My first project came from an ex-colleague's friend. Another approach was cold emailing existing data and analytics agencies (my domain is data engineering) with my portfolio. Helps to keep a capability deck handy.
Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
131–140 of 165 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#132[dead]
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#133I am still a student; But the thing that got me actual responses from people in the industry was shipping hardware that physically works. Posted a NoC running on an Artix-7 with UART latency readback and got more engagement in a week than anything else I'd done. People in this space can smell checkbox projects immediately.
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#134Been at this 10 years. My top tip is if you’re doing cold outreach, kickstart the value exchange by giving something first without asking for anything in return. A “hey I noticed x is costing you more than it should and could be better/cheaper done like this” AND then actually give them the “this” for free without expectation of anything in return is 10x more effective than a message where you’re asking for work. It…
> A “hey I noticed x is costing you more than it should and could be better/cheaper done like this” AND then actually give them the “this” for free without expectation of anything in return is 10x more effective than a message where you’re asking for work. Can you give a more specific example from your recent experience?
(My point is: this sounds like very plausible sounding advice, until you try to apply this to a producer of steel ball bearings located in Upper Austria, just outside of Linz)
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#135General consultancy is an extremely crowded space. As a startup CEO, I get at least 3 emails per week from software agencies and consultants. On top of that, they're usually located in India/Ukraine and the rates they offer are very low, so I assume it's very difficult to compete. My advice would be to differentiate yourself: - Become an expert in 1 thing, and one thing only: either start an open source project, or b…
2 and 3 are great but 1 will not work great if you're a consultant, unless the 1 thing is broad enough to have actual demand that you can tap into. Finding that 1 thing is also extremely challenging, esp. if you're trying to make it the main revenue play. I can be the world's leading expert on Brainfuck, but that doesn't mean I'll get my bills paid. It's much better to be the "I can call this guy to figure out whatever I need to figure out" person than "this guy only does X well, I'm not sure if i need that, might have to hire the general guy to figure this out first" guy.
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#136General consultancy is an extremely crowded space. As a startup CEO, I get at least 3 emails per week from software agencies and consultants. On top of that, they're usually located in India/Ukraine and the rates they offer are very low, so I assume it's very difficult to compete. My advice would be to differentiate yourself: - Become an expert in 1 thing, and one thing only: either start an open source project, or b…
> Become an expert in 1 thing I endorse this. I've been doing generalist consulting for about six years, and I love flying solo. I've been successful in landing some big customers and interesting projects, but I'm tired of the inefficiency that comes with being a generalist, so I've decided to specialize vertically. I had a super-interesting project in executive search in the last couple years, and I've decided to se…
"Executive search and recruitment firms" is an industry/segment, though, right? I thought this comment was more about specializing in some particular niche tech thing wrt the "just start a open source project guysss" comment
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Arbitrage I assume
I know, I just don't see the arbitrage in what's described? If I order online because it's cheaper than the high street, that's not an arbitrage – the arbitrage would include then selling it on the high street afterwards, getting paid to close the gap until it reflects only delivery fees and the value of immediacy.
they might hire them to work on the project and then sell the project themselves hence the arb, or outsourcing basically.
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know, I just don't see the arbitrage in what's described? If I order online because it's cheaper than the high street, that's not an arbitrage – the arbitrage would include then selling it on the high street afterwards, getting paid to close the gap until it reflects only delivery fees and the value of immediacy.
they might hire them to work on the project and then sell the project themselves hence the arb, or outsourcing basically.
Good point about the project lifecycle. In my experience, open source contributions often get repurposed this way. The key is clear licensing from the start.
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#1393 quick (and true) stories that helped me when I was in a similar situation (started my own thing in 2024). Currently have 6 clients and 9 employees (which wasn’t the plan!) 1. Embrace the bizarre. You need your first client, not a repeatable go to market motion. Once you have a client, you can begin to work on getting clients and figuring out what type of work you want to do longer-term. My first client was a friend…
How did you get a RFP? Is there feeds that can be picked up ?
I was in an interview process with a company for an architect position. I was very up front that I was more suited for CTO positions which they didn’t have open and I’d only be willing to work a few hours/week as I started my own business. They wanted that role full-time but mentioned an RFP would be coming out soon from their leadership team.
I don’t generally think RFPs are a good fit (we’ve filed out a few since and haven’t seen much response). If you can get RFP with a relationship then you might have a chance.
There’s lots of aggregators (sam.gov for example) but I’d recommend your local jurisdictions (city, county, state) - check their websites and see if any proposals fit your style. Often, locals get preferential consideration.
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#140I met a bloke in the pub who was looking for a contractor, said I was a software engineer, kind of went from there.
But that was back in 2013, the market has completely changed and I don't even do consulting anymore
These days it's a buyers market, best of luck!