At 12:10 PM 5/26/01 -0700, you wrote:
>I agree that 2.0 is more like it if you plan to make a living at it.  I
also know
>that you have to start somewhere and if you can undercut the competition a
little
>bit, you might start getting your foot in the door and develop a reputation.

It's possible, though competing on price alone is not often a good idea for a
number of reasons. Someone getting started and quoting a high hourly rate with
no portfolio will probably have problems, OTOH, a fixed price that represents
what it would cost to do at $xxx/hour if they had a lot of experience may
translate into a low hourly rate because of all the learning required. Even
something simple like making out an invoice with the proper taxes added
(and remitting them to the appropriate governments) takesa LOT longer for
the first one or tenth one than the 50th one. Preparing a small shipment
takes 1/2 hour rather than a few minutes.. and so on.

I also buy engineering services, and my concerns run along the lines of
"what if I
agree to pay this money out (maybe put a deposit down) and the person just
doesn't come through by the deadline?" "What if they produce something that
looks
good on the surface but is riddled with bugs/errors etc?" (this just happened
to me, I ended up redoing a good part of it myself from scratch to reasonably
meet the customer's expectations). "Are they qualified to do
the job correctly? What degrees (engineering, compsci, etc.) and experience
are
they claiming to have? Are the  claims credible and congruent with their
"appearance"?
How will this person behave if they find they have underbid the project by
50%?
Will they abandon the project; just stop taking my calls and emails
(it's happened), try to work things out with me, or wait till the deadline
(when
my .... are in the wringer) then demand more money, or will they bite the
bullet
and do what they promised (and a bit more) for the price they promised?

>I'm asking cause I really don't know either.  I usually charge for the
product
>itself.  Customer doesn't just want the engineering, they want a product
as well
>(I.E. 250 units).  I add the engineering charges into the product price.
I have
>yet to charge for just engineering alone.

That's generally a good idea, IMHO, but there are a lot of people who want
absolutely nothing to do with the manufacturing and all the associated
costs and
problems, and customers would prefer to subcontract the assembly so they
pay only
once for the engineering, and get the assembly done by a shop with all the
good equipment and so on, or even internally. It's possible to make a living
either way, depends on where you are going what path you take. ;-)

Best regards,

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Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com
Contributions invited->The AVR-gcc FAQ is at: http://www.bluecollarlinux.com
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