Ask HN: The case for middle men in freelancing, do agents exist?
As a self-employed senior software developer, I mostly live off selected freelance work, aside from varying income through SaaS products and apps. I get 100% of inbound work through recommendations in my personal network. Because of that, I have never had a rate negotiation, had to pitch my skills or expertise, or bid against others. But, sometimes, I go WEEKS without a single hour billed. Other times, I need to decline two projects at once because I am still knuckle-deep in another one. Which reminded me of "agents" as a concept: I think I would be happy to pay someone a fee for managing inbound work (on my terms). The TV (script or talent) agent model comes to mind: they try to fill up your unbooked time with projects that match your criteria. For each booked gig, they get a fee. Does that exist? Would that even make sense in software development? The main argument against it
Why it failed
As a self-employed senior software developer, I mostly live off selected freelance work, aside from varying income through SaaS products and apps. I get 100% of inbound work through recommendations in my personal network. Because of that, I have never had a rate negotiation, had
- Kind
- startup
- Status
- Shut down
- Inventor
- mittermayr
- Ended
- 2022
- Source
- hackernews