April 14, 2019

What's better: Offer myself as Person or Company ?

Hi Indie Hackers.
I am working on Full-Stack Developer Job Board as a side project ( https://fullstackjob.com ).
Until brings some significant income after 5 years as employee I want to go back to be my own boss, as I was for over 15y before.
Now I have a question to you guys... Do you think it's better to offer my self as a person or as a company. I have a company page ( https://altafino.co.uk ) which is "impersonal". I will offer myself mainly as Full-Stack Dev/Software Engineer. How you guys do ? "As a Person" or "As a Company" way ?

  1. 3

    Your own person. Definitely. Many companies don't like hiring entrepreneurs. They're bad bets for the long term. (As you just confirmed).

    1. 1

      Ok, i think it really makes sense even that there are also customers trusting more in companies for same reason. Most of them coming from some bad experiences with "Freelancer = Free as a bird"-type.

      But I agree with you and other commenters, that it's most probably easier to earn trust as a person then a new, unknown company. I have over 25 years of experience to show up, the "company" not.

  2. 2

    100% as a person

  3. 2

    Definitely person. Being authentic goes a long way!

  4. 2

    Nope you gotta be honest..Sooner or later your client would know that you are posing as a company and than there will be a trust issue.

    1. 1

      good point yes, trust is easier lost as earned

  5. 2

    I would go with a personal brand so you can position yourself as a highly paid contractor (unless you want to go into consulting). I think this will be easier because then people will see you as a solution to their problems rather than pure labor - so you don't have to compete on price.

    1. 1

      To tweak @genemachine 's answer I'd say neither.

      Position yourself as a solution to a painful problem of a specific group of people. Whether the brand is a company brand or personal brand won't matter if you pick out a good painful problem to solve.

    2. 1

      Explication makes much sense. Was not even thinking on that point of view. Thanks :-)

  6. 1

    Did some update on https://altafino.co.uk , adding a about me page, going in direction of "personal offer".

    Thinking in doing a new page with some personal domain. let's see...

  7. 1

    Hi to @all which gave me a answer.

    Even that the "poll" is not representative, 100% giving same vote say's something and will for sure influence my way a lot.

    Thanks Guys