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Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

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Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#31

Post by bettycf »

vitd wrote: post #13

You talk about having "5 star ratings," and such. Where are you finding these jobs and where are you getting ratings? It sounds like you're using a website where people post jobs they want done and you bid on them. If so, that could be your problem. Those types of web sites tend to attract the lowest bidders with either the most boring work or the most unrealistic expectations about what could be done for what amount…

I started working in Odesk, my first experiences where there. and I agree with you 80% of the jobs are unrealistic requirements, but I'm not getting replies from the remaining good 20% of the jobs.

I have tried to use other websites but It feels the same. I read a lot in HN about networking and that seems hard from where I am: Bolivia. :D

Thanks for you comment, and if you have a list of resources, websites or places I'll be grateful if you can share it

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#32

Post by bettycf »

Thanks for your comments, I want to reply all but it's taking me time. First some facts.

I live and work remotely from Bolivia, work in Odesk and I mainly a Wordpress/PHP Developer but I have experience with Django and Sysadmin.

I will reply all the comments, I'm feeling better emotionally reading your ideas, and yea Probably I'm being optimistic.

:)

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#33

Post by mooreds »

bettycf wrote: post #31
vitd wrote: post #13

You talk about having "5 star ratings," and such. Where are you finding these jobs and where are you getting ratings? It sounds like you're using a website where people post jobs they want done and you bid on them. If so, that could be your problem. Those types of web sites tend to attract the lowest bidders with either the most boring work or the most unrealistic expectations about what could be done for what amount…

I started working in Odesk, my first experiences where there. and I agree with you 80% of the jobs are unrealistic requirements, but I'm not getting replies from the remaining good 20% of the jobs. I have tried to use other websites but It feels the same. I read a lot in HN about networking and that seems hard from where I am: Bolivia. :D Thanks for you comment, and if you have a list of resources, websites or places…

I'd start at meetup.com to find groups for networking. Here's at least one in La Paz:

http://www.meetup.com/find/?allMeetups=false&keywords=New+Te...

I don't know where you are, but you can search down to the city in Bolivia: http://newtech.meetup.com/

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#34

Post by mooreds »

nikkoschaff wrote: post #21

Interesting parallel, as I freelanced from September 2014 to the start of this year. I also experienced significant difficulty in finding clients, yet I ended up doing fantastic, well-paying client work - without even looking for it. The secret is code mentoring. I mentor for Bloc, Thinkful, and Codementor. Mentoring puts you in regular contact with all kinds of people who have a need to understand software. Inevitab…

This is a really cool lead funnel that I'd never thought of. I'll have to take a look at these.

edit: Just took a quick look and it is interesting to me that none of these seem to have mentors for the heavier 'corporate' languages like java or C#. Do you know of any mentoring sites for those?

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#35

Post by sarciszewski »

In case 'tptacek and 'patio11 don't find this thread, please read two of these comments about freelancing and bill rates:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1880501

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7850335

Simply put, don't waste your time on oDesk clients; instead, try to find companies willing to pay $800 - $1600 per day (or $4000 - $8000 per week) for your time to develop widgets that solve real business needs. (US currencies used here.)

Also, the monthly HN freelancing thread is a great place to start.

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#36

Post by sarciszewski »

tejay wrote: post #30

> my clients just contact me to small short projects, I want it to change What type of work are you looking for? Part of the problem is you're using freelance sites that have tiny gigs and force you to work within their platform. I don't want to be a shill, but I can't help it: my friends and I run https://gun.io - we vet freelance clients on your behalf (to have budgets above $10k~ and be serious, etc). After you're…

Gun.io seems neat. I've yet to receive a notification for a project that seems up my alley yet though, so I can't really vouch for it.

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#37

Post by sarciszewski »

mooreds wrote: post #34
nikkoschaff wrote: post #21

Interesting parallel, as I freelanced from September 2014 to the start of this year. I also experienced significant difficulty in finding clients, yet I ended up doing fantastic, well-paying client work - without even looking for it. The secret is code mentoring. I mentor for Bloc, Thinkful, and Codementor. Mentoring puts you in regular contact with all kinds of people who have a need to understand software. Inevitab…

This is a really cool lead funnel that I'd never thought of. I'll have to take a look at these. edit: Just took a quick look and it is interesting to me that none of these seem to have mentors for the heavier 'corporate' languages like java or C#. Do you know of any mentoring sites for those?

No, but if you're interested in starting one, there's a startup idea ;)

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#38

Post by jacquesm »

bettycf wrote: post #25
jacquesm wrote: post #6

Where are you located? Do you want to work remote or locally?

Bolivia. And I'm looking for remote work.

I mailed you back, make sure to check your spam folder, it wouldn't be the first time my email ends up in there.

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#39

Post by weitingliu »

mooreds wrote: post #34
nikkoschaff wrote: post #21

Interesting parallel, as I freelanced from September 2014 to the start of this year. I also experienced significant difficulty in finding clients, yet I ended up doing fantastic, well-paying client work - without even looking for it. The secret is code mentoring. I mentor for Bloc, Thinkful, and Codementor. Mentoring puts you in regular contact with all kinds of people who have a need to understand software. Inevitab…

This is a really cool lead funnel that I'd never thought of. I'll have to take a look at these. edit: Just took a quick look and it is interesting to me that none of these seem to have mentors for the heavier 'corporate' languages like java or C#. Do you know of any mentoring sites for those?

Weiting from Codementor here - actually we do have mentors for Java / C#

https://www.codementor.io/java-experts https://www.codementor.io/c_sharp-experts

Let us know how we can be helpful!

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#40

Post by bettycf »

jwondrusch wrote: post #3

It may be unpopular to refer anyone to WordPress, but I made a 5-6 figure income as a freelance developer working with WordPress clients. WordPress is often a good fit for non-tech, small-medium size businesses that do not have an in-house tech department. Many of them will keep coming back as they see the potential that you offer them. If you know PHP, WordPress is easy to pick up. The backwards compatibility emphas…

My first jobs are all about Wordpress! :)

I agree we all you say, with wordpress it was easy to find my first job and my first clients keep coming for small features. My worry is about how to move forward.

In my pass day job I build a ecommerce hosting platform with wordpress and it was exciting at the beginning later I didn't like the repetitive tasks and the making the same themes over and over is annoying, my past employer forbidden me to talk directly to the customers and I know they want more good looking websites and they feel they were overcharged, so I decide to go freelance. And right now I'm not finding this unhappy clients.

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