Veteran shares: The correct way for programmers to take private orders

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First of all, let me make it clear: I am already working in a company and will no longer accept any private orders, so please don’t bother me!

I just graduated in 2013 and worked in a small city that was not even a third-tier city as a .net program developer. I had done Java and C in my internship but not .net and I had no experience with .net in college (there were almost only .net and PHP development jobs in that city), so my salary during the probation period was only pitiful (2500). Why did I go to a small third-tier city? I will cry if I talk too much. I have to rent a house, and there is no public transportation to work. I have never asked my family for a penny since my internship, so I was quite embarrassed there at the beginning. But I still have some basic knowledge of programming. I started working on projects just after working in that company for more than a week. I work six days a week. It is normal to work overtime until 9 o'clock every day, and sometimes until 5 o'clock in the morning. Now I think it's tiring, but it's a fulfilling life.

By chance, someone asked me to build a website for 1,200 yuan, which took me four days to complete. After calculating, I realized that this was much more cost-effective than working, so I simply quit my job and took private jobs. Then I opened a store and advertised on websites such as Zhubajie, and began a rather painful journey of taking orders. I can only say that this kind of Witkey website is really a pitfall. I only made orders of more than 2,000 yuan in *** months. Later, I saw my classmates selling graduation projects on Taobao, so I tried to open a Taobao store to do graduation projects. I didn’t sell ready-made ones, but only customized ones, which cost 400 yuan at the beginning, and more than 1,000 yuan for the more expensive ones. The result was unexpected. I couldn’t finish it at all. I made more than 9,000 yuan in *** months from graduation. On average, I did one graduation project every two or three days? The reason is that the graduation projects I took were all similar, so I developed three or four sets of templates for more than a dozen graduation projects and modified them according to needs. Of course, it was still very tiring to do it for a month. So I only worked on my graduation project for a month, because at this time I had bigger orders coming to me, from some individual entrepreneurs at first, to some outsourcing companies, media companies, and some real estate companies in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Shenzhen. Most of them came to me as a second-hand customer (not a direct customer). From that time on, my income basically stabilized. I packed up my things and went home to connect an Internet cable, and then lived a freelance life. The income was not bad for a year after graduation, until October 2014, when I got tired of it and stopped working because of some things at home!
The process of accepting private orders and points to note

There are many different situations for accepting private orders, and you need to be flexible in different situations. The following are some of the more important ones I think

1. Demand? The demand is the key

In most cases, the requirements raised by customers need to be corrected by our developers, because non-developers don’t understand how the project is implemented. Some things they think are very complicated are actually quite simple in the hands of our programmers. Sometimes they think that simple things are taken for granted, which may be their fantasy or the programmers are very responsible in implementing them, and the development is not worth the effort. So when we take over a project, the demand is not the most important thing, but what is the customer’s demand? We know what the project developed by the customer is used for? What purpose do they hope to achieve? Is the demand solution he gives feasible? Is it feasible? Then is there a better solution? We can’t just complete the tasks given by the superiors like we do at work, but we need to really help customers solve problems, so that customers will stay for a long time.

For example: For example, a customer needs to add a customer service interface in the WeChat public account. In fact, he wants to chat with his users in real time. Users can consult directly. The development of a customer service interface takes time and requires more development funds. Tell the customer that he can actually add a link and chat with him online directly with QQ. This is much more practical and convenient than developing a customer service interface.

2. Design solutions, down to the smallest detail

For customers, many requirements are vague. Sometimes when developing a function, such as a simple shopping system, their requirements will be very simple, and they will also say at the time: "The simpler the better, I don't need anything, just shopping." Then the conversation often becomes like this:

“Do you need a function for users to manage their addresses?”

"Yes...Yes"

“Do you need to develop a shopping cart?”

"Yes...Yes"

“Need to manage product listing and delisting? Product sorting, courier tracking?”

“···”

"Do I need to check orders in my personal center? Do I need to verify my phone number? Do I need XX authorization to log in?"

“···”

“···”

etc.

Therefore, design requirements are not just written for yourself, but also for customers to avoid subsequent development. Otherwise, when you develop according to their needs and release a function, they will say "of course such and such function requires such and such, which goes without saying."

Design every detail and make clear the rules, so that you will be in a good position to deal with him when he asks to add this or that.

3. Money

This is a very troublesome thing. Since Taobao is a virtual transaction, the other party can cancel the contract even if they pay a deposit. Therefore, paying a deposit at most means that he is sincere in developing the product. It does not mean that he does not want it halfway and the deposit will be given to you. This virtual Taobao is very unfair to sellers. I have learned from my own experience that I have encountered people who gave me the program but did not pay for it. Because I was too naive at the beginning, the communication was good, but there was no news after I gave the program. It is said that you should not have the intention to harm others, but you must be on guard against others, especially on the Internet. In many cases, the order amount is not large and there is no contract at all. You can agree with the other party in advance to develop a demo and pay the deposit. If the other party does not want it, the deposit will not be returned. Anyway, I have suffered a lot of losses.
What did you gain from taking private orders?

To complete a private order, you need to communicate with the customer and understand the user's needs; you need to design a reasonable plan and implement it yourself; deploy the project, and then you need post-maintenance management. This is a complete process. In this process, we are not just programmers. We do planning, programming, implementation, and operation and maintenance. Although the project is small, it is very helpful for programmers to actually develop, allowing us to consider issues more comprehensively.
Of course I don't recommend taking private orders

Why?

Free but not comfortable. From time to time you will receive calls from clients in the middle of the night or on some comfortable mornings, and there will always be various questions. It is boring. The longer you work and the more experience you get, the more you think the clients are stupid. For many requirements, I know what they want as soon as they say the first sentence, and then I impatiently tell them that this or that is better, or that your way is simply not feasible and cannot be achieved, etc., and there are many repetitive things in the project, which is very boring. There is no improvement, I have trapped myself in it, and I have no time to settle myself. After working for a year, I have indeed gained something, but my skills have not been substantially improved. I am completely out of track with the workplace. There are no like-minded people around me, and those who are there are all online. My work and rest time is also chaotic...