Maybe you want to try [teamed.io](http://teamed.io).
Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?
91–100 of 132 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?
#92In a short time? Forget about it. No one who doesn't know you first hand will engage you in a $10-20k contract. Let alone the fact that there is such a position available on short notice.
So your options are really limited: Credit card debt? Family debt? Low paying jobs?
In the longer run, there is no way around building a network. If you want high quality work, you have to build a network. It's like some guy coming to a big city and want to hit the high-end clubs, meet with high-quality people and get back home with a 9/10 girl to sleep with. Not gonna happen.
He's probably going to fail at entering the clubs (first step) and then blame it on the clubs having bad policies and stuff. If you want high paid work, you have to establish yourself first.
Establishing yourself in a certain market/niche take years of hard work on establishing yourself. It can happen on different dimensions and will depend on your style (blogging? Forums? Conferences? How about writing a book? Contributing to a popular open source project? How about becoming a main contributor of a popular open source project?).
Good luck. Tough times but I'm pretty sure you'll come out of it and it'll shape your perception down the road.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?
#93Many years ago I did just that on Elance (now Upwork) and RentACoder (now Freelancer.com). I started with a couple of jobs in below the $100, then some below the $1,000, and then some in the low thousands. Striving for excellent ratings is key.
If you don't mind me asking, what do you do now? Are you still freelancing?
Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?
#94There are pretty good Remote Job sources these days, try them. There are quite a bit of contract works too, which you can start off with. Also, do not forget to walk into your area's agencies, they usually work with freelancers/contractors. - https://www.workingnomads.co/jobs - https://remoteworkhub.com/remote-jobs/ - https://www.crossover.com/ - https://remote.com/ - https://weworkremotely.com/ - https://getbetterlu…
Here's a couple more:
Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?
#95The problems with Upwork and Freelancer, while significant, are regularly blown out of proportion. I don't recommend them for more than finding short gigs when you're in a pinch, but they are useful for that. Do be prepared to lose a lot of jobs to bidders from the third world. Take advantage of anything that you can use to differentiate yourself. Also, get a stack of business cards and start going to local business…
Honest question. Are business cards still useful?, do people actually hold to them?. If I'm interested in a person I trade emails, done. I don't know anyone who holds business cards from other people.
How do you trade emails? You would have to write it down somewhere. Togheter with your name and the reason why he should contact you...
That's basically a business card. Just a crappy handwritten one. :)
Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?
#96I wrote about how I learned to get consulting leads: http://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to-get-consulting-le... TL;DR - Decide who is your ideal client. Identify their 1) common pain points and 2) which online communities they participate in (may or may not be HN). Write advice that will help them with their pain points, and share it in those communities. This will in effect advertise that you know how to solve…
How long did it take to go from 0 to clients?
Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?
#97If you need to make money right away, I strongly suggest you reconsider upwork (don't know the other sites you mentioned). I know a friend who worked on it as a dev. I use it as a client. The money from initial contracts might be bad, but it has the potential to turn into a more lucrative deal with a particular client (if you prove your value). This is a great way to build up experience as a consultant .. you can then say you worked as a consultant for X, Y, Z big name brand. Here is the thing .. pick your customer carefully. You want to make sure you are working with a customer who is as tech savvy as you. I work in deep tech so was able to communicate very effectively with my upworker, we were able to estimate things similarly, etc. I have seen postings on other free lance sites where someone wants you to build a highly scalable version of twitter for 50 bucks. You want to be able to avoid those people.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Look up the local Chamber of Commerce, search meetup.com, and see if your county has any small business development classes or lunches you can attend. I'm curious if anyone has had success with this. I know Brennan Dunn talks about it as one avenue to pursue, so I've been thinking about going to the local business networking thing. I guess I just have trouble conceptualizing going from meeting people who are runnin…
I'm a mobile app developer and I have got most of my work from meetups and local business events. Just remember that going to the geeky meetups will only get you so far. You need to think who would buy your services and go to meetups made for them. I've had the most success with product management and other business related meetups.
Obvious in retrospect but a very good suggestion. I mostly go to geeky meetups and usually lament how everyone is the same. When I go to the odd business meetup, I find a very diverse crowd. Finding the right business meetups can be hard though. Any thoughts on how to find them?
Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?
#99The problems with Upwork and Freelancer, while significant, are regularly blown out of proportion. I don't recommend them for more than finding short gigs when you're in a pinch, but they are useful for that. Do be prepared to lose a lot of jobs to bidders from the third world. Take advantage of anything that you can use to differentiate yourself. Also, get a stack of business cards and start going to local business…
I second this. We used to hire on Upwork regular for bigger projects and it usually was close to a gamble (for both parties). You get > 30 applicants easily if you pay decent wages and the cv's are usually quite non saying.
We gave people small, test projects to see if they could deliver and communicate effectively (they didn't know it was a test .. we paid them of course). Been having a decent experience on Upwork so far from the hiring side (we started this year). If you found resources on how to use Upwork more effectively, would appreciate pointers :)
Re: Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote?
#100Potential alternative to Upwork that sounds better: http://gigworks.blogspot.com/2017/04/moonlight-work-for-soft...
Co-founder of Moonlight here - thanks for the mention. It costs nothing to contractors, and you set your own rate when you want to work on projects. Definitely recommend that OP signs up. Fun story: The contractor who wrote the code for the Moonlight blog was in a similar position as OP. Hit a deer with his car, and insurance didn't cover it. Needed extra money quickly. He signed up for Moonlight and did a project in…
Interesting idea. Do you have a mechanism where a moonlighter(?) doesn't get matched in a specific geography, industry or set of companies? Presumably your workers are being employed somewhere and not all employers are friendly towards moonlighting.
Also, I'm curious if you have researched the legal framework around moonlighting coupled with non-competes. My limited understanding was it is very state-based. NY, CT are not permissive while CA is very permissive. If you figured this out, there might be a lot of value to unlock.