369325
I admire and respect your entrepreneurial spirit.
Best of luck to you!

[Anonymous No.28370277]

>>28369681
thanks brother, same to you :)

[Anonymous No.28370369]

>>28370277
So basically if you want a mortgage you have no choice but to be a wagecuck?

[Anonymous No.28370470]

>>28370369
yeah unless you have a big downpayment and want to do an ARM mortgage with a hefty interest rate

[Anonymous No.28370557]

>>28370470
>literally entire system top to bottom is built solely to keep people enslaved
God bless USA

[Anonymous No.28370565]

>>28370369
>>28370470
or if you got a rich jew cosigner grandpa hahahh

[Anonymous No.28370765]

>>28370557
yeah its pretty busted, but it should be said that if you have a wife that doesnt have expensive tastes and will let you fix the house yourself, then you can probably afford to buy it all cash. but most areas are really dangerous and niggerish

[Anonymous No.28371099]

nice bread op
pretty based
i'm 27 and graduated cs last spring right into covid, and i haven't been able to get an entry level dev job.
luckily prior to covid i had talked my way into doing something similar to this >>28366415 for a local retail shop. i also run their wordpress site for them. they do about 2 mil a year in sales and i charge them 1k a month. no one in their shop knows anything about computers or ecommerce.

before covid happened i thought i could get a couple more customers and have this be a sustainable business that i could run from a poor but warm country, but now it looks like i'm ngmi off tech or crypto or freelance. prob kms

[Anonymous No.28371981]

>>28371099
big up bro, lot of respect to you trying to make it work out there

ive found that the entry level jobs are more competitive than experienced ones. a lot of resume faking happening. i saw at a big tech company 2000 people applied and only 2 got the offer. i saw the internal system!