You are making a huge mistake assuming that everyone has ability to tell a mediocre from a 10x engineer, which is patently false assumption to begin with.
Market has information asymmetry baked in. Not everyone is informed, that's where you earn your bucks.
1. Get foot in the door. Bid lowest and touch the codebase, oh now it's dirty and you've access to their secret.
Tell them, oh it's dirty code - it's unmaintainable crap. I quoted you the wrong rate, to deal with this I'll need $500 per hour I've other contracts waiting for me. But yeaa this is something which I had done last month for a different client. Now, I am busy, so just drop me a line on whatsapp if you don't find anyone else to do it. Leave this, "Anyone who can really do, will charge at-least 2x of what I am quoting"
2. Wait
3. Wait
4. You get the contract.
Don't regret for the ones who never get back to you, you'll make plenty from the one who tickle you the second time!
At $500/hr even if you are not the expert of the task you are undertaking, you'll find plenty of people on upwork to do it for 100-200/hr. Why? Those people just want to talk with a technical person who has clearly defined the scope of work! Most of those people are technically good from Russia.
You sound like the type who makes contracting and consulting so much harder for everyone else, because you exploit your clients ignorance and trust for your own personal gain.
Ironically, you'd make a lot more in the long run if you had a more long-term outlook instead of being so transactional.
I don't force them to make any decision. How am I exploiting them?
You're entering into an agreement in bad faith, intending to alter the terms of the agreement once they're more committed and at a disadvantage.
Additionally, you're blatantly lying about your skill level, how long something will take, and the state of the market, in the hopes that you can find a sucker every now and then who will believe you.
This is fraud, pure and simple.
Imagine you hire a contractor to remodel your bathroom for $10k. As soon as they demo the bathroom, they lie and say they found a bunch of unexpected issues that will cost $50k to fix, and that anyone else who knows what they're doing will cost at least $100k, when the reality is that anyone honest would be able to just do the original job for $10k.
Sure, many people see through this ruse and will tell them to get lost and hire someone else (or at least get more bids), but some won't, and that's what the bottom-feeders who pull this shit are counting on.
Most people end up with less money, not because they lack skill but because they've not used their skill at the right place at right time.
Of course, and I regularly advise freelancers and contractors to charge more and to charge for value, not for time.
But that's distinct from lying to your clients and finding ways to put them in disadvantageous positions where you can exploit them. That's short-term scammer thinking.
For the record, I regularly make an effective hourly rate of more than $500 / hr, although I never charge hourly.
Here's the ethical win-win way to get to the same (or better result) vs. what you're doing:
1. First, establish some expertise and credibility in a particular space. You don't have to be the best in the world, but you need some results to show how you can solve a client's business problems in a particular area. The more expensive / valuable those problems are, the better.
2. Find clients who have that problem and give them a quote based on the value that you're adding, not the time that you're investing.
3. Over time, you can optimize, outsource, automate, and eliminate the work that you need to do in order to deliver that value, while simultaneously charging more as your expertise and credibility grows. This drives your effective hourly rate up on two factors.
The end result is that you can get a client who will hire you for $50k to do something worth $250k to them that will take you 100 hours ($500 / hr effective) and at the end, you'll both walk away happy, increasing the likelihood that you'll work together again in the future.
It's more work, but pays off better in the long run. Plus the side benefit of making you seem and feel like less of a scummy fraudster.
Both of you guys are posting from your real accounts a politically correct statement but you guys have showed no evidence that your method is really the superior one.
People at exon, large banking companies, stock brokers can make promises and a consultant/contractor can't change his mind?
No body cares about building sustainable business, most just want enough cash to retire peacefully.
Both of you guys are posting from your real accounts a politically correct statement but you guys have showed no evidence that your method is really the superior one.
Nor have you. Feel free to post your results and the amazing, rich, fulfilling lifestyle you've built for yourself.
It's telling that you had to post this from a throwaway. I don't blame you; I certainly wouldn't want my clients knowing I was defrauding them the way that you are.
I'm actually skeptical that you've even gotten this to work to any degree. I'm sure you've fooled a few people, but the jump to $500/hr is so huge and transparently exploitative that only the most naive of clients would be fooled. My guess is that you're struggling to make this work but you think it's the only way, which is sad.
People at exon, large banking companies, stock brokers can make promises and a consultant/contractor can't change his mind?
Unclear on what you're trying to say here, but the bottom line is that you're not changing your mind. You're lying to the client upfront so you can exploit them later.
No body cares about building sustainable business, most just want enough cash to retire peacefully.
Not true at all, and it's sad that you see the world this way, as a battle between success and ethics. Many (but not all) of the most successful people I know have a very high standard of integrity for themselves and others. None of them engage in the kind of fraud that you're espousing.
