171–180 of 206 posts
1. You can try cold emailing the cofounders or department chiefs (CTO, VP of Growth, etc.) of small to mid-size companies with a product that requires dev work. For example, you can try targeting startups who just raised a recent round (= more aggressive growth goals) to pick up some dev/engineering slack on a project basis as they scale quickly. There are tons of email finders (hunter.io, voilanorbert.com) that let…
In the times I haven’t made time to do this, I feel like a robot receiving endless requests. I don’t think they remember I’m a real person.
Eye contact and a handshake go a long way.
I am in the exact opposite situation right now : how do I find a C system freelancer ?
The freelancer thread can work, and hopefully you have a network you can ask. Please, though, tell us more about it! What's the project in a nutshell? What kind of developer skills do you need? Rough ideas of time investment and compensation?
I am in the exact opposite situation right now : how do I find a C system freelancer ?
what kind of C help do you need? :)
"I don't have a ton of networking skills" Work on this. I have built my consultancy over the past 6 years and it started with me doing freelance and now we do over $1m/year in revenue. I attribute the majority of success to networking. Here are some of the things I did early on (and still continue to some extent). 1. Local meetups. Great place to show off, hear about leads, etc... 2. Find influencers / networkers in…
I have built my consultancy over the past 6 years and it started with me doing freelance and now we do over $1m/year in revenue. How many employees does your consultancy have including yourself? Find influencers / networkers in your area and buy them coffee. Ask tons of questions and end with "Who else do you think I should be talking to?" I feel like something is missing here. The sales part, I imagine. Otherwise ho…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A client that doesn't know what he wants is a bad client. I disagree completely. A prospect who doesn't know what they want is an opportunity for the freelancer to provide more value by finding a solution for them. You're conflating "unrealistic expectations" with "I know I have a problem but I don't know what the solution is." The former is something to avoid. The latter should make cash-register sounds in your he…
I believe his main point is that a client that doesn't know what he wants also doesn't know how much to spend, and sure doesn't want to over-spend. If you find someone that doesn't know what they want but is throwing cash around, sure, be the expert that leads them to digital nirvana. Generally though, if they don't know what they want, they don't realize how hard it is and so will be in for some serious shell-shock…
If they seem like the type who doesn't understand the cost, you tell them "from your description you're already well into 5-figure development cost." Or "$500 is typically what you'd expect to pay for minor website content updates."
This ballpark pricing shouldn't take more than a few minutes to figure out. And it puts the ball back in their court to do more research and figure out if they can really afford the going rates.
Once a month on the first, HN does a piece called "Freelancer / Seeking Freelancer." You could post to that and/or check it for "Seeking Freelancer" comments.
Unfortunately, the "Freelancer" posts outweigh the "Seeking Freelancer" posts by ten to one or so. I tried posting in the last thread, and the only response I got was from someone asking me to work on a project which involved helping people buy a certain substance which is still illegal in my state. Didn't wanna touch it.
A bit off-topic, but after reading "software engineer with a full-time job, but I have lots of spare time in my off hours" I find myself contemplating if I'm alone in wondering how anyone can have free time with a full-time software job. I work full-time in software and it is an all-consuming, life-eating thing. Perhaps (hopefully) I'm just "doing it wrong" and there is hope out there for a life beyond work... :-)
IMO, if I'm thinking about work more than 8hrs/day, I'm doing it wrong. That's just me though. I love my job, and I love not worrying about it when I leave. Different employers can have pretty different expectations about this. I always try to let potential employers know it's important to me when looking for a job. Usually it's as simple as "Work life balance is important to me. Can you describe how your company han…
A bit off-topic, but after reading "software engineer with a full-time job, but I have lots of spare time in my off hours" I find myself contemplating if I'm alone in wondering how anyone can have free time with a full-time software job. I work full-time in software and it is an all-consuming, life-eating thing. Perhaps (hopefully) I'm just "doing it wrong" and there is hope out there for a life beyond work... :-)
same feelings here. All my time is sucked either into the full time job ( writing code, debugging, profiling... and then meeting with stakeholders, debating requirements... and then coaching the younglings management hires oh-so-often... and then, repeat. ) or into the commuting from home to work. I get to the weekends ( when it's not just extra time to finish even more work ) exhausted, praying for a quick and merci…
Toptal[1] If you're a really good engineer (like I strongly believed I was) and don't have the network to find gigs (I live in Pakistan) freelance market places are great ideas on paper but never work out... Until I joined Toptal. They screened me to ensure I was a good developer (high quality supply of developers) and then worked with me to find a client that would be a good fit. Since not everyone can get into the…
As a counterpoint, I found their interview process so frustrating and disorganized that I gave up on them and told them I was no longer interested... They do both an online programming test, and an in person “code in front of us” test + whatever else. They don’t make it clear up front what the interview process is, and often drop the ball... miss appointments etc.