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Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know, it kills me to have to have that disclaimer on there. The reason is twofold: 1) Our payments platform supports U.S. only at the moment. 2) We want to start small and with what we know. That said, we plan on growing this down the road. :)
Do you have a mailing list or something, so I'll know when you're available in the EU?
When I started freelancing I got my first gig through the HN Monthly 'Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer?' thread, highly recommend posting in there on the 1st of each month.
I get steady work through the agency for whom I used to be a full time employee (only now I get paid double, AND get to cherry pick my work. never burn bridges)
I also cold called all the local agencies I could find offering my services, and that's got me a fair bit of work.
I've now got 5 big clients that give me enough steady work to live on, so I'm no longer actively seeking new clients. However I still get people emailing me having found me through google searches and HN. With google searches it's mostly people searching for local devs, eg: 'Freelance PHP developer Hampshire', so try optimising your website for those kinds of keywords.
And of course, personal recommendations is always the best way to find work. Good luck with freelancing, there's nothing like having the freedom to work when and where you like. This summer I took 8 weeks off to motorcycling around Europe, couldn't have done that so easily if I was an employee :)
Craigslist is a sham.
I've been freelancing for ~4 years, "properly" for the last 2. This is what I have found works... Your very best clients will come from personal recommendations. Avoid close friends recommending you; one of my first clients was recommended by a close friend, and you feel an obligation to both the client and the friend. Not fun - especially when you make a cock up and the friend calls you to say they are a bit let dow…
They might be doing monthly meetings, code sprint, bug squashing parties, or just enjoying a beer once in a while. That allows you to stay on top of what is going locally, get to know other freelancers, grow your network and have fun!
I've been freelancing for ~4 years, "properly" for the last 2. This is what I have found works... Your very best clients will come from personal recommendations. Avoid close friends recommending you; one of my first clients was recommended by a close friend, and you feel an obligation to both the client and the friend. Not fun - especially when you make a cock up and the friend calls you to say they are a bit let dow…
I have loads of work that I don't often have to chase, because I have a profile.
Starting out you need to do the legwork to find clients. Think outside the box in contacting people you think could find you work. It will not come find you.
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Freelancing sites are a poor way to make a living long-term, but I know several people who established themselves using freelancing sites. They are one way of establishing happy customers, customers who go to you first for new work and who refer you to others.
Whatever works. Just realize you'll have a lot to unlearn when you get done working on those projects, like the fact that your real rate is anywhere from 1.5x to 5x higher than you've been getting. Also not sure how advisable it is to set up a stable of recurring/referring customers on a rate established in competition with the types of freelancers that frequent those sites.
I've been freelancing for ~4 years, "properly" for the last 2. This is what I have found works... Your very best clients will come from personal recommendations. Avoid close friends recommending you; one of my first clients was recommended by a close friend, and you feel an obligation to both the client and the friend. Not fun - especially when you make a cock up and the friend calls you to say they are a bit let dow…
Why not let it find you as well ? If you have experience and the right skillset, you will usually be found more often than you finding work yourself. I usually get good gigs in my industry by getting found a lot more than finding.
I've been freelancing for ~4 years, "properly" for the last 2. This is what I have found works... Your very best clients will come from personal recommendations. Avoid close friends recommending you; one of my first clients was recommended by a close friend, and you feel an obligation to both the client and the friend. Not fun - especially when you make a cock up and the friend calls you to say they are a bit let dow…
I would just add - keep a library of your own design/code snippets. Developing my own CMS system made my work a lot faster on a long run.
I also always explain to my non-tech clients what technology are we using and why some things take more time than other ones. It makes the communication easier, they learn something on the way and during our next project together I can always refer to it - You know, just like last time, if you want to completely reshape structure of the database, it might take a few minutes.
I've been freelancing for ~4 years, "properly" for the last 2. This is what I have found works... Your very best clients will come from personal recommendations. Avoid close friends recommending you; one of my first clients was recommended by a close friend, and you feel an obligation to both the client and the friend. Not fun - especially when you make a cock up and the friend calls you to say they are a bit let dow…
"Find work, don't let it find you" Why not let it find you as well ? If you have experience and the right skillset, you will usually be found more often than you finding work yourself. I usually get good gigs in my industry by getting found a lot more than finding.