Something that doesn’t get talked about enough is how much money do you need to become an Indiehacker?

Well here’s what my own finances looked like when I went all-in…

A thread 1/n

2/n

Kudos to @jrleonr for sharing a vulnerable post on IH.

Personally I don’t think $12,000 is enough financial cushion to go all-in, start an idea from scratch and get to ramen-profitability. It’s just too short of a

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Here’s how much money I saved up over years of corporate work in order to take the plunge and go indie: $200,000

For context, I’m 40, single and had worked my way into quite senior positions by the tail end of my employment.

4/n

$200,000 was enough cushion for me to work on my own projects for years without drastically changing my lifestyle too much. In retrospect, I think I gave myself too much of a cushion. I basically played around for a year before getting really serious...

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...but on the other hand, trying to stretch too small amount a money to the point where it drastically downgrades your lifestyle, affects the people you love and creates a constant atmosphere of anxiety is also counter-productive.

Pricing freelancing projects.

Everything I've learned.

A thread.

Having one pricing strategy that you can apply to every real-world engagement is often a fallacy.

Learn these pricing methodologies:

- Hourly billing
- Daily billing
- Retainers
- Fixed-pricing
- Value-based pricing

Understand their pros and cons.

Understand your circumstances.

Understand the project.

Choose appropriately.

Charging by the hour doesn't work in favour of freelancers.

If you need to use it to get started,

Stop using it as soon as you can.

Hourly billing is by far the worst pricing methodology to use for profit.

What if you could buy a Small Business with no debt or capital?

Here I'll detail the unusual buyout structure I used:

1/20. Democracy is precious and exceptional.

2/20. Democracy is undone from within rather than from without.

3/20. The occasion to undo democracy is often an election.

4/20. The mechanism to undo democracy is usually a fake emergency, a claim that internal enemies have done something outrageous.

5/20. A tyrant cares about his person, not the Republic.

Dear fellow musicians, performers, technicians etc. Here’s a thread about how our lives are going to change re touring/working in the EU in 50 days time. Think of it as a kind of Bad News Advent calendar. Here goes 1/

First things first, you’ll need a passport with at least 6 months left on it. And you’ll need full travel/third party/health insurance, since if you get ill or have an accident every penny of your care will have to be paid for 2/

To work or do a gig you’re going to need a work visa, just like you do for the USA. But here’s the thing. Work permits & visas and the conditions attached are a matter not for the EU but for the member states themselves 3/

Yes, every member state controls who comes in and who doesn’t and what the rules will be for work and residency. It’s almost as if the Brexiters have been lying about this ALL ALONG. EU members CONTROL THEIR OWN BORDERS 4/

So you’ll need to get a work permit for every country you’re intending to work or gig in and the rules are often different, as are the rules on eg taxation of that work (eg Spain has a withholding tax, France does not) 5/

I want to tell you a short story about a man named Joshua Abraham Norton. Born in 1818 and a resident of the city of San Francisco, CA. Joshua Norton in 1859, declared himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States.

In 1819 he sent out a letter to many newspapers, which several of them printed. It read:

> At the peremptory request and desire of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton... declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these United States.

He held no formally recognized powers, he decreed that elected officials assemble at a music hall to "remedy the evil." He wanted to clear Congress and abolish it as it stood for "fraud and corruption prevent a fair and proper expression of the public voice."

He spent time inspecting the streets of San Francisco in an elaborate uniform, given to him by officers of the United States Army. He doted the city, examining the condition of the sidewalks and cable cars and the state of public affairs.

When a man sent his private security guards to arrest him, the citizens were outraged. Scaring editorials were written in the newspapers defending him, proposing he was more defensible than the other men of his time.

The official police issued a formal apology.