My aim with Chobble was to do the work I love - building cool things with software / technology - but in a way that aligned with my inner anarchist spirit. This means:
- No contracts
- Fair and transparent pricing
- Open source
- No working for bad guys
It has worked out reasonably well so far. I've earned a pittance compared to my income for an American tech company, but I expected to be skint for at least a few years. I'm at least earning enough now that I'm burning through my savings pretty slowly.
In the time between paid work I've been improving the core platforms that my code runs on and trying to SEO my own business. The SEO is not paying off - nearly all of my work has been from word of mouth. Annoyingly, my SEO is working great for my customers! But they're selling less niche things than I am.
I've turned down a few well-paying jobs cause of conflicts with my principles - often because releasing the work as open source was a deal-breaker. But I have spent too much of my career writing code that now belongs to someone else! Open source really has no risk for the average business - a savvy person can copy your work anyway, especially in the era of AI. But for whole ecosystems the benefits of collaborating on a platform together are mega.
I have learned a lot in the last year. Basically every day has been figuring out some new thing - whether that's something technical like streamlining something for my customers, or something business'y like getting my public liability insurance sorted or automating my financials - it's been a lot to take in.
And I've had some really good reviews and feedback! I've got a wee group of customers now who get a lot of one-on-one support with their sites and software and they understand where I'm coming from and are really happy with the work I've done for them and happy to pay me for it, it's very satisfying and nourishing.
When I first started freelancing I thought I'd give myself a year to see how it was going and then evaluate whether I should try and get a cushdy PAYE job again. I'm chuffed to feel like that'd be a really silly idea and that I should definitely keep plugging away with Chobble. It might not be paying the megabucks, and maybe it never will, but it's good fun and I like it.
<3
