So, we’ve been debating Men with Pens this week on the topic of how much it costs to start and run a freelance business. I love the fact that after we named our post “The Cost of Freelancing,” James went ahead and named his “The True Cost of Freelancing.” Competitive much?
What Did You Have to Say?
Anyway, there have been some really good discussions sparked by the debate, both in the comments here and over at their blog.
Some folks see things the way Tamara and I do:
Annette Elton has first-hand experience starting a freelancing business with nothing more than a website and an Elance account.
Tony Lawrence also has some experience bootstrapping, although he points out that it shouldn’t be a way of life.
Genesis Davies started freelancing by spending $1 an hour at an internet cafe!
Others feel that it takes more to be successful:
Heidi Blodgett is investing over time to allow her to make the leap from her day job.
Heike Miller is finding that it’s much more expensive to become a virtual assistant than he originally expected.
Trish Lambert feels like we need to get rid of the “starving artists” metaphor once and for all.
Some saw both sides of the story:
Laura Spencer notes that while it may not be totally cheap to run a freelance business, it beats the pants off of working for The Man.
Graham Strong also weighed out some pros and cons, citing that a freelance business is inexpensive to start, but there are some other benefits (and drawbacks) to working from home.
John Hewitt points out that you can get started on the cheap, but that it’s really a lot easier if you’ve got some cash to back you up.
A whole lot of the arguments we wanted to make were already brought up in the comments sections on both blogs, but we’re going to go ahead and make them anyway. After all, we started this thing, it seems only right we’d be bull-headed enough to make you listen to the rest of our thoughts, eh? So, what follows on the next page is the rest of our side of things.