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Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?

#91

Post by michaelbarton »

mcook08 wrote: post #45

3 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…

This is great, and importantly actionable advice. Thank you for sharing specific ideas.

Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?

#92

Post by hyraki »

saadn92 wrote: post #85

I'm doing this right now -- AI automation for small businesses, started on Upwork about two months ago. The thing that actually moved the needle was writing proposals that were basically free mini consultations. Someone posts about needing their spreadsheet workflow automated, I'd write back describing their exact problem back to them and how I'd wire it up with n8n, what the timeline looks like, what usually goes wr…

Curious of what kind of workflows you end up working with and setting up? I am trying to figure out what I can automate in my work but I don't know if I have much.

Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?

#93

Post by georgestrakhov »

Hello. I am also doing this and have more leads / opportunities/ projects than I can handle at the moment. All from my network.

Happy to collaborate / share. Please leave links to your cool projects / GitHub / portfolio etc and I'll reach out if it feels like a possible match. Thank you and best of luck.

Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?

#95

Post by rrr_oh_man »

retrac98 wrote: post #66

Been 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?

Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?

#96

Post by le-mark »

OJFord wrote: post #83
dummydummy1234 wrote: post #59

Earlier 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.

I assumed from the context the arb was California salary vs their local salary.

Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?

#97

Post by le-mark »

jacknews wrote: post #37
samiv wrote: post #18

Earlier 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)

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...

Cogent point, expertly applied, thank you.

Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?

#98

Post by le-mark »

saadn92 wrote: post #85

I'm doing this right now -- AI automation for small businesses, started on Upwork about two months ago. The thing that actually moved the needle was writing proposals that were basically free mini consultations. Someone posts about needing their spreadsheet workflow automated, I'd write back describing their exact problem back to them and how I'd wire it up with n8n, what the timeline looks like, what usually goes wr…

Upwork is such a miserable platform. Have you diversified to other sources?

Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?

#99

Post by nicbou »

aviperl wrote: post #10

I was hanging out on a slack community of developers where I would commonly respond to questions and chat on the channel for Python. Someone there had a friend with AWS costs flying through the roof and he needed some help from somebody who could understand python. My action on that channel caused him to reach out to me. Once I solved their issue, they asked me if I could add features to the site. I turned them down…

I've seen variants of this a few times. Being publicly helpful is a good way to get business. Need a lawyer to help with a specific case? You'll probably hire the person who's active in your community, or who wrote a helpful blog post about it.

Re: Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?

#100

Post by p1esk »

guzfip wrote: post #48
aerhardt wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

How? This is what I never understood. Every domain expert I’ve ever knowing is because they’ve already I can spend all the time I have reading and toying around in a subject, but until I have real concrete experience to guide me, it’s usually pretty difficult to become an “expert” in anything. I know how to become an advanced hobbyist, but thats never in my life translated to someone being willing to pay me over say,…

how?

From GP comment: “either start an open source project, or become the main collaborator in one.”

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