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Ask HN: How do I start freelancing?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I start freelancing?

#11

Post by adelevie »

Create something that a potential client could actually find useful for his/her projects. If that something solves a problem a decent number of people are facing, quality leads will reach you without you even trying.

I wrote a Ruby gem[1] because it was a fun project. It was in a problem domain that interested me. A developer found the gem, saw that it would be useful for his project, and soon became my first client.

I tried the "MVP for $500" approach a few months back[2]. It generated some solid leads, but none of the projects were remotely as fun or as interesting as my current one. It's certainly doable to compete based on some perfect balance of price vs. quality, but I've found it's much more rewarding (mentally and financially) to compete by being the #1 expert of some piece of software a client wants to use.

Further reading:

Ruby dev Giles Bowkett wrote a pretty good blog post on lead generation for freelancers, http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2010/03/programmers-what-to....

[1] https://github.com/adelevie/parse_resource

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2685010

Re: Ask HN: How do I start freelancing?

#12

Post by jbrowning »

Like others have said, I would work on building your portfolio. One way to do this is to donate some web development work to a non-profit in your area -- hopefully one that is well-known in the community. Not only will this give you something to add to your portfolio, but it will also give you an idea of any underdeveloped skills that you need to work on.

Re: Ask HN: How do I start freelancing?

#13

Post by alexwolfe »

I would definitely spend time building & working on your portfolio. A portfolio is really a business card for any good freelancer. Your portfolio can even be a collection of github projects, there just need to be some real substance there.

Ultimately if you land a job freelancing the client is looking for a few key things, an excellent portfolio, good communications skills, and most of all experience. These qualities take time to develop and allow the client to put more trust in the hands of someone outside the company.

An alternate to freelancing is working for some small startup for a year at a time. You'll get a wealth of experience and also a chance to build your portfolio. Good luck.

Re: Ask HN: How do I start freelancing?

#14

Post by mzarate06 »

If you already have experience, but not a portfoio, I'd recommend targeting dev firms in your area for first-time clients. Here's why:

1) While I found most non-technical folks seeking freelancers to prefer a portfolio over a resume, the same wasn't true for dev firms. They usually have technical staff on board, so even though I lacked a portfolio at the time, they still recognized my technical accomplishments and background (whereas my non-technical clients really don't understand that stuff, they'd rather see a portfolio).

2) Many make use of contractors at a regular frequency, so if you're able to hook up with one, or a few, they'll help provide steady work during the early times.

3) Since they provide steady work, you don't have to concentrate as much on networking or marketing yourself. You'll eventually have to worry about that stuff, but when you're starting out you have so many other things to worry about. Dev firms help defer that burden, or at least keep the work coming while you figure that stuff out.

Best of luck. Freelancing can be tough when you start out, but very rewarding once you get into a good rhythm.

Re: Ask HN: How do I start freelancing?

#15

Post by Mizza »

Building a portfolio is definitely worth your time.

Reach out to an open source project that needs a new website and offer your services for free, or make a simple online utility to show off what you can do, and open source that as well (open sourcing your products shows confidence in your code).

Also (shameless plug ahead): if you're looking to pick up some freelance gigs, sign up at http://gun.io and get notified when new freelance gigs for your skills are posted.

Re: Ask HN: How do I start freelancing?

#16

Post by tnicola »

linked wrote: post #5

I'm a full time freelancer, and I've never shown anyone a portfolio. My jobs are all earned by my reputation, which I get by my networking efforts. Even back when I had a fulltime job, I've been attending conferences and meetups, talking to people, and generally impressing them with what I know. That's how I got the ball rolling in the first place -- I've been doing this for 4 years now. If you are a developer, and y…

I second that. Meetups begat meetups and leads begat leads, you can contribute things to the conversation and show your experise (your oral portfolio). That is how I look for developers. Things will fall into place. You just have to get out there.

Re: Ask HN: How do I start freelancing?

#18

Post by earlyriser »

linked wrote: post #5

I'm a full time freelancer, and I've never shown anyone a portfolio. My jobs are all earned by my reputation, which I get by my networking efforts. Even back when I had a fulltime job, I've been attending conferences and meetups, talking to people, and generally impressing them with what I know. That's how I got the ball rolling in the first place -- I've been doing this for 4 years now. If you are a developer, and y…

I'm also starting as a freelance after some years of web experience in startups and agencies but I have trouble finding these hundreds of people. Could you elaborate on this?

Re: Ask HN: How do I start freelancing?

#19

Post by meric »

I got started with only 1 project in my "portfolio". It was more like 5000 LOC however. Since then every client of mine has required me to sign NDAs so I currently still only have 1 project in my portfolio.

Re: Ask HN: How do I start freelancing?

#20

Post by robinwarren »

linked wrote: post #5

I'm a full time freelancer, and I've never shown anyone a portfolio. My jobs are all earned by my reputation, which I get by my networking efforts. Even back when I had a fulltime job, I've been attending conferences and meetups, talking to people, and generally impressing them with what I know. That's how I got the ball rolling in the first place -- I've been doing this for 4 years now. If you are a developer, and y…

Last year I started thinking I might one day go freelancing, so started attending relevant meetups and trying to figure out who to connect with locally. It was partly that which lead me to build the http://jobstractor.com (shameless plug) to try and find who was hiring near me so I could connect with them on twitter and start getting myself known. I've not made the leap to freelancing as of yet but networking has I think got me in a far better position should I want to in future.

To the OP, I did find that a lot of people in the local freelancing community were strongly connected with each other. A little bit of networking could go a long way and in my experience there has always been people looking for good developers.

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