This was a long time ago but I got an article published in Byte Magazine back when Byte mattered. Got a phone call a couple of weeks after it was published.
Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
31–40 of 165 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#321. SEO and Linkedin https://www.amazingcto.com - best was connecting Google Search Console via MCP to Claude Code CLI for optimizations of landing pages. 2. Semrush has a free tier that works for me for SEO. 3. GEO (AI optimizations), AIs return me when people ask about "CTO Coach"
I just asked Gemini and you did not come up.
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#33Whats your actual tech experience?
Most enterprises that need consultants are using Salesforce, SAP, Hubspot, Dynamics, etc. If a company has an engineering department to build and run internal software, they very rarely need a consultant. And if they don't, they are very unlikely to higher a consultant to build it custom. They'd want "out of the box" because they think (often incorrectly these days), it will be easier to maintain.
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Becoming an expert in one thing also narrows down the potential suitable work tremendously. Also these days nobody wants to pay the expert prices since.. Claude can so the expert stuff with a non-expert (at least in their mind)
This is not true at all. Not even a sliver of truth. There must be a word for this style of post where you take your own inadequacies and fears and project them on to others?
Not OP but I feel compelled to reply.
It's indisputable (borderline tautological) that specialization trades breadth for depth. This (obviously?) implies the risk of targeting a narrower market, and the upside of being more attractive to that smaller population. It's a typical "quality over quantity" tradeoff.
To say there's no "sliver of truth" in pointing that out (let alone w/ an unwarranted jab about projecting fears) is... strange and maybe hypocritical. TLDR your response came across as emotional and passive-aggressive, and confusing.
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#35I worked on an open source application, and some people wanted to use parts of it as a library in their commercial applications. So I started a consultancy due to that demand. I still had a regular job at the same time though, so there was never a need to gather enough clients to make a living out of the consultancy job.
Things I learned:
- Get an accountant ASAP, even if the income is small. Just the peace of mind that my taxes were being filed correctly was worth the cost.
- You don't need a perfect solution from the start, you are working with your client towards something they can use.
- You need to stay on top of things and communicate regularly, even if your client doesn't.
- Almost all clients wanted me to either come work for them or sell all (rights of) my work to them. This is understandable from their side, but if you want to stay independent you need to set some boundaries.
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#36[flagged]
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#37General 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…
Becoming an expert in one thing also narrows down the potential suitable work tremendously. Also these days nobody wants to pay the expert prices since.. Claude can so the expert stuff with a non-expert (at least in their mind)
Even if it's true that AI can replace an expert, and I really don't think it is, except in the simplest minds, the AI training companies are aggressively hiring experts...
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#38My first project came from a former coworker who moved to a new company. That's pretty much it. Can't tell you any clever acquisition strategy. For this sort of work you need a critical mass of credibility and connections. The more companies you've worked at, the more people who can vouch for you from the inside. When you're in corpo, you are basically pre-selling your consulting pipeline, before you ever need it. On…
As someone who went to work for a commercial software consultancy company early in my career, I am looking to follow in your footsteps. In consultancy, projects are over for me when my work is done. Rarely do I get to see the results. I want to work at a product company next.
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#39By having a reasonably successful open source project while in university. Someone reached out with work in a relevant area. I suppose that gate is mostly shut off these days with the volume of vibe-coded crap (or even non-crap) and uptick of clearly fraudulent stars on GitHub.
Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not true at all. Not even a sliver of truth. There must be a word for this style of post where you take your own inadequacies and fears and project them on to others?
Not OP but I feel compelled to reply. It's indisputable (borderline tautological) that specialization trades breadth for depth. This (obviously?) implies the risk of targeting a narrower market, and the upside of being more attractive to that smaller population. It's a typical "quality over quantity" tradeoff. To say there's no "sliver of truth" in pointing that out (let alone w/ an unwarranted jab about projecting f…
> It's indisputable (borderline tautological) that specialization trades breadth for depth
I do not necessarily agree with this as stated. A specialist will have access to many roles within their speciality that are not open to a generalist. The market for generalists without deep expertise is also extremely crowded.