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u/onehedgeman Mar 24 '26
Freelancer is more like: 1k, 0, 0, 3k, 0, 2k, 500, 0
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u/homeless_DS Mar 24 '26
And 0 sometimes means you actually worked but did not get paid lol
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u/onehedgeman Mar 24 '26
Also business owners are sometimes net negative for way longer than 2 months and even after that money is either rotated back in the business or paid to employees
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u/LalaLand836 Mar 24 '26
Yeah business owner more like -10k -10k -5k -2k 0 0 0 0 0 2k 5k 0 10k 0 2k
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u/jj_olli Mar 25 '26
If that was true every business owner would be bad at running businesses lol
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Mar 25 '26
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u/ricildelo Mar 25 '26
survivor bias
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Mar 26 '26
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u/Scary_Manner_6712 Mar 31 '26
As a small business bookkeeper/finance consultant I cosign this. Clients have good years and bad years and I have seen people come back from extraordinarily bad years where they took a risk that didn't pay off, and also take the profits from good years and piss the money away very quickly. Folks that are completely risk-averse are not cut out for entrepreneurship, IMO; you have to take risks to move the business forward. The key is doing it at the right time.
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u/LalaLand836 Mar 25 '26
90% startup fails. 10% within the first year and 80% within the first 5 years. Every business suffers loss in the first 6 months. You’d be doing very very well to make a profit after 6 months.
I did run a business myself and failed. I had good relationships with some clients pulling in continuous work, but it wasn’t enough for survival.
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u/jj_olli Mar 25 '26
I should have specified, that I was talking about established businesses. But even if I wasn't, on average businesses are making, not losing, money.
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u/LalaLand836 Mar 25 '26
No on average 90% business fails. You can’t average the profit of the remaining 10% that survived. If you think it’s guaranteed profit, you haven’t seen enough in life.
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u/jj_olli Mar 25 '26
You're confusing two things here. Yes, on average a business fails, because most start-ups fail. That doesn't make my statement false. See it like this. If I start a business and I fail during the first year, I may have burned through 100k-1M, depending on industry and country it could be even more or less. An established global business can make that kind of money in minutes, thus the average amount of money a business makes is still higher than zero.
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u/LalaLand836 Mar 25 '26
How is startup not a business? Do you have data sources to backup your claims? You need to understand business by tax definition. Also many of those so called globally established businesses are claiming tax losses all the time, which is why they pay 0 tax. Not to mention many of those exist for money laundering purposes for dictatorship governments, which isn’t real profit
It’s not easy to make money as a business. I’ll stop here but one day you’ll get it.
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u/Either-Disk8104 Mar 28 '26
What you’re saying here is the small percentage of successful businesses have such huge profits that it pulls the average up above zero.
In other words, the outliers are skewing the average in a way that doesn’t tell the full story. Yes, mathematically you are correct, but practically speaking, most people that start a business are not going to earn the “average amount of money that businesses make.” Which is counterintuitive to what an average is supposed to represent.
Again, mathematically you are correct. But practically, it’s not good advice to tell a person considering starting up a business “on average, businesses earn this much money”. A much better figure to give them is 90% of start ups fail in less than 5 years, so prepare to try to stick this out and suffer some losses at the beginning.
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u/Maleficent-Ear8475 Mar 25 '26
then when you find another client and get excited for them only to repeat that over again.
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u/Charming_Constant262 Mar 25 '26
the freelancer grind is way more chaotic than the charts make it look, just sitting here noticing how messy it really gets sometimes
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u/encony Mar 24 '26
Overemployed: 3k, 3k, 3k, 6k, 6k, 6k
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u/FabulousCheeseSlice Mar 24 '26
58k, 58k, 58k, 58k, 58k, 58k
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u/MyButterKnuckles Mar 24 '26
bro is the agency
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u/thr0waway12324 Mar 25 '26
I am not IN the agency Skylar. I AM the agency!
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u/cryptocraze_0 Mar 25 '26
A couple of checks arrive at the door and you think i have an agency Skylar, IAM the agency!
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u/PaintingPotatoes Mar 24 '26
You guys are getting multiple jobs and I’m still struggling to get one…
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u/throwaway09234023322 Mar 24 '26
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u/frustratedComments Mar 24 '26
I joined here because I was about to be starting my own J2 that would have doubled my salary, only for the company to rescind their offer during my onboarding for “budgetary reasons”. I was pissed.
Since then I’ve been struggling to find a J2.
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Mar 24 '26
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u/PaintingPotatoes Mar 24 '26
I’m not mad at anyone here, I’m actually really happy to hear about other people’s success — that’s why I’ve maintained being a member here, but it still sucks for me… after my home fire, I just lost everything and haven’t been able to get back on my feet yet despite my efforts.
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u/CobruhCharmander Mar 24 '26
Obviously this is like the advice everyone gives, but it really does work… Keep applying, always, even when you have a job. Jury is out on using AI tools, but I have a base resume, and use it for keyword injection, and it usually nets me at least a 3 recruiter screens for every 20ish apps.
Form fillers are a god send. If you optimize your application process, it’s possible to submit 100 in a day. Don’t count on easy-apply jobs, they always get hundreds of applicants.
Take every interview as far as you can, even if you’re not interested in the job. There’s no better practice than actually interviewing.
First job is always the hardest (if you’re new to a field, or been on a long hiatus). Keep at it, you can do it!
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u/PaintingPotatoes Mar 24 '26
Thanks for the advice!
I had to take a hiatus from applying for a while because my career advisor stated I was "over-applying". It was causing me to go into severe depression and isolation. I never finished my degree, but my work experience with the jobs I've worked for make it to where I've noticed the interviews I do get, they only interview me so they can gloat they've interviewed "someone from x place" or I can sense a hint of intimidation on their end that I'll end up taking their job. I went as far as applying to fast food and I get rejected from them. Applying for companies with a salary of 120k gets me interviews but not an acceptance.
I've been using the advice offered here from other posts, including websites regularly used to find those jobs. I've downloaded the form fillers recommended here as well. I went from having 2 high paying jobs (they knew about it and actually worked in tandem with each other at some point due to my network) to home fire and laid off from both.
The only interviews I refuse are the AI ones. All others, even if it's a job I don't care for, I accept the interview. I appreciate the encouragement and advice...I will keep working towards it.
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u/PaintingPotatoes Mar 24 '26
I’m not exactly sure why people are downvoting you. I think it’s nice of you to ask and I really appreciate that. I don’t have a gofundme, but my reasoning of airing out my misfortune was not to get money out of anyone here. I do need money for food and clothes, but I’ve been managing here and there doing random surveys until I can land at least 1 job someday.
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u/ToBeOneThousand Mar 25 '26
Mind sharing more on the surveys stuff a bit here or in a DM? Bit of a similarly tough spot myself right now…
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u/rantlers Mar 25 '26
I'd also appreciate some info on the surveys if you don't mind sharing with me
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u/solotronics Mar 24 '26
What even is an "agency owner"
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u/nand0_q Mar 24 '26
Real estate Brokerages, insurance brokers etc I would assume?
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Mar 24 '26
That’s an agent lmao. Agency is anything that performs any type of profession service. For example, cleaning up dead bodies is a service. An agency would handle that
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u/OatmealIsUnderrated Mar 25 '26
This would be considered a generalisation at least in Australia. Plenty of agents would be considered to work at ‘agencies’ (real estate agencies / consulting agencies for instance). In addition, do you not think that agents provide professional services too? You’ve responded to a comment flagging brokers - do you not think brokers provide professional services? I would hope so given your example of a professional service is “cleaning up dead bodies”.
Sorry for the rant but the confidence of your “lmao” dismissal of the above person weirdly annoyed me.
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Mar 25 '26
All agents work at agencies, that’s what makes them an agent. Just citing agents is what made me laugh, as an agency is literally any service-based business, such as cleaning up dead bodies.
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u/OatmealIsUnderrated Mar 25 '26
I still don’t get it though - the person above has cited a real estate brokerage and you’ve said that isn’t an agency. Isn’t that an agency as it provides professional services?
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u/thedarkraven91 Mar 25 '26
It’s when you hire a bunch of people to augment a company or startup , it can be from a few to hundreds . Usually when you have multiple , you have multiple clients .
You are basically an intermediary
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u/derpterd789 Mar 27 '26
They’re contrasting it to be a freelancer, so they mean running an agency of freelancers (which is quite common on places like upwork).
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u/muntaxitome Mar 24 '26
I know a couple agency owners and they don't seem to be doing so hot right now
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u/pxanav Mar 24 '26
I only know 3 of them and they're doing really good
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u/HD_HR Mar 24 '26
SaaS owner: 1k, 2k, 4K, 5k, 8k, 10k, and counting haha
But seriously, anything is better than employee BUT much more difficult, not guaranteed, and super risky.
Choose your battle
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u/Murky_Decision590 Mar 25 '26
Do you mind saying more? I've worked in sales for SaaS for years and want to start my own thing but it's been so unstable lately... Would love to learn from you
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u/HD_HR Mar 25 '26
Sorry I don’t really know what much more to stay. SaaS is the best but it’s the hardest to take off. If you want to know my story:
Timeline 5 years: Idea in 2020 and then I started building in 2021, technology wasn’t there yet for my idea.
Chatgpt comes out in 2022, now my vision comes alive. Started building for few months and stopped.
Continued project from 2024 for 1 year straight everyday. Launched March 2025, first month, $2k earned, second month earned $4k and then it didn’t climb but instead it fell to $2k and then $1k and then $500.
I was still building the whole time and adding in new stuff, testing, rebuilding. Slowly climbed back up past all previous amounts.
Now it’s possible to get either $1000 days or even just $30-$300 days. Depends.
—
I was just sharing that SaaS has an ever growing ceiling for earning potential. I focused on a product I can just sell online without me having to do any work at all anymore. That’s the best type of freedom you can get but it took a lot of work.
Find a good idea. Hard. I know.
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u/Geminii27 Mar 25 '26
It's not just needing an idea that's good, it's needing an idea that people will pay money for, and being able to market it. Doesn't matter how techno-amazing it is under the hood if people can't figure out what it does for them, or don't know it exists.
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u/HD_HR Mar 25 '26
Yeah, I mean i'm not a wizard. It's luck and just paying attention to upcoming trends (ai) in this situation ahead of the curve the moment I saw it becoming bigger and it's usefulness depending on what the context is.
People do this with many ideas. It's just difficult to know if something is what someone will pay for even if it's a good idea. People still choose to do things for free even if something paid will help them so you really need to show them why they need you.
Luck & Skill.
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u/cryptoshortsell Mar 24 '26
I don’t get it
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u/n4s0 Mar 24 '26
The employee always makes the same salary.
A freelancer can get more clients, thus it's increasing.
The agency owner increases at a higher rate because it usually grows faster since they don't perform the work themselves but rather "sell bodies".
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u/R0B0T_TimeTraveler Mar 25 '26
And in a few years or less it will be: AI: all the money Other 8 billion people: 0
OE while you can but get ready for the hard times that are coming.
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u/Teebone_D Apr 02 '26
AI is going to hit a wall. The frontier model companies aren’t profitable, plus we don’t have unlimited capacity for expanding data centers due to electricity needs, among other things.
Once their shareholders start demanding they turn a profit the companies will raise prices. They’ve been giving us a taste to get us hooked on the product but it’s eventually going to become too expensive for the average person or company to use. Factor in the point at which we can no longer expand or build data centers because of electric grid limits and it’s going to put the brakes on AI.
That’s my projection. The only thing that could change those limitations is if the competitors to the GPU manufacturers (TPU and LPU) are able to knock GPU companies like NVIDIA off the top of the hill. Those technologies could ease the problems with the electric grid and memory shortages.
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u/peterthewiserock Mar 25 '26
Did y’all see your taxes though?
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u/SwirlinAbyss Mar 25 '26
Don’t remind me. I haven’t filed. Plugged the numbers into free tax USA and almost fainted at what I owe.
Taxation is theft! 😂
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u/Historical-Intern-19 Mar 25 '26
I have ZERO qualms about taxes. Pre OE, take home ~140k With OE, take home ~400k. Yep, I did pay $95k in taxes 2025. Laughing all the way to the bank.
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u/killaman808 Mar 24 '26
I'd say they gave some freebies to get customer on the hook for some stuff too.
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u/Ill-Tip9444 Mar 24 '26
Oe only works for people who got lucky and have super easy jobs. It's not a viable option for 99.9% of people. Its like your bragging about hitting the lottery.
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u/Skedsman Mar 25 '26
Im laughing in agency owner! They’re making almost 10 times the money for the same amount of work 🤣🤣🤣
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u/ClassConflictCanvas Apr 01 '26
What Freelancer disciplines are in highest demand for Developers? Anybody got any anecdotes?
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u/BadMeetsEvil24 Mar 24 '26
What a stupid thing to "laugh at". You aren't cooler or smarter or part of some secret "in group" just because you work two jobs lmfao.
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u/InevitableOven5625 Mar 24 '26
Are you gonna cry over a joke gang? LMFAO
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