yscodes

I'm in the last year of my Informatics Masters at a reputable European university (QS top 50 international).

I'm interested in moving to the US (West coast!) next Summer to do my Masters Thesis at some company there, and potentially get a full time position as a software engineer after graduation. I'm fairly confident in my abilites as a developer and software engineer with a solid CS foundation, so I'm not worried about that part.

As for my motivations, here are the main: - explore opportunities & get experience - make more money than I could here in Europe, for the same kind of work (yes I know the living costs are higher but not crucially it seems to me) - get to know US and its people (yes I know there seem to be higher crime rates in the west but idc) - prove my abilities to myself

I'm just seeking advice on how to best skew the odds in my favor and where/how to best start going about it.

What would be the best way to go about doing that? Has anybody here pulled that off and how?

With my first client I immediately got my second one and so I am starting to think: What's the true HN-way (i.e. best way) to manage all the increasing client data, invoices, monthly payments, track and archive everything important etc in a structured, organised manner?

Do you use common tools? Do you write your own tools? Do you use MS Excel? Is a single text file enough?

What's the way

I have been working on an app for 2+ years now (not continuously), planning to do the Show HN this year and eventually, possibly, turn it into a SaaS.

I am very new to this sort of thing and don't expect too much from it. Whilst thinking about it I was curious: What are some SaaS that were tried out, looked good on paper, were actually launched - but somehow never took off?

The goal here is to try and take away some lessons as to what caused those SaaS to "fail", that a new launcher like myself could take heed.

So as it turns I am about to get my first client as a freelancer. Nothing too big, it's a small but successful business who want a new website (their current one looks like your average 90s family business site). My family and I have been long-term customers of theirs so that's how this came about.

Now it seems like a very, very common theme among freelancers - I've read this over and over again in many different places and from people of various fields - that thinking back to their first customer they believe they massively undersold their services.

The naive fool that I am I would like to try and avoid that "mistake" while also not wanting to appear like I'm only out for the money (which I'm not). My focus is obviously first and foremost to deliver a top-notch service but I would also like to get the pricing right. So how do I go about doing that? I am in Germany if it matters.

My own idea so far is to say my work is worth 40€/hour and it will take me maybe 40 hours to do the job so 40€*40 = 1600€. Then I'd give like a 25% discount as a gesture of friendship and make it 1200€ but doesn't that still seem ... like a bit too much? Or am I falling for that trap... ? I wish I knew.

What were some side projects of yours that you deep down knew nobody would deem very valuable yet kept spending quite some time on?

And do you regret those endeavours?