In this episode, I interview my friend Avonelle Lovhaug.

Avonelle has been a software developer for almost 30 years and has been an independent consultant for two decades. She works with tech-savvy small businesses that want professional custom software solutions for a fixed price. Many of the applications she has created are web-based and built using Microsoft technologies, though she also has experience creating mobile and Windows-based tools.

In our discussion, we get into several topics that she has experience with such as long-term clients, her methodology for using fixed pricing on projects, monthly support contracts, and invoicing. We end with a discussion of some different tools we both use on a day-to-day basis.

This was a fun interview to do and I really could talk with her all day on these things, but we ended right around 40 minutes.

Episode outline:

• Background
• Long term clients
• • Ideal would be adding a new customer every year
  • Usually work with 2 - 5 clients a year
• How she found who her ideal client and ideal project is
• • Clients who want their business need solved and are not concerned about the implementation
  • Smaller clients and projects
  • Often only developer
• Her methodology for using fixed price on projects
• • Invoicing
  • • New client - money up front
    • Payments for deliverables/milestones
  • Usually leave a period of ~60 days after project allows for bug fixes, etc.
• Monthly support contracts
• • Support, bug fixes
  • Sometimes emergency, sometimes not
  • • Priority support vs. non priority
  • Allows for clients to budget for support
  • Allows for 1/4 - 1/3 time available for support
• Invoicing in general
• • Quicken home and business
  • • Uses the estimate functionality
    • Print to pdf and email invoices
• Discussion on different tools we use
• • OneNote
  • • Notes
    • Documentation
    • Searching
    • Screen shots
  • Snagit
  • • Screen shot utility
  • Azure DevOps
  • • Issue and bug tracking
    • Connect code to issues
    • Releases
  • RedGate SQL Change Automation
  • MSDN Universal/Visual Studio Enterprise subscription
  • JetBrains subscription
  • Beyond Compare
  • .NET Reflector
  • Slack
  • GitKraken
  • YouTube Professional
  • Pluralsite
• Her reason for being an independent