dmd149
Joined 16 years ago
Karma
421
Submissions
204
Member since
Jan 15
Recent submissions
Comment · 2 years ago
Comment · 3 years ago
If you’re solely in the defense contracting space for the money, there are easier paths to take.
1. Get job at a defense contractor, get a high level clearance
2. Be invaluable to your government client. Tech skills are good but also having a good relationship with the client and having an eye for business needs is even better. The bar is low here.
3. Once you’re invaluable become an independent sub-contractor. Can flip your job or find another gig and collect most of the bill rate. If you make 150k you could bill between between 120 and 180 per hour likely.
4. Get your prime contractor to sponsor your company for a facility clearance.
5. As vacancies on the contract come up, hire people in your network. On a straight time and material contract you can probably make around $40k-$60k per person.
6. When you have a big enough company you can bid on smaller contracts and become a prime.
If you’re interested I wrote a book on the first phase of this plan (becoming an independent contractor). Currently have 6 employees and a business partner. Working on growing it so I don’t have to billable work anymore.
1099fedhub.com
Comment · 3 years ago
For a niche book, self publishing and distributing it yourself seems to yield the better return. Combined with a higher price point, you can "earn back" any money you invested much faster.
- I have sold about 50 books at a $100 price point. - My cost to drop-ship print and ship, transacation fees, sales tax, etc. cost about $25 - This leaves $75 gross profit / book, or a 75% gross margin - Gross profit over 1.5 years has been about $3750 - I have spent about $2000 for someone to help with generating the PDF, Shopify Fees, ConvertKit e-mail sub-scription, etc. - This leaves me about $1750 so far in profit.
The amount is trivial, but here are the other potential benefits, both from a monetary and non-monetary perspective
- It was a lot of fun to write the book. Writing a daily newsletter for marketing purposes is also fun - There is still a decent amount of financial potential. I can see a path to selling 10 books a month in the near future, and maybe 50 books a month in the medium term. A few thousand per month in side income would be cool! - It's fun talking to readers - I could see this turning the book into an online course or something - I'm learning some new skills (next task is to tinker with LinkedIn advertising) - Very rewarding to get positive feedback
Overall selling a book online feels much more rewarding than billing another hour to my clients, even though I'd have to sell like 2 books an hour to match the money.
But, I'd also caution I probably wouldn't have written the book if I didn't get a sense that I could make a significant amount of money. Writing into the void is the most frustrating thing for a writer. So I also mitigated the risk by writing a guest post on a few relevant websites and asked people to e-mail me if they were interested in an "upcoming book" on the topic. I got about 20 or so e-mails before I decided to write it. Small number, but enough to make the time investment.
In case you're interested, book link below:
Going 1099: How to become a solo federal sub-contractor and gain control of your working life, earn more money, and unlock more free time
Comment · 3 years ago
Ambitious and cool project! Over my head as I’m not a coder but I think one bullet you should emphasize is the impostor syndrome part. I think that would resonate strongly.
You might like Rob fitzpatrick’s write useful books:
He takes a very product development focused approach to book writing (he wrote the mom test book) and discusses how to find beta readers and such.
Best of luck!
Comment · 3 years ago
Thanks for the kind words!
I’m a bit allergic to marketing that tries to cover up weaknesses and I feel much better just telling the truth. Then people can make their own decision.
As far as the price I agree it is premium but with such a niche audience and focused value proposition I thought it was worth it.
It is a barrier for some though but no one who was initially worried about the price and then bought it regretted it.
What’s the topic of your book?
Comment · 3 years ago
Yea I've learned when people have a specific problem they want the solution now and appreciate when they don't have to dig to find it.
Comment · 3 years ago
Some do! But the more typical route is people find me through a few articles I wrote for another website (job boards for folks with security clearances).
I tried Google ads but the terms I wanted to use had such low volume that I literally got 0 traffic from those.
Comment · 3 years ago
I self-published a book about becoming a solo 1099 federal sub-contractor.
It's about 60,000 words, full of typos, has a boring cover, and is on an ugly looking shopify site. Oh, and it costs $100.
BUT, I knew if I waited to catch all the typos, add in additional material that would be useful but not necessary, and build a beautiful website, it would never launch.
So I published it and just mentioned on the website that you shouldn't buy it for all the reasons I listed above and described exactly what was in it.
I've only sold about 50, but the feedback is good and already people are implementing the strategies and techniques in the book with successful results.
If you have something of value to offer, it's also easy to forget that someone else is potentially NOT getting that value now if you decide to perfect it and keep procrastinating on launching it.
The "About the book" page is below in case you want to see how I described the book and all its flaws:
Comment · 3 years ago
I started off as a soloist in the government contracting space which is a bit of a different beast.
But, I would focus on business development efforts where you have a good existing relationship with the customer and if possible, the person who had enough pull to make the admin weenies and middle management bring you on.
In government consulting, that would be the program manager for the contractor.
I’d also focus my efforts on companies that have previously brought on independent consultants. In your case maybe web development agencies. They will take a cut, but you can use that to get relationships with the end clients too.
You might want to do a little business admin like form an LLC and such but prioritize getting leverage via relationship building with potential clients and identifying companies that you know work with soloists.
If you happen to get in the government contracting world I wrote a book on the topic. A few people who are not I. The industry have found it useful for general freelancing/consulting advice as well.
Comment · 3 years ago
I’ve been working for myself in the government contracting industry. Started off with a job, switched to 1099 sub-contracting, and now still bill myself out with a few employees.
If you have tech skills and a clearance you could probably bill around 200/hour for full time work which would be pretty healthy income.
Edit: article I wrote about the topic:
https://blog.clearedjobs.net/leveraging-your-clearance-to-be...
Comment · 3 years ago
I work in the cleared DoD contracting space with my own small biz. If you’re even a little better than those other guys just sitting around doing nothing, you should go out on your own as a 1099.
Feel free to ping me [email protected] if you’re curious about going down that path.
One way to “get around” this is work it as a 1099, charge a high bill rate, and then just work less overall.
But, if you’re trying to move outside of a major contracting area like DC, youre probably better off just getting a remote private sector job.