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Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?

#21

Post by BartSaM »

philip1209 wrote: post #20
Mz wrote: post #16

Potential alternative to Upwork that sounds better: http://gigworks.blogspot.com/2017/04/moonlight-work-for-soft...

Co-founder of Moonlight here - thanks for the mention. It costs nothing to contractors, and you set your own rate when you want to work on projects. Definitely recommend that OP signs up. Fun story: The contractor who wrote the code for the Moonlight blog was in a similar position as OP. Hit a deer with his car, and insurance didn't cover it. Needed extra money quickly. He signed up for Moonlight and did a project in…

Sounds great! Signing up right now. I could use some side income while working on my own projects.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?

#22

Post by ioddly »

wtracy wrote: post #4

The problems with Upwork and Freelancer, while significant, are regularly blown out of proportion. I don't recommend them for more than finding short gigs when you're in a pinch, but they are useful for that. Do be prepared to lose a lot of jobs to bidders from the third world. Take advantage of anything that you can use to differentiate yourself. Also, get a stack of business cards and start going to local business…

> Look up the local Chamber of Commerce, search meetup.com, and see if your county has any small business development classes or lunches you can attend.

I'm curious if anyone has had success with this. I know Brennan Dunn talks about it as one avenue to pursue, so I've been thinking about going to the local business networking thing. I guess I just have trouble conceptualizing going from meeting people who are running local brick-and-mortar type businesses to convincing them that software is a solution to their problems.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?

#23

Post by penpapersw »

samstave wrote: post #14
penpapersw wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty neat, thanks! Unfortunately all the [TASK] listings are like super tiny amounts of money. To clarify, I'm talking in the hundreds/low-thousands per project. For example, $200 to make a website that I can probably whip up in a few hours and put on AWS for them. Or maybe $2000 for a more complicated website that takes 2 weeks. That kind of stuff is what I'm looking for.

Where is your portfolio and resume and links I can look at... may have some work for you...

Email me in my profile and I'll send you some links. Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?

#24

Post by penpapersw »

philip1209 wrote: post #20
Mz wrote: post #16

Potential alternative to Upwork that sounds better: http://gigworks.blogspot.com/2017/04/moonlight-work-for-soft...

Co-founder of Moonlight here - thanks for the mention. It costs nothing to contractors, and you set your own rate when you want to work on projects. Definitely recommend that OP signs up. Fun story: The contractor who wrote the code for the Moonlight blog was in a similar position as OP. Hit a deer with his car, and insurance didn't cover it. Needed extra money quickly. He signed up for Moonlight and did a project in…

Thanks to you for making this and GP for linking to it. Just applied, looking forward to seeing if this works out.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?

#25

Post by GCA10 »

ioddly wrote: post #22
wtracy wrote: post #4

The problems with Upwork and Freelancer, while significant, are regularly blown out of proportion. I don't recommend them for more than finding short gigs when you're in a pinch, but they are useful for that. Do be prepared to lose a lot of jobs to bidders from the third world. Take advantage of anything that you can use to differentiate yourself. Also, get a stack of business cards and start going to local business…

> Look up the local Chamber of Commerce, search meetup.com, and see if your county has any small business development classes or lunches you can attend. I'm curious if anyone has had success with this. I know Brennan Dunn talks about it as one avenue to pursue, so I've been thinking about going to the local business networking thing. I guess I just have trouble conceptualizing going from meeting people who are runnin…

They all need websites. The ones that have bad websites need better ones. And to some extent, they are willing to pay rates based on value pricing, rather than a carefully clocked hourly rate. If you make their business work a lot better, you can share in the benefits.

Bear in mind that these projects are 60% about getting people to understand their choices, build a strategy, etc. ... and 40% about coding the site. Except for the ones who are utterly confused. Then it's 90/10.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?

#26

Post by [deleted] »

wtracy wrote: post #4

The problems with Upwork and Freelancer, while significant, are regularly blown out of proportion. I don't recommend them for more than finding short gigs when you're in a pinch, but they are useful for that. Do be prepared to lose a lot of jobs to bidders from the third world. Take advantage of anything that you can use to differentiate yourself. Also, get a stack of business cards and start going to local business…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?

#27

Post by tomcam »

ioddly wrote: post #22
wtracy wrote: post #4

The problems with Upwork and Freelancer, while significant, are regularly blown out of proportion. I don't recommend them for more than finding short gigs when you're in a pinch, but they are useful for that. Do be prepared to lose a lot of jobs to bidders from the third world. Take advantage of anything that you can use to differentiate yourself. Also, get a stack of business cards and start going to local business…

> Look up the local Chamber of Commerce, search meetup.com, and see if your county has any small business development classes or lunches you can attend. I'm curious if anyone has had success with this. I know Brennan Dunn talks about it as one avenue to pursue, so I've been thinking about going to the local business networking thing. I guess I just have trouble conceptualizing going from meeting people who are runnin…

I have found the tiny, local Chamber of Commerce to be a very significant driver of business in multiple ways.

But I believe you are thinking in a way that will not help. The point is not to convince them of anything. It is to make what you do irresistible to them.

For example, you could show how a coordinated effort getting a Google places profile, a Twitter handle, a Facebook page, and an Instagram profile all with the same name can help their search engine needs. Or you can to demonstrate to them how quickly they can update their own wordpress site and have it reflected in social media with the right plug-ins.

Sure – most of them won't need you, but the ones who do would much rather pay you to do it for them than do what you show them how to do yourself.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?

#29

Post by thibaut_barrere »

This will not help the OP immediately, but for anyone to avoid this situation in the first place, there are a number of techniques (some quite easy) that can help, described in this article I wrote:

https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/how-to-have-clients-find-you...

More short term, I would definitely try to find a single gig, maybe via some subcontracting or via sites like toptal, just to build some runway and to make sure the techniques described above have enough time to bear fruit.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?

#30

Post by atemerev »

One advice: you promised to make messages on affluentconfidante public at July 17th, but you didn't. I understand that there are still no messages there ;) But you need to do something about it. Maybe postpone the date. [I know the hunger and trying the get-rich-quick ideas; used to do it myself all the time].

Meanwhile -- can you do canvas/d3/realtime charting type of stuff?

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