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Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

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Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#31

Post by peterbsmith »

aggieben wrote: post #21
andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

Don't charge by the hour but by the value This sounds like a recipe for disaster to me without a lot more explanation. Time is the main cost to a provider, so it's very natural that time would also be the driver for billing. "Charging for value" sounds like you're trying to say "fixed price" without actually saying it. I have many, many issues with trying to do fixed price projects of any appreciable size (say, more…

Some clients are rich. You could charge by what you feel you're worth, say $50/hr. Or you could charge by what they value the work at - at that might be 4x as much. They might be used to paying $200/hr, and are happy to do it.

That mentality is similar to charge by value.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#33

Post by aggieben »

sharemywin wrote: post #23
andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

The problem with charge for value is now your a product not a service. Not that that's a problem per say but it's a whole different animal than trying to being a contractor.

I'm pretty interested in shifting into a product orientation, so that would be fine by me ;-)

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#34

Post by brudgers »

andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

Since the work has no value, charging by value rather than time means that the client who doesn't pay because they are not going to use the work is justified in doing so.

Which is another way of saying, the general problem isn't a good billing model. It's good clients. Unfortunately, most contractors/freelancers starting out and looking for advice won't have good clients (even when they have clients at all) and will have trouble distinguishing good clients from people who look like good clients until the invoice arrives.

YMMV.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#35

Post by chilicuil »

peterbsmith wrote: post #28
chilicuil wrote: post #26

Fiverr ( https://www.fiverr.com/ ), tasks usually take less than an hour and give me enough revenue to pay domains and hosting for my pet projects.

Hey thats a really good idea! How long does it take to get started with that? Do you find a long lead time from signing up to building a reputation to getting a lot of gigs?

Depending in the gigs you offer your experience may differ, I do python/perl/sh scripts and sysop tasks and after a month I started receiving enough gigs a month (5-8) to pay my digital bills.

I think logo designers, web developers and translators get a lot more traffic. I just recently was upgraded to 1st level seller after 3 months, so I think it's relatively fast.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#36

Post by aggieben »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #29
aggieben wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't charge by the hour but by the value This sounds like a recipe for disaster to me without a lot more explanation. Time is the main cost to a provider, so it's very natural that time would also be the driver for billing. "Charging for value" sounds like you're trying to say "fixed price" without actually saying it. I have many, many issues with trying to do fixed price projects of any appreciable size (say, more…

A good example of "charging by value" is productized consulting - where it's a particular task, etc. that needs done for multiple customers. Say you're really good with Postgres, instead of just hanging out a shingle for "any Postgres stuff?" you offer something like a one time $2500 "Postgres Performance Audit". You get really good at this one thing, have a set bunch of scripts, very deep knowledge, predone report t…

Ah - I didn't think of this angle, but I like it. Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#37

Post by a_shane »

peterbsmith wrote: post #19

Personal networks. I came into Syracuse knowing nobody and nothing. I had never done any app making as of January 2015. I had done some wordpress stuff, but just the basics. And I had (and have) no CS degree. I now make a living on contract work. I did it by going to local meetups and introducing myself as a freelance web developer. Nevermind that I hadn't done freelance web development ever. I kept going to meetups…

I want to add a bit to your comment - it's important to try and identify the kind of meetups you'd like to attend that will help you meet your desired customer base, and the kinds that will help you get known in your local community (ie: meetups for web devs to connect).

I find that meetups can sometimes become circle-jerks for people in a similar field to just get together and talk/humblebrag. Which is fine, but if that's not your goal you need to look at different meetups which serve that goal.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#38

Post by imaginenore »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #8

I recently made it through the Toptal ( http://www.toptal.com ) screening process but haven't taken on any work through their site yet, the hourly rate that you can ask there seems to be quite reasonable though compared to sites like upwork.com, where you will mostly compete with people that are willing to work for 10 $ / hour (which for someone living in a developed country is just not possible). For Germany, Gulp (…

What kind of rates do you see on TopTal?

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#39

Post by vitd »

andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

It's been over 10 years since I had my own business, but when I did, I tried to use "we" instead of "I" and paint the business as a business offering services rather than one person trying to get work. It became very frustrating dealing with recruiters (the people who typically contact you for work). A typical conversation would go something like this:

Me: I see you're looking to fill a position involving a lot of graphics work. We could help you out.

Them: Please send the resume.

Me: I'm not offering the services of just a single developer. We have a variety of services we offer. Please see our web site at " rel="nofollow">http://www.example.com/>.

Them: Please send the resume.

Me: I'm unclear what resume you want me to send. I'm not offering you a single person, but a full-service solution.

Them: Please send the resume.

Me: ...?

I'm sure I could have spent time coming up with some response for these people, but it wasn't worth it. I ended up only working with clients I could deal with directly as it was much easier to have a conversation with them.

So just be aware that you'll have to deal with this type of nonsense from time-to-time.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#40

Post by scrollaway »

jseliger wrote: post #30
andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard to compete on quality here. Have an upvote. I don't work in software, but I am a grant writing consultant, and I've never met a successful consultant of any kind who relied on or even used marketplaces. A huge part of many consultants's lives consists of marketing and pitching. I know that we've found email marketing to be our biggest strength in this regard. Consultants who can't…

> I've never met a successful consultant of any kind who relied on or even used marketplaces

You have now. I started on PeoplePerHour. Once I had a few good reviews on my profile, I could get jobs more easily; eventually got some big clients off them, which pushed me to PPH's top 5 and I was able to get whichever job I would bid on from then on; I'd always seek the large ones that would last a few months.

At the time of course, PPH was a fairly newish marketplace. It's very different now; polluted with low grade jobs and low grade bidders that promise the world for $100.

But to me, this tells that the problem isn't "the marketplace" but the target audience.

In any case, big +1 to GP post. To reiterate two of their points:

1. Do avoid most marketplaces, unless you can find one where you can easily compete on quality (and if you do find one, tell me about it, heh).

2. Charge fixed price by the value. This means choose your jobs and clients carefully. If you pick a bad client, or a job where you need more time than you anticipated to complete it, you might end up underpaid - Roll with it and learn from it, don't make the same mistake twice.

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