Anybody here self employed?

[Blighter]

I'm thinking of starting up a business in the evenings and weekends setting up CMS-based websites, along with social media/marketing for small, local businesses (pubs, hairdressers, the like).

Does anybody here have any experience working for themselves and want to give any tips/pointers?

The main point I can't quite decide on is pricing. There are a few local web designers but I'll be setting up a CMS (wordpress/etc) and a theme for them and maintaining it - not creating a full website from scratch (which I guess is where I can afford to undercut the others).
Also social marketing (Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/Foursquare as well as Google Maps listings)... what would you want to pay someone to do that for you?


:)

If you want you can check out the three sites it progress:

Main: http://www.redmoosemedia.co.uk
e-commerce demo: http://ecomdemo.redmoosemedia.co.uk
basic site demo: http://demo.redmoosemedia.co.uk

[Jingo]

I can't really offer any help or advice whatsoever on your field of work, but if you have any questions on being self-employed then I could certainly try to help where relevant.

My general pointer would be to record and maintain records of everything you do; having such information to hand is incredibly useful when dealing with clients on the phone, checking/reviewing information without wasting time, and then relating information for more 'official' purposes such as tax-returns etc.

[Joe 90]

I work under an umbrella, so thought I might be able to offer some advice, but perhaps not.

I do however work with guys who write software for HMRC and had a heads up a while back about changes which I think have been made public now with regards to changes to tax small (single person) businesses pay. In 2013 its meant to get a lot worse for companies operating with a single employee. I don't know the specifics though, but its probably something you'll want to look at.