Detailed Notes
Turn your side hustle into a thriving business with this complete side hustle finances playbook. Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche share proven steps to keep cash flowing, avoid tax headaches, and get paid faster.
✅ Separate business and personal accounts ✅ Use the right invoicing tools and payment methods ✅ Protect your cash flow and avoid hidden fees ✅ Create contracts that guarantee payment
Listen now and master the money side of your side hustle.
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Transcript Text
[Music] You know, one of the things I was thinking about during the bonus, but we already ramble on was code reviews. one of the number one contentious things out there for developers. It is, but you know, I've been in some places where they're not. It's like it is and I'm probably one of the worst and it's not because of my code being like me being tied to my code, but it's just because I'm like get it done. I'm like, I don't want to duplicate this anymore. I want to have this test done and be move on to the next one. And so my like get it done attitude and just like move is probably one of the most pain in the ass things for people that are dealing with a code review cuz and it frustrates me because I'll be like ah I forgot that and I'd like you know or I missed that thing or whatever it is. So >> but that's the whole thing though. I mean because code reviews are about keep holding everyone accountable to standards and if you don't hold them to standards it things fall apart. So, >> I'm telling you, this is like a I know I'm cutting you off. I'm sorry. Like, but um I've been thinking about I've been playing around with these all these ideas and and looking at stuff on this like vibe coding and stuff like that. I was actually talking to somebody today that is a a non-technical person and they're trying to do vibe coding to solve some of their problems and they're like sort of they're they do web design and development stuff like that. So, they're like sort of but not full developer level. they're more like CSS and make stuff pretty with the tools that are there. I was talking about that and said they got to a point where it just it wasn't working. And it's interesting because to me I think the vibe coding thing is actually a great way to practice code reviews is because what you're going to do is basically what you should be doing as a manager. You're going to say go build this thing and then you're going to go take that stuff and go okay this is where it's wrong. This is where it's wrong. Change this. Change that. Move this around. Adjust this. Do those things. It's all code review. And if you don't do it, if you don't review it, if you don't test it, then stuff's going to break and things going to be horrible. And uh it it really is a good way to get you in the habit of looking at stuff. And I for me, it's getting me in a habit, too, of just like, okay, I'm going to take this thing, it's not right, and I'm going to go, you know, set it aside, go fix it, and then pull it back in. As opposed to um bigger, you know, bigger things. And I know like code reviews in particular like the very big ones where you just got too much um or it's just not like that like you said I think the worst ones is when somebody and I hate it when I do it to myself when somebody reformats stuff and then the next thing you know it's like everything's like everything changed you're like well screw it okay it must work you know or something like that or you spend forever walking through doing a code review and that's not horrible but it's like when you're also a developer when you've also got other tasks to do It can it can be a pain and I that is something um I think it's important that um this one of the things that I worked with with my guys was what um what should we put into a code review because they're sitting there and they're like they're not s you know they're not the most senior developer or something like that but so initially they're like well I don't know if that's even part of my job it's like well definitely it is you've been invited to a code review, you should. And then they were and we talked about like the value in it that you're going to learn stuff, but you can also teach stuff. You know, there's going to be things you're going to know about the application, about the code, stuff like that that other people won't. So, there's going to be valid there value in that. Um there's sometimes you're going to have a different approach. You're going to be like, hey, why didn't we do that? Sometimes it's great. Sometimes it's going to educate you, sometimes them. But then the other thing was like, how much time? They're like, should we, you know, should it take me a minute to get through code review? should it take me 10 minutes to get through a code review? And we we had some discussions about that about like well this is what a code review should look like. This is and the answer is yes. It could be any one of those. It depends on what you're reviewing and how complex it is and and things like and then honestly how right the code is because if you have stuff that's doing something really weird or really out there then sometimes it's going to take longer because you're going to have to research it and all of that goodness. So, all right, let's dive into this will be interesting. Accounting tips for side hustles, how to manage invoicing and billing like a pro. Uh, which once again, it's like great title. So, we'll see how this one goes when we go three, two, uno. Ola, we are back again for yet another episode of developing building better developers. working on our Spanish as well. One single word at a time. I happen to be Rob Broadhead. I am one of the founders of Developer, also the founder of RB Consulting, where we are out here to help you leverage technology better. Bottom line, we help businesses simplify your technology, build a clear road map, and move your way into forward into the future of growth. Uh the people we talk to are going to be people like startups and growing businesses uh companies in transition where you're trying to pivot, you're trying to move, you're trying to uh step into a new uh new area, a new clientele, a big new customer. These are things where you need clear vendor agnostic technology. That's I love. I haven't used that one before here, but I'm going to use that now because that's part of our deal is that we are technology and vendor agnostic. We're not going to sit here and tell you that this is the package or one of these three options is what you have to take. We're going to talk to you about what you do and then we're going to craft a special recipe for you for success, give you a road map and let you take it and run or we can help you implement it however it needs to be done. And that can include things like simplification, automation, innovation, integration, lots of different ways to take essentially thinking of the steps of your processes and find ways to do those better, faster, smarter. Some people would call us a a fractional CIO. We're just here really to be a full-time partner. Now, good and bad. Now, this is this is actually the hardest part. I get messed up with this sometimes trying to think of what is my good and my bad. So let's see in the last week um honestly things have been very good. It's really interesting is that I have had there are things that are out there that are like you know life business stuff like that. There's always things like oh this could be a little bit better. Uh you know there's things like we're at a we're like at a crossroad. We're finishing a couple projects. We're trying to figure out what the next projects are. There's always some bad and some angst and stuff like that that goes with this because you're like, "Okay, well, what are we going to do next?" And especially us because it's like we might shift gears and go to completely different technologies or completely different approach. So, that is I guess a little bit of a bad thing. However, the good thing is is that we have a pipeline. we have of of people. We're getting to talk to people and it really has freed us up to uh do those like sales calls and stuff like that which are yeah salesy and things like that but we're not really heavily sales. I'm not that kind of person but I am a heavy talk to you about your business kind of person and those are great. So while I am not I guess technically not working necessarily in my business I'm really more working on my business. It is awesome. It is fun. It is a great way to learn how a lot of different people do their stuff. And every time I've walked in these conversations, I've walked away going, "Wow, that's cool. I didn't know people did that that way or that people might think of doing that that way." Or particularly that would be like the the spe special secret sauce that a company uses just like passing stuff over from one co-host to another. I don't know if I do it any special or anything like that, so I'm just going to toss it. I'm just I lost it. I was going to try to get some really cool thing casting like a newbie. Go for it, Michael. Improve upon my my mediocre effort. Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malashsh. I'm one of the co-founders of Developer. Building better developers. Check us out on Developer. I'm also the owner and founder of Envision QA where we help businesses run better by making sure that the software works the way it should. essentially make sure that you that the software is working for you and you're not working for your software. Whether you're managing customers, selling online, or just running a clinic, we make sure that your systems are more reliable, more efficient, and easier to use. That means fewer headaches, happier customers, and more time to focus on growth and your business. We handle things like building customer tools, fixing slow and buggy systems, setting up automation testing, and make sure your software is ready before you launch. In short, we take care of your tech behind the scenes so you can focus on working on your business and enjoying your customers and making money. Learn more at envisionqa.com. Good thing, bad thing? Hm. Well, let's see. Good thing I had a little bit of time this past weekend to uh I just had to disconnect from things for a little bit. So, I pulled out my Nintendo Switch and I started playing Hollow Night, which I found out for some reason, the way the controllers are set up on the Nintendo Switch Pro versus the PlayStation controller. I can play the game better on the Nintendo than I can on the PlayStation. I'm enjoying this game so much more for the third time around than I did the first two tries. And it it's just fun. I I it's a great game. I'm looking forward to the sequel. So, I guess the bad thing is I don't have time right now working on the end of a project to really dedicate too much time to gaming, but I was able to get a little bit of gaming time in. That is always a plus. Uh I'm hoping this year that I'm going to get a little bit of my finally get back to like take a serious break towards the end of the year and get caught up on some of my gaming. My my various devices are occasionally saying, "Hey, be great to play us every, you know, more than 30 seconds once a week." outer world too. >> More importantly, um, diving right in. So, this is accounting tips for side hustles, how to manage invoicing and billing like a pro. Uh, we kicked this out. A chat GPT, we're back on that. Uh, kicked out the great title and it says, "It can really resonate with freelancers, entrepreneurs, and developers who are just starting to monetize their work. Here's how you could break down an engaging podcast episode. Episode flow and talking points. One introduction why accounting matters for side hustlers. Explain why good financial habits make or break a side hustle. Highlight common mistakes. For example, mixing personal and uh business funds, ignoring taxes, inconsistent invoicing. That is a season in itself. If I think so, first off, I think the there's two big things for this. The first one is that you need to understand that a side hustle is not just free money or something like that. That when you step into a side hustle, you still are needing to deliver products and services. And way too often I have run into businesses and and owners that have had somebody that's working on something. It was a side hustle and it got to be too much and they gave up and they left somebody high and dry. That is not cool. It's great for me because I get that business at some point, but it sucks for everybody else and it's just not a good way to be. So, be aware of what you're doing. Be aware of what you're you're charging and what your time is worth. And making sure that when you step into a project that you are not going to get to a point halfway through, you're like, I this isn't I I didn't ask for enough money. This isn't worth it. Because that is not a good way to work. Uh, secondly, just briefly, I'm going to say from the the legalities and stuff like that, go do like a Google search or talk to Chat GPT or one of those AI tools about famous people that ended up in tax trouble and you will find really cool things like uh the Fresh Prince of Belair. Basically, the entire show existed because somebody didn't pay their taxes. We won't say who he is but he did go on to earn a lot of other money and lot do a lot of other stuff. Uh there are a lot of very famous musicians and actors and actresses and stuff like that that got into all kinds of trouble and we can do it even though yeah they make tons of money and they weren't paying attention what they were doing enough. We even as small business owners and personal people you can end up with a serious little tax bill if you don't watch out. So, make sure that you're understanding for your own good and also for your legality good of being able to make sure that the money goes to the right place. And the mixing personal and businesses again, it's just like if it's a side hustle, make it a side hustle. Make it a business. If you're not going to make it a business, don't bother with charging money and stuff like that and just make it a hobby. If you're going to do a side hustle, if you're going to build a business, do it the right way because otherwise you're just playing at it. You might as well be a kid that's got his little plastic thing where he's making plastic tacos and selling them or something like that that's totally fake. Do it for real. It trust me it is worth it to you as well. Is such a good learning experience. It will help you even if you don't take that business all the way. It will help you talk to other business owners in the future. Very quick had to run through those. Uh go ahead Michael your thoughts on this first point. >> Yeah. So why accounting matters? Simply put, if you don't know how to budget your personal finances, you better do that for your business. Because if you don't, you're not going to know if you're making money, losing money, you're not going to know where you're accountable for, and things are going to get off the rails very quickly. And a little side point to this, if you are doing this as a side hustle, basically as a soulreneur, you are legally bound. You can be sued for a lot of things that you don't do. If you can't pay your bills, you can be sued for it. If you're going to pull the trigger and really try to run this as a business, go register as a business. Get an LLC, protect yourself. But that means you also have to ensure that your accounting and your books are up to date, that you have good accounting, good books. I am pretty good about this. I will tell you the number one trick, and I'm sure I'm jumping ahead, is one of the things that helps me is I take pictures of all the receipts for all business transactions that I do. Because if I lose that receipt, you have to then somehow justify that you made the payment for this and that it was a true business expense. Otherwise, at the end of the year, you're going to be Uncle Sam's going to be like, "Hey, that doesn't count. Oh, you you owe us more money." Or, "Oh, you you need to pay for that." So accounting matters not just to run the business. It also matters to stay ahead of the law and make sure that you don't end up broke and basically ruin your personal finances in the process. So moving on to number two, setting up the basics. Separate bank account and credit card for business expenses, simple accounting tools, Wave, QuickBooks, self-employed, FreshBooks or even Excel Google Sheets to start. keeping receipts and using apps for expense uh for expense tracking. Definitely, we've talked about that before. Make sure you have a separate account for your business, whatever it happens to be. I many many years ago started separating stuff out for all of my little like side hustle businesses. They were not official businesses. They were just me doing things. But it really helped. For example, like even to end of the year because you have they are business expenses. So when I wrote books, all the stuff that went into that came out of the money that went in and the money that came out all went into specific uh accounts. All that stuff still there. So if I ever had to go back and figure out what I, you know, what it cost me to do this thing or what I earned to do that thing, I can go do that. I can go track that stuff down. Uh even though a lot of it, nobody cares tax-wise because it way way beyond way too old and way beyond all that stuff, but it's still there. So you can look at things and see how things change over the years, I guess, if nothing else. Uh I do want to just jump on the uh simple accounting tools. Use a real one. I mean you can use a spreadsheet. You can use some of these things but use something that is an actual accounting tool because again it will be a learning experience. Just realizing that you can't just put like I did this and it's x amount and I did this and it's x amount and I did this and it cost me that. Learning how accounting le I mean if you've done it gone through accounting principles in school or and things like that and you understand it great. But even then, I think it's very useful to actually think about your business as a business and what are the classifications of your expenses and your your revenues and how do you want to track that and how do you gather it at the end of the year? You know, those those things that a lot of people think is just that's just big business. That's just people that have like, you know, they they're out on a stock exchange somewhere and stuff like that, a public corporation, but private corporations do it, too. And it wouldn't hurt you to understand it better because you never know when your next customer or solution is going to be accounting and financebased. Thoughts for you, Michael? >> So, I already mentioned the receipts. Don't be the guy that has a box full of receipts and takes them to the accountant and hopes that they will figure it out for you. No, use those tools. Waves is especially great. It's free and well, they have a free tier and the free tier does a lot. If you don't want to pay for free and you can't afford things, Google Sheets is really good. Libre, uh, if you can afford Microsoft Excel, great. I'm going to quickly jump on the first point there because I will say when I rebranded my business from Malash Consulting to Envision QA, thank God I had a separate bank account. However, make sure you get a business credit card. Using your bank card to pay for bills, especially early on, you can get in trouble if your account is hacked or somehow someone gets a hold of your debit card, credit card information. That is not as protected as a credit card. Your a credit card, oh, it's flagged, it's uh, you know, marked as fraud, the money is immediately put back in. If it's in a bank, it can take anywhere between 3 to 4 days to a couple weeks to get that money put back in. And at that point, you could be in trouble paying payroll, could be in trouble paying bills. So, make sure you do separate the two. Make sure you protect yourself. And definitely get that credit card because even though credit cards have higher interest rates, if you're doing your bookkeeping correctly, you should be able to pay that off every month and not incur cost. One additional tip with that is get a credit card that has points that will benefit your business. If you're a computer company that has a lot of Apple products, get an Apple card. If you spend, you know, buy a lot of electronics and other things that are not Apple, maybe go get a Best Buy credit card. Use the point system of credit cards to their fullest. And one, you're protected. Two, you're getting rewarded for doing just running your business. And then three, you know where the money's going because a lot of those have good tracking systems for where you're spending your money. uh this is not supported by Dave Ramsey for those of you guys who know who that is but uh there is a lot to be seen for said for uh points and and things like that and definitely you know understanding cash flow it's it's important if you're if you have vendors and things like that and you've got bills to pay you don't want to suddenly have to pull out of your personal bank account to cover stuff that your business does. Uh but also when you ever get to the point to having contractors and employees and things like that is people like to get paid and if they don't that can cause some problems. So make sure that you've you understand cash flow. These are the kinds of things that it's this is what running a business is and this is where we do step up to that level. And even I know don't even don't stop me right there. I know some people go through and they are entrepreneurs and they couldn't find their way through Excel spreadsheet much less figure out how to like I don't know even start QuickBooks and enter something in but they don't know debits from credits and all that kind of good stuff but you should because that's what makes you a better entrepreneur a better business a better developer a better business all of that stuff is having that solid and secure knowledge it's like by the time you're done you have your own MBA that's pretty cool um Invoicing like a pro. What a professional invoice should include name, business info, client info, services, dates, payment terms. Why net30 or do on receipt matters. Tips for faster payments. Use payment links or embedded pay now buttons. Offer multiple payment methods. PayPal, Stripe, a etc. Automate recurring invoices if doing subscription style work. Uh this is gosh this again it's almost a season in itself about invoicing and how to do it and and what you do and how strict you are and things like that. I will jump real quickly on the uh payment terms matter there are if now if it's a little thing or it's like if it's just me and Michael and something that's like you know maybe like hey can you get me that pay like sure cuz we know each other and stuff like that. As soon as you step step into a business, even if I know Michael, if he's got a uh somewhere that that's got to go somewhere into his company, it could take quite a while to get back and those payment terms matter. Because a lot of businesses will look at that and say, "Okay, payment terms uh net 90, I don't have to look at that until 89 days from now." Stuff like that is there. Like a lot of businesses because they're looking at cash flow, they may wait till the absolute last second. And if they do it and they go over, it doesn't hurt to have something that says, "Hey, if you make it, you know, if it's late, we're going to tack on a 1% fee or whatever it happens to be." Those kinds of things are not bad. Only other thing I will say with all of those is uh and actually it goes back to credit cards as well, but definitely taking payments is make sure that you're understand what are the fees involved with it because sometimes that can it can add up over time, especially if you're dealing with smaller transaction. If you're dealing with huge transa, you know, thousands and thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, lucky you, millions of dollars, it's not necessarily going to be as big a deal, but there may be limits. Uh, and it does get back into a little bit. You want to make sure you're clear. Uh, some of what Michael talked about. Sometimes banks will put holds on certain amounts, and then suddenly, yes, you have the money, but you actually can't do anything with it for a week or sometimes two weeks. And trust me, that is frustrating and something you don't want to deal with cuz banks can be very non-personal. Um, I think I'll just I stole enough of them there. So, I think I'll toss the rest of those over to you. I will say been there, done that. Uh cuz I had uh with one of the contracts I had, there was a lot of large payments upfront to get the account going, to get the project going, and the bank held it because I had rebranded the company. So to the bank, I was a new entity. So now every single check I deposited was flagged for 10 to 30 days, no matter what it was. And and it was annoying. and I and it finally after three months, you know, supposedly you're supposed to build history and all that. I had history with my previous company, but because you become a new entity, it resets. So, be cautious of that, especially if you're rebranding. The other thing I'll point out here is depending upon your payment method, if you are trying to recoup, if you have like a 3% that you have to pay that you want your customer to pay if they pay by credit card, you know, gas stations do this. Hey, you get 5% off if you pay by cash or something along those lines. You can do something similar, but make sure the tool you have allows you to accept a payment for that. I'll warn you that uh like Waves does not. PayPal, it depends on the payment tool you plug into PayPal. Uh I know with the uh like QuickBooks online or pay uh whatever it is uh the online tool uh like Stripe depending upon the tier you pay you can charge for that but now you're paying more money to charge your customer for that. So you're still it it almost is a wash. So be careful trying to recoup some of those costs because you may end up paying more money to try and keep that. And the last thing I'll point out here is uh within some of this, especially with the banks, uh if you're plugging in these tools like a things like that, there are hidden costs involved with that. The banks will charge you for that. You might be able to pass that along, you might not. So, do your homework first before you get into that later and find out that oops, I can't pay my employees because I lost 20 bucks on a transaction fee. Billing best practices. Set clear terms before you start work. Deposit, milestone billing, projectbased versus hourly. Uh how to handle late payments gracefully but firmly and importance of contracts or agreements even for side hustles. I have lived every one of these in the positives and the negatives. Um, I have definitely, particularly early on when it was a side hustle, when I was building up my business before it was truly a business. Um, there were a lot of times that I ran into issues and actually even since then, there have been more than a few times that I've run into issues. This goes back to uh, requirements and things like that and making sure that there is very clear like this is what done means. Um, and making sure that you are honestly I hate it because I like to be that trusting fool, but you cannot be. And there's been way too many times that people have like I'm like, "Okay, this is what we're going to do." And if there's not money up front, there is always that chance that, you know, 15 days or 30 days later or 60 days later or whatever it is, they're like, "We don't really want to pay that." And unless you want to like and depending on what it is, especially a side hustle because a lot of times it's so small, it's not worth it chasing it down and you just write off maybe hours or products that you did. Now, there are things you can do to make sure that you protect yourself so that you don't for example like deliver a finished product until you've been paid. um of all people a lawyer many many years ago uh you know said that I guess and I think it's like I guess common in law schools or whatever is that you do not go to court until you have been paid until the collect check has cleared and I think that kind of an idea is something we should have is you do not deliver source code you do not deliver a solution until the money has been paid and I have had too many times that which and actually one would be too many but I've had a couple others where people end up getting play it into a project and they try to like wrangle it around thinking like, "Hey, we're going to dangle the fact that we're going to pay you the money we owe you and try to squeeze a little extra work out or something like that. So, uh, make sure that you have contracts and that you cover yourself. Make sure like if you're going to go in and you're working but you haven't been paid yet, that you are very you, trust me, it'll be worth it. Set hard rules of this is how far I'm going to go. This is all I'm willing to accept from the start." And then make sure that you're, you know, that that even your customers can understand that. That's something that you should be like, "Hey, if I'm only going to accept a $500 receivable waiting for this person from this company, then when that thing hits $500, I'm sorry, I've got to deal with it. Like, you've got to get paid or I'm the work is paused or we quit or whatever you need to do." Cuz I have been burned horribly by that early on. Uh and I sort of just kept on doing stuff partially because the bill was such a level that I like I needed to keep doing it and it was valuable to keep earning money earning money theoretically. Uh and I did eventually get paid but it was really a pain in the buttox as as some people would say. So, uh, I know I'm on a sandbox or I'm a sandbox, I'm on a soap box, but get a contract, be clear from the start, and don't be afraid to call people out when they try to when they slip or they slide. And this goes back to you need to be doing the same. You need to treat be a business, and you need to be treat people like you're working with a business. >> I would give you time to talk, but I'm looking at I'm like, I think we're just about out. So, I'm a bonus for this. Um, you know, get a lawyer, find a lawyer site or things like that. Get some legal documents involved. If you don't know about contracting, you can easily go find documents online or just go hire like Legal Zoom or something like that to get some legal documents that you can put out there when you have customer signed contract. So you at least have something legit or legal enough that if they don't pay and you have to go after the customer, you have the documents and the contract to go to court. That is the kind of thing that you will get if you actually are watching us on YouTube is bonus material like that. Ageless wisdom from Michael that comes after we stop recording the audio side and we go strictly back to the the video side. So, if you're on the podcast, go jump out to developer channel on YouTube right now and you can catch whatever great bonus material comes after this episode. We probably don't actually mention that often enough. Uh, we do often mention shoot us an email at [email protected]. Let us know what you think. You know, you if you think that I cut Michael off too much, I will cut you off too. But no, I won't actually. We'll be we'll change our our stuff up because that's what we do. Let us know what you like, what you don't like. What are some of the topics we've covered? What are things we haven't covered that you would love us to do or uh perspectives maybe that we we haven't taken yet or we haven't dove into that you would love to hear from us? Uh you can leave us uh review anywhere you hear this whether it's out on YouTube, whether it's out on any of the podcasting uh various sites and stuff like that. Uh X we are at developer. You can go to the developer page on Facebook and developer.com. You can leave us stuff all over the place there, even the contact us form, so we can hear from you and you can help us build a better podcast to build better developers such as yourself. You're giving back to the community when you do so. I don't want to put too much pressure on you, but there you go. The community needs you. So, give us some feedback and we will be more than glad to sing your praises moving forward because of that. That being said, we're going to go on to our bonus round after this. So, those of you that are on YouTube, you get it. the rest of you, come on over, check it out. The water's fine. Dump jump on in. Go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time. All right. I just thought I like that's a perfect way to like just milk that a little bit because I was like, "Oh, we're running out of time." Like, "Oh, no. Great. We get to get we get to do like a little plug." Um, speaking of plugs, all the way back because I suck at it and I'm still working on my little like intro and stuff like that. Everybody, rb-sns.com. Check us out. That's the RB site. Um, I'm trying to like, that's what happens when you like improv all the time. You don't always catch all the details. Uh, we missed a good chunk of stuff and I'm just going to give the highlights of it this time because u because we can. Uh, billing best practices. Um, and I'll actually I'll give you the top one on each. Set clear terms before you start work. That was one we just did, didn't it? Uh, >> yes. Uh, managing taxes and compliance, track income and expenses from day one. Uh, pro tips for growing side hustlers, automating reminders and follow-ups. Listener takeaways. These are bonus stuff. A checklist of three to five things to do this week. For example, set up a separate account. Pick an invoicing tool. Write down billing terms. Encourage action rather than perfection. Getting started is the key. Um, I think I'm going to do a quick one and then switch it over and then bounce it back to you. Um, as far as uh it says like set up an account, write down billing terms, pick an invoicing tool. One of the things that I found has been a great thing that I did early on and I it's not because I'm brilliant or anything. It's just something that I did because I'm sort of geeky like that is I had a little spreadsheet and I tracked my hours fairly meticulously. not like down to the quarter hour, but like hours that I worked on stuff from way way way back when I was first starting to side hustle. So, I would have separate hours every week. I had a little spreadsheet and I would go through and I would just sort of keep track of like how many hours did I spend on this thing this week and watched it over the years grow obviously because it was a side hustle and now it became then a full-time business. But getting into the habit of tracking my hours really helped me with estimation. It also really helped me understand what I was putting into this stuff. It's one thing when you're like, I got a few hours here and a few hours there. And you get to the end of the year and you realize that you just put in a,000 hours into your business. Those are some of the things that prompted me to say I need to be more serious about this or I need to like you know get paid for this more or things like that because you realize that you are you realize what you are investing into that business. So that would be my one challenge to you even would be like start if you don't start tracking your hours especially your side hustle stuff and you don't have to be like I said down to the minute but I think having a rough idea will greatly help you. If you're married, don't let your spouse know because they probably would be very unhappy seeing those numbers. Your turn. >> I was gonna say, um, I used to use a tool called Toggle. Uh, it was a free tool and you could export your time at the end of the week and it would give you a little summary of what you were working on, where you're spending your hours. I really liked it and it's still around, but I think you have to pay for it now. And there's some like for what I was using it for, it wasn't worth what I was paying for. So, I use uh my calendar now to keep track of that. One of the things um that's interesting of this and this kind of detracts from the topic today, but Rob is constantly pushing the Pomodoro technique. And as you're working through and you're tracking your hours, you will quickly find out, and Rob mentioned this and and I heard it like one or two episodes ago, where, you know, if you're spending five or six hours on something, you're probably not spending five or six hours on something. You're probably not necessarily wasting time, but you're you're not on task essentially. And so I switched up my model again and I'm going back to more 255 Pomodoro techniques, but it really was clear that my calendar well it reflects what I'm working on isn't necessarily explicitly what is being worked on. So it's like a general idea. So by being a little more focused with the Pomodoro, it's helped me be more specific. But unfortunately, some of the stuff I'm still working on is a little more granular, a little more unfortunately spiky level where you have more research and so and there's no way around that unfortunately because you the particular problem I have is the problem's clear, the deployment's not. It it's like I have this is what I have to do, but to test it, I have to deploy it to an environment that is a black box. So, in order to get it out there and to test it, I now have to somehow write a solution that goes with my product to test what I'm pushing out because I can't log into the system that I'm pushing it to to test the problem. So, long story short, keep track of your time. Try to break it down as much as possible and be true about what you're working on. If you are spending an hour on a problem, are you spending an hour on that problem or are you spending 30 minutes checking email and not working the problem? That's I've done that a couple times recently. I start my Pomodoro timer and then I go grab something, text me or something like that. I'm like, "God damn it, I just like lost a lot of time on my Pomodoro." A couple things on that because yeah, Michael and I have actually had some conversations uh about such things. one. Uh I have really found that the 255 split does not work for me. I do um I will either sometimes I'll do a full hour. Usually it's more like 45 minutes and then you know a 15-minute break. And even when you're spiking so where you're like I need to figure this thing out, then it's still good to just like okay I need to walk away for a little bit and come back to it. Another thing I found is that I have adjusted some of the things I do so that when I'm getting close, I will like work towards the end of a pomodoro and then when it runs out, I will kick something off like if I have to do a build or something like that and let that go run while I'm doing something else. And so now I feel like I'm doubly productive because it's like I was really productive for a while and I got to a stopping point. I was like, "Okay, now I can go kick this thing off and I can come back later." And I didn't really lose time. stuff was being done. Or I can also change gears where I can like kick something off. If it's going to take a couple hours, like cool, kicked it off. I'll walk away. I'll come back. I'll go work on something else for a while and then eventually be able to come back to it. So there there are definitely tweaks that you can make to the Pomodoro approach to to having that focus time. And it really is going to come down to like what are your products, what are your your projects, your tasks, and figuring out how to break those things up. And I think one of the best things is figuring out how to break them up into these small little, we'll call them bite-sized chunks that you can do or being able to gobble a couple of little things up at a time if you've got like a bunch of little five minute tasks and you want to like crank through those. >> Yeah, exactly. And and that's the big thing. It's like there are things that work well with the 255, like you said, and some things that are longer. It's just figuring out that balance. And my problem is in some of the bigger things I'll go heads down. Next thing I know it's 4 hours later. So while that can be beneficial, as long as you are literally focus for that time, you're good. If you find yourself waning, maybe that's time to cut. Figure out how long you've been working. Take your five minute break and then reset. >> Yeah, that's good. I literally I cheated today as I have like mine runs out. I have uh focus music and then it just stops when the the time runs out. I don't have alarms or anything like that but it stops. I'm like oh okay I've hit the end of my pomodoro and I was on something that I was heads down and I was just like I am not getting up right now. I am going to keep on doing this. It was and it was one of those like if I get up I'm not going to get back to what I'm doing and it was like it was yeah I'm not going to get back to it. I'm going to have to like reset. So I kept on going. So sometimes you're going to need to do that, but it doesn't hurt to then just like, you know, if you've got a good tool, just reset and just like go dive right into the next pomodoro. Do a couple back to back and then double out the, you know, extend the the break period between it. Sometimes that works really well. I've had those where I'll say like, you know what, I'll do like a couple really close back to back and then that break time will be lunch or something like that. So I'll just like I'll just keep going and keep going and have a very little uh very short uh switching gears time. You got to be careful doing that. You don't want to do something where you hurt yourself stepping it. So, you're well into the pomodoro before you really are like mentally set for the whatever the process is that you're trying to do. But, it is a great to great way to mix stuff up. So, that being said, it is time for us to wrap this one up because we've had uh we've had a lot of good stuff. Um we still have a couple episodes left and uh we'll see where it goes. like I'm I'm still a little bit just like loving this enough where it's just like let's just keep on going. So like when we did the interviews and it went from like you know the interview season I think I have 78 episodes or something like that. Uh it was crazy. I was just going back through some developer stuff just the other day and looking at some of the stuff and I was like oh I'd forgotten we talked to them. I forgot we talked to them. Those are great conversations. So go back check those things out. Go check out our library of stuff. And uh this library is still growing. We are still adding on just every week just chugging along adding stuff. We're actually getting this is one like I said several times we're getting closer to my favorite time of the year where we do the holiday specials of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. This one will be really interesting cuz I will not be where I am when we get into Christmas time and and New Year's and stuff like that. So, I will be really testing out my new uh digital nomad and remote gear and things like that. So, if I suddenly start looking like Max Headroom and jumping around all over, it's because I don't have quite the same internet connectivity that I had before. We'll see how that goes. We got lots of cool announcements coming though, uh, because we're definitely working on these things and trying to make some adjustments and things like that to align uh, developer where we can with you guys, our listeners, and with some of the mission that we've had uh, from the start and making sure that we define our mission properly. As always, I so appreciate your time and you hanging out with us, especially here looking at our ugly mugs for all this time and catching all the little extra crap that we do. Uh hopefully it is as entertaining for you as it is for us. Uh actually, if it's half as entertaining for you as it is for us, then that's a win. But go out there and have yourself a great day, great week, and we will talk to you next time around. [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
You know, one of the things I was
thinking about during the bonus, but we
already ramble on was code reviews. one
of the number one contentious things out
there for developers.
It is, but you know, I've been in some
places where they're not. It's like it
is and I'm probably one of the worst and
it's not because of my code being like
me being tied to my code, but it's just
because I'm like get it done. I'm like,
I don't want to duplicate this anymore.
I want to have this test done and be
move on to the next one. And so my like
get it done attitude and just like move
is probably one of the most pain in the
ass things for people that are dealing
with a code review cuz and it frustrates
me because I'll be like ah I forgot
that and I'd like you know or I missed
that thing or whatever it is. So
>> but that's the whole thing though. I
mean because code reviews are about keep
holding everyone accountable to
standards and if you don't hold them to
standards it things fall apart. So,
>> I'm telling you, this is like a I know
I'm cutting you off. I'm sorry.
Like, but um I've been thinking about
I've been playing around with these all
these ideas and and looking at stuff on
this like vibe coding and stuff like
that. I was actually talking to somebody
today that is a a non-technical person
and they're trying to do vibe coding to
solve some of their problems and they're
like sort of they're they do web design
and development stuff like that. So,
they're like sort of but not full
developer level. they're more like CSS
and make stuff pretty with the tools
that are there. I was talking about that
and said they got to a point where it
just it wasn't working. And it's
interesting because to me I think the
vibe coding thing is actually a great
way to practice code reviews is because
what you're going to do is basically
what you should be doing as a manager.
You're going to say go build this thing
and then you're going to go take that
stuff and go okay this is where it's
wrong. This is where it's wrong. Change
this. Change that. Move this around.
Adjust this. Do those things. It's all
code review. And if you don't do it, if
you don't review it, if you don't test
it, then stuff's going to break and
things going to be horrible. And uh it
it really is a good way to get you in
the habit of looking at stuff. And I for
me, it's getting me in a habit, too, of
just like, okay, I'm going to take this
thing, it's not right, and I'm going to
go, you know, set it aside, go fix it,
and then pull it back in. As opposed to
um bigger, you know, bigger things. And
I know like code reviews in particular
like the very big ones where you just
got too much um or it's just not like
that like you said I think the worst
ones is when somebody and I hate it when
I do it to myself when somebody
reformats stuff and then the next thing
you know it's like everything's like
everything changed you're like well
screw it okay it must work you know or
something like that or you spend forever
walking through doing a code review and
that's not horrible but it's like when
you're also a developer when you've also
got other tasks to do It can it can be a
pain and I
that is something um I think it's
important that um this one of the things
that I worked with with my guys was
what
um what should we put into a code review
because they're sitting there and
they're like they're not s you know
they're not the most senior developer or
something like that but
so initially they're like well I don't
know if that's even part of my job it's
like well definitely it is you've been
invited to a code review, you should.
And then they were and we talked about
like the value in it that you're going
to learn stuff, but you can also teach
stuff. You know, there's going to be
things you're going to know about the
application, about the code, stuff like
that that other people won't. So,
there's going to be valid there value in
that. Um there's sometimes you're going
to have a different approach. You're
going to be like, hey, why didn't we do
that? Sometimes it's great. Sometimes
it's going to educate you, sometimes
them. But then the other thing was like,
how much time? They're like, should we,
you know, should it take me a minute to
get through code review? should it take
me 10 minutes to get through a code
review? And we we had some discussions
about that about like well this is what
a code review should look like. This is
and the answer is yes. It could be any
one of those. It depends on what you're
reviewing and how complex it is and and
things like and then honestly how
right the code is because if you have
stuff that's doing something really
weird or really out there then sometimes
it's going to take longer because you're
going to have to research it and all of
that goodness. So,
all right, let's dive into this will be
interesting. Accounting tips for side
hustles, how to manage invoicing and
billing like a pro. Uh, which once
again, it's like great title. So, we'll
see how this one goes when we go three,
two,
uno.
Ola, we are back again for yet another
episode of developing building better
developers. working on our Spanish as
well. One single word at a time. I
happen to be Rob Broadhead. I am one of
the founders of Developer, also the
founder of RB Consulting, where we are
out here to help you leverage technology
better. Bottom line, we help businesses
simplify your technology, build a clear
road map, and move your way into forward
into the future of growth. Uh the people
we talk to are going to be people like
startups and growing businesses uh
companies in transition where you're
trying to pivot, you're trying to move,
you're trying to uh step into a new uh
new area, a new clientele, a big new
customer. These are things where you
need clear vendor agnostic technology.
That's I love. I haven't used that one
before here, but I'm going to use that
now because that's part of our deal is
that we are technology and vendor
agnostic. We're not going to sit here
and tell you that this is the package or
one of these three options is what you
have to take. We're going to talk to you
about what you do and then we're going
to craft a special recipe for you for
success, give you a road map and let you
take it and run or we can help you
implement it however it needs to be
done. And that can include things like
simplification, automation, innovation,
integration, lots of different ways to
take essentially thinking of the steps
of your processes and find ways to do
those better, faster, smarter. Some
people would call us a a fractional CIO.
We're just here really to be a full-time
partner. Now, good and bad. Now, this is
this is actually the hardest part. I get
messed up with this sometimes trying to
think of what is my good and my bad. So
let's see in the last week
um
honestly things have been very good.
It's really interesting is that I have
had there are things that are out there
that are like you know life business
stuff like that. There's always things
like oh this could be a little bit
better. Uh you know there's things like
we're at a we're like at a crossroad.
We're finishing a couple projects. We're
trying to figure out what the next
projects are. There's always some bad
and some angst and stuff like that that
goes with this because you're like,
"Okay, well, what are we going to do
next?" And especially us because it's
like we might shift gears and go to
completely different technologies or
completely different approach.
So, that is I guess a little bit of a
bad thing. However,
the good thing is is that we have a
pipeline. we have of of people. We're
getting to talk to people and it really
has freed us up to uh do those like
sales calls and stuff like that which
are yeah salesy and things like that but
we're not really heavily sales. I'm not
that kind of person but I am a heavy
talk to you about your business kind of
person and those are great. So while I
am not I guess technically not working
necessarily in my business I'm really
more working on my business. It is
awesome. It is fun. It is a great way to
learn how a lot of different people do
their stuff. And every time I've walked
in these conversations, I've walked away
going, "Wow, that's cool. I didn't know
people did that that way or that people
might think of doing that that way." Or
particularly that would be like the the
spe special secret sauce that a company
uses
just like passing stuff over from one
co-host to another.
I don't know if I do it any special or
anything like that, so I'm just going to
toss it. I'm just I lost it. I was going
to try to get some really cool thing
casting like a newbie. Go for it,
Michael. Improve upon my my mediocre
effort. Hey everyone, my name is Michael
Malashsh. I'm one of the co-founders of
Developer. Building better developers.
Check us out on Developer. I'm also the
owner and founder of Envision QA where
we help businesses run better by making
sure that the software works the way it
should. essentially make sure that you
that the software is working for you and
you're not working for your software.
Whether you're managing customers,
selling online, or just running a
clinic, we make sure that your systems
are more reliable, more efficient, and
easier to use. That means fewer
headaches, happier customers, and more
time to focus on growth and your
business. We handle things like building
customer tools, fixing slow and buggy
systems, setting up automation testing,
and make sure your software is ready
before you launch. In short, we take
care of your tech behind the scenes so
you can focus on working on your
business and enjoying your customers and
making money. Learn more at
envisionqa.com.
Good thing, bad thing? Hm. Well, let's
see. Good thing I had a little bit of
time this past weekend to uh I just had
to disconnect from things for a little
bit. So, I pulled out my Nintendo Switch
and I started playing Hollow Night,
which I found out for some reason, the
way the controllers are set up on the
Nintendo Switch Pro versus the
PlayStation controller. I can play the
game better on the Nintendo than I can
on the PlayStation. I'm enjoying this
game so much more for the third time
around than I did the first two tries.
And it it's just fun. I I it's a great
game. I'm looking forward to the sequel.
So, I guess the bad thing is I don't
have time right now working on the end
of a project to really dedicate too much
time to gaming, but I was able to get a
little bit of gaming time in. That is
always a plus. Uh I'm hoping this year
that I'm going to get a little bit of my
finally get back to like take a serious
break towards the end of the year and
get caught up on some of my gaming. My
my various devices are occasionally
saying, "Hey, be great to play us every,
you know, more than 30 seconds once a
week." outer world too.
>> More importantly,
um, diving right in. So, this is
accounting tips for side hustles, how to
manage invoicing and billing like a pro.
Uh, we kicked this out. A chat GPT,
we're back on that. Uh, kicked out the
great title and it says, "It can really
resonate with freelancers,
entrepreneurs, and developers who are
just starting to monetize their work.
Here's how you could break down an
engaging podcast episode. Episode flow
and talking points. One introduction why
accounting matters for side hustlers.
Explain why good financial habits make
or break a side hustle. Highlight common
mistakes. For example, mixing personal
and uh business funds, ignoring taxes,
inconsistent invoicing.
That is a season in itself. If I think
so, first off, I think the there's two
big things for this.
The first one is that you need to
understand that a side hustle is not
just free money or something like that.
That when you step into a side hustle,
you still are needing to deliver
products and services. And way too often
I have run into businesses and and
owners that have had somebody that's
working on something. It was a side
hustle and it got to be too much and
they gave up and they left somebody high
and dry. That is not cool. It's great
for me because I get that business at
some point, but it sucks for everybody
else and it's just not a good way to be.
So, be aware of what you're doing. Be
aware of what you're you're charging and
what your time is worth. And making sure
that when you step into a project that
you are not going to get to a point
halfway through, you're like, I this
isn't I I didn't ask for enough money.
This isn't worth it. Because that is not
a good way to work. Uh, secondly, just
briefly, I'm going to say from the the
legalities and stuff like that, go do
like a Google search or talk to Chat GPT
or one of those AI tools about famous
people that ended up in tax trouble and
you will find really cool things like uh
the Fresh Prince of Belair. Basically,
the entire show existed because somebody
didn't pay their taxes. We won't say who
he is but he did go on to earn a lot of
other money and lot do a lot of other
stuff. Uh there are a lot of very famous
musicians and actors and actresses and
stuff like that that got into all kinds
of trouble and we can do it even though
yeah they make tons of money and they
weren't paying attention what they were
doing enough. We even as small business
owners and personal people you can end
up with a serious little tax bill if you
don't watch out. So, make sure that
you're understanding for your own good
and also for your legality good of being
able to make sure that the money goes to
the right place. And the mixing personal
and businesses again, it's just like if
it's a side hustle, make it a side
hustle. Make it a business. If you're
not going to make it a business, don't
bother with charging money and stuff
like that and just make it a hobby. If
you're going to do a side hustle, if
you're going to build a business, do it
the right way because otherwise you're
just playing at it. You might as well be
a kid that's got his little plastic
thing where he's making plastic tacos
and selling them or something like that
that's totally fake. Do it for real. It
trust me it is worth it to you as well.
Is such a good learning experience. It
will help you even if you don't take
that business all the way. It will help
you talk to other business owners in the
future.
Very quick had to run through those. Uh
go ahead Michael your thoughts on this
first point.
>> Yeah. So why accounting matters? Simply
put, if you don't know how to budget
your personal finances, you better do
that for your business. Because if you
don't,
you're not going to know if you're
making money, losing money, you're not
going to know where you're accountable
for, and things are going to get off the
rails very quickly. And a little side
point to this, if you are doing this as
a side hustle, basically as a
soulreneur, you are legally bound. You
can be sued for a lot of things that you
don't do. If you can't pay your bills,
you can be sued for it.
If you're going to pull the trigger and
really try to run this as a business,
go register as a business. Get an LLC,
protect yourself. But that means you
also have to ensure that your accounting
and your books are up to date, that you
have good accounting, good books. I am
pretty good about this. I will tell you
the number one trick, and I'm sure I'm
jumping ahead, is one of the things that
helps me is I take pictures of all the
receipts for all business transactions
that I do. Because if I lose that
receipt, you have to then somehow
justify that you made the payment for
this and that it was a true business
expense. Otherwise, at the end of the
year, you're going to be Uncle Sam's
going to be like, "Hey, that doesn't
count. Oh, you you owe us more money."
Or, "Oh, you you need to pay for that."
So
accounting matters not just to run the
business. It also matters to stay ahead
of the law and make sure that you don't
end up broke and basically ruin your
personal finances in the process.
So moving on to number two, setting up
the basics. Separate bank account and
credit card for business expenses,
simple accounting tools, Wave,
QuickBooks, self-employed, FreshBooks or
even Excel Google Sheets to start.
keeping receipts and using apps for
expense uh for expense tracking.
Definitely, we've talked about that
before. Make sure you have a separate
account for your business, whatever it
happens to be. I many many years ago
started separating stuff out for all of
my little like side hustle businesses.
They were not official businesses. They
were just me doing things. But it really
helped. For example, like even to end of
the year because you have they are
business expenses. So when I wrote
books, all the stuff that went into that
came out of the money that went in and
the money that came out all went into
specific uh accounts. All that stuff
still there. So if I ever had to go back
and figure out what I, you know, what it
cost me to do this thing or what I
earned to do that thing, I can go do
that. I can go track that stuff down. Uh
even though a lot of it, nobody cares
tax-wise because it way way beyond way
too old and way beyond all that stuff,
but it's still there. So you can look at
things and see how things change over
the years, I guess, if nothing else. Uh
I do want to just jump on the uh simple
accounting tools. Use a real one. I mean
you can use a spreadsheet. You can use
some of these things but use something
that is an actual accounting tool
because again it will be a learning
experience. Just realizing that you
can't just put like I did this and it's
x amount and I did this and it's x
amount and I did this and it cost me
that.
Learning how accounting le I mean if
you've done it gone through accounting
principles in school or and things like
that and you understand it great. But
even then, I think it's very useful to
actually think about your business as a
business and what are the
classifications of your expenses and
your your revenues and how do you want
to track that and how do you gather it
at the end of the year? You know, those
those things that a lot of people think
is just that's just big business. That's
just people that have like, you know,
they they're out on a stock exchange
somewhere and stuff like that, a public
corporation, but private corporations do
it, too. And it wouldn't hurt you to
understand it better because you never
know when your next customer or solution
is going to be accounting and
financebased.
Thoughts for you, Michael?
>> So, I already mentioned the receipts.
Don't be the guy that has a box full of
receipts and takes them to the
accountant and hopes that they will
figure it out for you. No, use those
tools. Waves is especially great. It's
free and well, they have a free tier and
the free tier does a lot. If you don't
want to pay for free and you can't
afford things, Google Sheets is really
good. Libre, uh, if you can afford
Microsoft Excel, great. I'm going to
quickly jump on the first point there
because I will say when I rebranded my
business from Malash Consulting to
Envision QA, thank God I had a separate
bank account. However, make sure you get
a business credit card. Using your bank
card to pay for bills, especially early
on, you can get in trouble if your
account is hacked or somehow someone
gets a hold of your debit card, credit
card information. That is not as
protected as a credit card. Your a
credit card, oh, it's flagged, it's uh,
you know, marked as fraud, the money is
immediately put back in. If it's in a
bank, it can take anywhere between 3 to
4 days to a couple weeks to get that
money put back in. And at that point,
you could be in trouble paying payroll,
could be in trouble paying bills. So,
make sure you do separate the two. Make
sure you protect yourself. And
definitely get that credit card because
even though credit cards have higher
interest rates, if you're doing your
bookkeeping correctly, you should be
able to pay that off every month and not
incur cost. One additional tip with that
is get a credit card that has points
that will benefit your business. If
you're a computer company that has a lot
of Apple products, get an Apple card. If
you spend, you know, buy a lot of
electronics and other things that are
not Apple, maybe go get a Best Buy
credit card. Use the point system of
credit cards to their fullest. And one,
you're protected. Two, you're getting
rewarded for doing just running your
business. And then three, you know where
the money's going because a lot of those
have good tracking systems for where
you're spending your money.
uh this is not supported by Dave Ramsey
for those of you guys who know who that
is but uh there is a lot to be seen for
said for uh points and and things like
that and definitely you know
understanding cash flow it's it's
important if you're if you have vendors
and things like that and you've got
bills to pay you don't want to suddenly
have to pull out of your personal bank
account to cover stuff that your
business does. Uh but also when you ever
get to the point to having contractors
and employees and things like that is
people like to get paid and if they
don't that can cause some problems. So
make sure that you've you understand
cash flow. These are the kinds of things
that it's this is what running a
business is and this is where we do step
up to that level. And even I know don't
even don't stop me right there. I know
some people go through and they are
entrepreneurs and they couldn't find
their way through Excel spreadsheet much
less figure out how to like I don't know
even start QuickBooks and enter
something in but they don't know debits
from credits and all that kind of good
stuff but you should because that's what
makes you a better entrepreneur a better
business a better developer a better
business all of that stuff is having
that solid and secure knowledge it's
like by the time you're done you have
your own MBA that's pretty cool um
Invoicing like a pro. What a
professional invoice should include
name, business info, client info,
services, dates, payment terms. Why
net30 or do on receipt matters. Tips for
faster payments. Use payment links or
embedded pay now buttons. Offer multiple
payment methods. PayPal, Stripe, a etc.
Automate recurring invoices if doing
subscription style work.
Uh this is gosh this again it's almost a
season in itself about invoicing and how
to do it and and what you do and how
strict you are and things like that. I
will jump real quickly on the uh payment
terms matter there are if now if it's a
little thing or it's like if it's just
me and Michael and something that's like
you know maybe like hey can you get me
that pay like sure cuz we know each
other and stuff like that. As soon as
you step step into a business, even if I
know Michael, if he's got a uh somewhere
that that's got to go somewhere into his
company, it could take quite a while to
get back and those payment terms matter.
Because a lot of businesses will look at
that and say, "Okay, payment terms uh
net 90, I don't have to look at that
until 89 days from now." Stuff like that
is there. Like a lot of businesses
because they're looking at cash flow,
they may wait till the absolute last
second. And if they do it and they go
over, it doesn't hurt to have something
that says, "Hey, if you make it, you
know, if it's late, we're going to tack
on a 1% fee or whatever it happens to
be." Those kinds of things are not bad.
Only other thing I will say with all of
those is uh and actually it goes back to
credit cards as well, but definitely
taking payments is make sure that you're
understand what are the fees involved
with it because sometimes that can it
can add up over time, especially if
you're dealing with smaller transaction.
If you're dealing with huge transa, you
know, thousands and thousands, tens of
thousands, hundreds of thousands, lucky
you, millions of dollars, it's not
necessarily going to be as big a deal,
but there may be limits. Uh, and it does
get back into a little bit. You want to
make sure you're clear. Uh, some of what
Michael talked about. Sometimes banks
will put holds on certain amounts, and
then suddenly, yes, you have the money,
but you actually can't do anything with
it for a week or sometimes two weeks.
And trust me, that is frustrating and
something you don't want to deal with
cuz banks can be very non-personal.
Um, I think I'll just I stole enough of
them there. So, I think I'll toss the
rest of those over to you. I will say
been there, done that. Uh cuz I had uh
with one of the contracts I had, there
was a lot of large payments upfront to
get the account going, to get the
project going, and the bank held it
because
I had rebranded the company.
So to the bank, I was a new entity. So
now every single check I deposited was
flagged for 10 to 30 days, no matter
what it was. And and it was annoying.
and I and it finally after three months,
you know, supposedly you're supposed to
build history and all that. I had
history with my previous company, but
because you become a new entity, it
resets. So, be cautious of that,
especially if you're rebranding.
The other thing I'll point out here is
depending upon your payment method, if
you are trying to recoup, if you have
like a 3% that you have to pay that you
want your customer to pay if they pay by
credit card, you know, gas stations do
this. Hey, you get 5% off if you pay by
cash or something along those lines. You
can do something similar, but make sure
the tool you have allows you to accept a
payment for that. I'll warn you that uh
like Waves does not. PayPal,
it depends on the payment tool you plug
into PayPal. Uh I know with the uh like
QuickBooks online or pay uh whatever it
is uh the online tool
uh like Stripe
depending upon the tier you pay you can
charge for that but now you're paying
more money to charge your customer for
that. So you're still it it almost is a
wash. So be careful trying to recoup
some of those costs because you may end
up paying more money to try and keep
that. And the last thing I'll point out
here is uh within some of this,
especially with the banks, uh if you're
plugging in these tools like a things
like that, there are hidden costs
involved with that. The banks will
charge you for that. You might be able
to pass that along, you might not. So,
do your homework first before you get
into that later and find out that oops,
I can't pay my employees because I lost
20 bucks on a transaction fee.
Billing best practices. Set clear terms
before you start work. Deposit,
milestone billing, projectbased versus
hourly. Uh how to handle late payments
gracefully but firmly and importance of
contracts or agreements even for side
hustles. I have lived every one of these
in the positives and the negatives. Um,
I have definitely, particularly early on
when it was a side hustle, when I was
building up my business before it was
truly a business. Um, there were a lot
of times that I ran into issues and
actually even since then, there have
been more than a few times that I've run
into issues. This goes back to uh,
requirements and things like that and
making sure that there is very clear
like this is what done means. Um, and
making sure that you are honestly
I hate it because I like to be that
trusting fool, but you cannot be. And
there's been way too many times that
people have like I'm like, "Okay, this
is what we're going to do." And if
there's not money up front, there is
always that chance that, you know, 15
days or 30 days later or 60 days later
or whatever it is, they're like, "We
don't really want to pay that." And
unless you want to like and depending on
what it is, especially a side hustle
because a lot of times it's so small,
it's not worth it chasing it down and
you just write off maybe hours or
products that you did. Now, there are
things you can do to make sure that you
protect yourself so that you don't for
example like deliver a finished product
until you've been paid. um of all people
a lawyer many many years ago uh you know
said that I guess and I think it's like
I guess common in law schools or
whatever is that you do not go to court
until you have been paid until the
collect check has cleared and I think
that kind of an idea is something we
should have is you do not deliver source
code you do not deliver a solution until
the money has been paid and I have had
too many times that which and actually
one would be too many but I've had a
couple others where people end up
getting play it into a project and they
try to like wrangle it around thinking
like, "Hey, we're going to dangle the
fact that we're going to pay you the
money we owe you and try to squeeze a
little extra work out or something like
that. So, uh, make sure that you have
contracts and that you cover yourself.
Make sure like if you're going to go in
and you're working but you haven't been
paid yet, that you are very you, trust
me, it'll be worth it. Set hard rules of
this is how far I'm going to go. This is
all I'm willing to accept from the
start." And then make sure that you're,
you know, that that even your customers
can understand that. That's something
that you should be like, "Hey, if I'm
only going to accept a $500 receivable
waiting for this person from this
company, then when that thing hits $500,
I'm sorry, I've got to deal with it.
Like, you've got to get paid or I'm the
work is paused or we quit or whatever
you need to do." Cuz I have been burned
horribly by that early on. Uh and I sort
of just kept on doing stuff partially
because the bill was such a level that I
like I needed to keep doing it and it
was valuable to keep earning money
earning money theoretically. Uh and I
did eventually get paid but it was
really a pain in the buttox as as some
people would say. So, uh, I know I'm on
a sandbox or I'm a sandbox, I'm on a
soap box, but get a contract, be clear
from the start, and don't be afraid to
call people out when they try to when
they slip or they slide. And this goes
back to you need to be doing the same.
You need to treat be a business, and you
need to be treat people like you're
working with a business.
>> I would give you time to talk, but I'm
looking at I'm like, I think we're just
about out. So, I'm a bonus for this. Um,
you know, get a lawyer, find a lawyer
site or things like that. Get some legal
documents involved. If you don't know
about contracting,
you can easily go find documents online
or just go hire like Legal Zoom or
something like that to get some legal
documents that you can put out there
when you have customer signed contract.
So you at least have something legit or
legal enough that if they don't pay and
you have to go after the customer, you
have the documents and the contract to
go to court. That is the kind of thing
that you will get if you actually are
watching us on YouTube is bonus material
like that. Ageless wisdom from Michael
that comes after we stop recording the
audio side and we go strictly back to
the the video side. So, if you're on the
podcast, go jump out to developer
channel on YouTube right now and you can
catch whatever great bonus material
comes after this episode. We probably
don't actually mention that often
enough. Uh, we do often mention shoot us
an email at [email protected]. Let
us know what you think. You know, you if
you think that I cut Michael off too
much, I will cut you off too. But no, I
won't actually. We'll be we'll change
our our stuff up because that's what we
do. Let us know what you like, what you
don't like. What are some of the topics
we've covered? What are things we
haven't covered that you would love us
to do or uh perspectives maybe that we
we haven't taken yet or we haven't dove
into that you would love to hear from
us? Uh you can leave us uh review
anywhere you hear this whether it's out
on YouTube, whether it's out on any of
the podcasting uh various sites and
stuff like that. Uh X we are at
developer. You can go to the developer
page on Facebook and developer.com. You
can leave us stuff all over the place
there, even the contact us form, so we
can hear from you and you can help us
build a better podcast to build better
developers such as yourself. You're
giving back to the community when you do
so. I don't want to put too much
pressure on you, but there you go. The
community needs you. So, give us some
feedback and we will be more than glad
to sing your praises moving forward
because of that. That being said, we're
going to go on to our bonus round after
this. So, those of you that are on
YouTube, you get it. the rest of you,
come on over, check it out. The water's
fine. Dump jump on in. Go out there and
have yourself a great day, a great week,
and we will talk to you next time.
All right. I just thought I like that's
a perfect way to like just milk that a
little bit because I was like, "Oh,
we're running out of time." Like, "Oh,
no. Great. We get to get we get to do
like a little plug." Um, speaking of
plugs, all the way back because I suck
at it and I'm still working on my little
like intro and stuff like that.
Everybody, rb-sns.com.
Check us out. That's the RB site. Um,
I'm trying to like, that's what happens
when you like improv all the time. You
don't always catch all the details. Uh,
we missed a good chunk of stuff and I'm
just going to give the highlights of it
this time because u because we can. Uh,
billing best practices. Um, and I'll
actually I'll give you the top one on
each. Set clear terms before you start
work. That was one we just did, didn't
it? Uh,
>> yes. Uh, managing taxes and compliance,
track income and expenses from day one.
Uh, pro tips for growing side hustlers,
automating reminders and follow-ups.
Listener takeaways. These are bonus
stuff. A checklist of three to five
things to do this week. For example, set
up a separate account. Pick an invoicing
tool. Write down billing terms.
Encourage action rather than perfection.
Getting started is the key. Um, I think
I'm going to do a quick one and then
switch it over and then bounce it back
to you.
Um,
as far as uh it says like set up an
account, write down billing terms, pick
an invoicing tool. One of the things
that I found has been a great thing that
I did early on and I it's not because
I'm brilliant or anything. It's just
something that I did because I'm sort of
geeky like that is I had a little
spreadsheet and I tracked my hours
fairly meticulously. not like down to
the quarter hour, but like hours that I
worked on stuff from way way way back
when I was first starting to side
hustle. So, I would have separate hours
every week. I had a little spreadsheet
and I would go through and I would just
sort of keep track of like how many
hours did I spend on this thing this
week and watched it over the years grow
obviously because it was a side hustle
and now it became then a full-time
business. But getting into the habit of
tracking my hours
really helped me with estimation. It
also really helped me understand what I
was putting into this stuff. It's one
thing when you're like, I got a few
hours here and a few hours there. And
you get to the end of the year and you
realize that you just put in a,000 hours
into your business. Those are some of
the things that prompted me to say I
need to be more serious about this or I
need to like you know get paid for this
more or things like that because you
realize that you are you realize what
you are investing into that business. So
that would be my one challenge to you
even would be like start if you don't
start tracking your hours especially
your side hustle stuff and you don't
have to be like I said down to the
minute but I think having a rough idea
will greatly help you. If you're
married, don't let your spouse know
because they probably would be very
unhappy seeing those numbers. Your turn.
>> I was gonna say, um, I used to use a
tool called Toggle. Uh, it was a free
tool and you could export your time at
the end of the week and it would give
you a little summary of what you were
working on, where you're spending your
hours. I really liked it and it's still
around, but I think you have to pay for
it now. And there's some like for what I
was using it for, it wasn't worth what I
was paying for. So, I use uh my calendar
now to keep track of that. One of the
things um that's interesting of this and
this kind of detracts from the topic
today, but
Rob is constantly pushing the Pomodoro
technique. And as you're working through
and you're tracking your hours,
you will quickly find out, and Rob
mentioned this and and I heard it like
one or two episodes ago, where, you
know, if you're spending five or six
hours on something, you're probably not
spending five or six hours on something.
You're probably not necessarily wasting
time, but you're
you're not on task essentially. And so I
switched up my model again and I'm going
back to more 255 Pomodoro techniques,
but it really was clear that my calendar
well it reflects what I'm working on
isn't necessarily explicitly what is
being worked on. So it's like a general
idea. So by being a little more focused
with the Pomodoro, it's helped me be
more specific. But unfortunately, some
of the stuff I'm still working on is a
little more granular, a little more
unfortunately spiky level where you have
more research and so and there's no way
around that unfortunately because you
the particular problem I have is the
problem's clear, the deployment's not.
It it's like I have this is what I have
to do, but to test it, I have to deploy
it to an environment that is a black
box. So, in order to get it out there
and to test it, I now have to somehow
write a solution that goes with my
product to test what I'm pushing out
because I can't log into the system that
I'm pushing it to to test the problem.
So, long story short, keep track of your
time. Try to break it down as much as
possible and be true about what you're
working on. If you are spending an hour
on a problem, are you spending an hour
on that problem or are you spending 30
minutes checking email and not working
the problem?
That's I've done that a couple times
recently. I start my Pomodoro timer and
then I go grab something, text me or
something like that. I'm like, "God damn
it, I just like lost a lot of time on my
Pomodoro." A couple things on that
because yeah, Michael and I have
actually had some conversations uh about
such things. one. Uh I have really found
that the 255 split does not work for me.
I do um I will either sometimes I'll do
a full hour. Usually it's more like 45
minutes and then you know a 15-minute
break. And even when you're spiking so
where you're like I need to figure this
thing out, then it's still good to just
like okay I need to walk away for a
little bit and come back to it. Another
thing I found is that I have adjusted
some of the things I do so that when I'm
getting close, I will like work towards
the end of a pomodoro and then when it
runs out, I will kick something off like
if I have to do a build or something
like that and let that go run while I'm
doing something else. And so now I feel
like I'm doubly productive because it's
like I was really productive for a while
and I got to a stopping point. I was
like, "Okay, now I can go kick this
thing off and I can come back later."
And I didn't really lose time. stuff was
being done.
Or I can also change gears where I can
like kick something off. If it's going
to take a couple hours, like cool,
kicked it off. I'll walk away. I'll come
back. I'll go work on something else for
a while and then eventually be able to
come back to it. So there there are
definitely tweaks that you can make to
the Pomodoro approach to to having that
focus time. And it really is going to
come down to like what are your
products, what are your your projects,
your tasks, and figuring out how to
break those things up. And I think one
of the best things is figuring out how
to break them up into these small
little, we'll call them bite-sized
chunks that you can do or being able to
gobble a couple of little things up at a
time if you've got like a bunch of
little five minute tasks and you want to
like crank through those.
>> Yeah, exactly. And and that's the big
thing. It's like there are things that
work well with the 255, like you said,
and some things that are longer. It's
just figuring out that balance. And my
problem is in some of the bigger things
I'll go heads down. Next thing I know
it's 4 hours later. So while that can be
beneficial, as long as you are literally
focus for that time, you're good. If you
find yourself waning, maybe that's time
to cut. Figure out how long you've been
working. Take your five minute break and
then reset.
>> Yeah, that's good. I literally I cheated
today as I have like mine runs out. I
have uh focus music and then it just
stops when the the time runs out. I
don't have alarms or anything like that
but it stops. I'm like oh okay I've hit
the end of my pomodoro and I was on
something that I was heads down and I
was just like I am not getting up right
now. I am going to keep on doing this.
It was and it was one of those like if I
get up I'm not going to get back to what
I'm doing and it was like it was yeah
I'm not going to get back to it. I'm
going to have to like reset. So I kept
on going. So sometimes you're going to
need to do that, but it doesn't hurt to
then just like, you know, if you've got
a good tool, just reset and just like go
dive right into the next pomodoro. Do a
couple back to back and then double out
the, you know, extend the the break
period between it. Sometimes that works
really well. I've had those where I'll
say like, you know what, I'll do like a
couple really close back to back and
then that break time will be lunch or
something like that. So I'll just like
I'll just keep going and keep going and
have a very little uh very short uh
switching gears time. You got to be
careful doing that. You don't want to do
something where
you hurt yourself stepping it. So,
you're well into the pomodoro before you
really are like mentally set for the
whatever the process is that you're
trying to do. But, it is a great to
great way to mix stuff up. So, that
being said,
it is time for us to wrap this one up
because we've had uh we've had a lot of
good stuff. Um we still have a couple
episodes left and uh we'll see where it
goes. like I'm I'm still a little bit
just like loving this enough where it's
just like let's just keep on going. So
like when we did the interviews and it
went from like you know the interview
season I think I have 78 episodes or
something like that. Uh it was crazy. I
was just going back through some
developer stuff just the other day and
looking at some of the stuff and I was
like oh I'd forgotten we talked to them.
I forgot we talked to them. Those are
great conversations. So go back check
those things out. Go check out our
library of stuff. And uh this library is
still growing. We are still adding on
just every week just chugging along
adding stuff. We're actually getting
this is one like I said several times
we're getting closer to my favorite time
of the year where we do the holiday
specials of Thanksgiving, Christmas and
New Year's. This one will be really
interesting cuz I will not be where I am
when we get into Christmas time and and
New Year's and stuff like that. So, I
will be really testing out my new uh
digital nomad and remote gear and things
like that. So, if I suddenly start
looking like Max Headroom and jumping
around all over, it's because I don't
have quite the same internet
connectivity that I had before. We'll
see how that goes. We got lots of cool
announcements coming though, uh, because
we're definitely working on these things
and trying to make some adjustments and
things like that to align uh, developer
where we can with you guys, our
listeners, and with some of the mission
that we've had uh, from the start and
making sure that we define our mission
properly.
As always, I so appreciate your time and
you hanging out with us, especially here
looking at our ugly mugs for all this
time and catching all the little extra
crap that we do. Uh hopefully it is as
entertaining for you as it is for us. Uh
actually, if it's half as entertaining
for you as it is for us, then that's a
win. But go out there and have yourself
a great day, great week, and we will
talk to you next time around.
[Music]