New best story on Hacker News: Ask HN: What mistakes did you make when starting as a consultant/freelancer?

Ask HN: What mistakes did you make when starting as a consultant/freelancer?
549 by kartickv | 257 comments on Hacker News.
What was the specific mistake, what did you learn from it, and how did you change the way you do business as a result? For example, I was told by someone who started a project without taking an advance, only for the client to decide not to pay. So he now refuses to take on a project without at least 30% advance. What lessons did you learn the hard way? I'm setting up my own consulting practice: kartick.org and would like to learn from other people's mistakes rather than repeating them myself.

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