| > finding clients, invoicing, server maintenance, customer service, training, documentation, implementation consultants Clients find me, not the other way around. Documentation and implementation are my own lines of work. I have an accountant, tax advisor and lawyer as subscriptions. I also have a coworking pass. These cost me about 1.5% of my annual income. Trainings are given for free in coops? I can't imagine myself or my friends working for free, are you forced to work for free in a coop? As in, would I be forced to give trainings too? I value my time too much for this. Of course I do the occasional free tech talk for my friends/the public, but that's not in any way comparable to a "full" training. > If you are paying someone to do any of these jobs, you are doing it out of income that you've paid taxes on. No. As a contractor, all of the above are my business expenses (also including conference passes, trainings/certifications, driving to/from the client, all my hardware I use to work etc). Companies and contractors pay tax on profit, not turnover. > Also, some cooperative companies will only outsource work to other cooperative groups. Yeah indeed there's a coop like that where I live. They pay like half of what I make to their top guys (I myself am not a top guy; they offered me even less). Not encouraging. > Not to mention the camaraderie of working with people with similar goals in a noncompetitive environment where they value your success. I have this at the coworking space - and we don't share any money so there's no chance of any bad feelings whatsoever. I have very bad experience with that, it ends friendships. |