Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#101

Post by whack » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:13 PM UTC

You say you don't want to use Fiverr because "fiverr is a race to bottom". But your goal is to make $1,500/month. If you work just 25 hours/week, that translates to $15/hour. If $1.5k is truly your goal, then Fiverr is the perfect platform for you.

Platforms like Fiverr and upwork get a lot of hate from the HN crowd, precisely because their expectations are to make $50-100+ per hour. And that's much much harder to do on Fiverr because you're competing against people like you who are charging $15/hour. Their frustration is your opportunity.

Once you've grown your skills and have more financial stability, you can start branching out into other career models. But as a newbie with low salary expectations, don't be afraid to do unglamorous grunt work. It will give you experience, build up your reputation, grow your skills, and most importantly, pay rent.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#102

Post by darknessmonk » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

rodrigodlu wrote: post #81

3pt14159 wrote: post #21

What I've seen that has worked in the past is this: Pick an open source project that is in a language that is respectable and commit to contributing to it for three or four months. Full time. Try to make sure that your written English is clear and professional in things like PRs. Try to keep your code as clean and as well tested and linted as possible. Once the core team gets to know you a bit you'll be able to reach…

This is nice way to sum it up. Let me say what what not to do. Context: 10 year developer in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro. Mostly Ruby on Rails (6 years), now Python (1 year). I've dedicated my entire career for the companies and projects I worked for. So I didn't built a profile, or strong connections. The only thing right I got is financial reserves. So I quit from a interim CTO position (previous I was a Tech Leader), w…

> So if you are a junior, let me say it: Build profile and reputation. Seek for good people to follow and be heard. Don't put everything in one company or project. I'm trying this right now.

Fuck dude, are you me?

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#103

Post by woudsma » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

wokwokwok wrote: post #38

Gustomaximus wrote: post #10

My view is coming from someone who hires people last few years. 1) People hate on Freelancer sites, but get on them and and build a profile. If you are good it will show in time. Expect to work for peanuts at the beginning - consider it advertising. 2) Don't lie about what you can do. Always do a good job. I've tried a bunch of people from poorer countries and those seem to be the 2 main issues. Dont have a mentality…

> Expect to work for peanuts at the beginning - consider it advertising. This is terrible advice. Don't work for free, all you're doing is allowing other people to take advantage of you... which, they will. There's plenty of other great advice in this topic; this: "work hard and do a good job, for free and it'll be great experience / advertising / whatever the f" is total BS.

Yes, they will take advantage of you, speaking from experience. Right after graduating I was paid ~750eu/mo for 60+hrs a week as a frontend dev in a first world country. It barely covered my rent. I had to borrow money from my parents to pay for food.

I lasted 1 year at that first company. My next job, a small but awesome agency, took me -someone with an arts degree, 1 year frontend dev experience- as a junior full-stack developer and gave me the chance and challenges to develop myself further. Now, a few years later, I earn a relatively good salary as a JS consultant at another company.

Being taking advantage of (financially) can have the effect of developing a thicker skin. You won't let it happen again after that. That's growth in my opinion.

It doesn't take the fact away that you can earn just enough to survive while building up professional development experience, which you can add to your CV. It's tough, but it can be done! Grab any chance to gain professional experience.

Also, try to stay creative! I know, it is super hard when you're broke / low on funds, there is no freedom in your head to think about anything else then surviving day to day or month to month.

The comment above about contributing to open-source is really good. There are lots of projects that would love more contributors. Also it's a nice way to expand your network.

And please, create a stunning personal website. Do some research into graphic design and try to create a professional but creative portfolio site. Next to your Github account, this is your business card.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#104

Post by ednc » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

If you are a good dev, with a good work ethic and some hustle this won't be that hard.

Although the "almost no experience" and "Started coding 3.5 years ago" aren't very congruent - you should really clarify that.

Here are two options for you:

1. partner with someone and develop a SaaS product. There are thousands of "business" people with no tech experience who have ideas and are looking for a technical partner. But spend a lot of time doing due diligence and make sure they really have done the market research, have customers lined up, and really know the space well. From my personal experience, this usually doesn't happen - they have an idea, get excited about it and want to find someone to work for free and build it on speculation. So be really careful here. BUT if you find the right person, this could be an amazing opportunity for you.

2. As others have said, work on sites like Upwork, and start building a portfolio. At $6.25 / hour (your $1k month goal) this is pretty low risk for the customer. Start with small projects you know you can knock out quickly - get the positive reviews and feedback, and raise your rates accordingly.

I'd be willing to help you with either #1 or #2 - get in touch if you are interested.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#105

Post by Hitton » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

admax88q wrote: post #67

This thread is great, every suggestion has a reply that says "This is terrible advice." Might I suggest people stop giving advice if they haven't actually done it themselves? Just spewing what you think should work, or what you think you've seen people do could be super harmful to this person's career. Let's hear some first hand stories of what worked, not second/third/imaginary hard stories of what people think shou…

"This is terrible advice." No exceptions.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#106

Post by langitbiru » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #21

What I've seen that has worked in the past is this: Pick an open source project that is in a language that is respectable and commit to contributing to it for three or four months. Full time. Try to make sure that your written English is clear and professional in things like PRs. Try to keep your code as clean and as well tested and linted as possible. Once the core team gets to know you a bit you'll be able to reach…

This is correct. One has done it. He needed 4 months to join Gitlab from the day when he started contributing to Gitlab.

https://medium.com/@shinya_55783/how-i-joined-gitlab-and-wen...

I heard from my friends that because of pandemic, Gitlab is focusing on outbound recruiting. So I don't know whether the way still works or not in Gitlab.

But I concur that contributing to opensource is one of the best way to get a high-paying job.

I recommend these opensource projects: React, Vue, Angular, Typescript (because everyone is crazy about JS). If you don't fancy JS, pick Rust, Go, Deno (Deno is written in Rust), Python, Kubernetes, Flutter.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#107

Post by yakshaving_jgt » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

goatherders wrote: post #64

Learn to write well. You can make 1k-1.5k/month starting next month if you can author good blog posts for businesses. Writing content, like coding, is something where the time investment cannot be "hacked." For a 1200 word blog post someone has to sit at the computer and actually write the 1200 words. That takes time. In many cases there is no content writer on staff and someone has to do the work. I'd say 90% of the…

> I'd say 90% of the posts you read by a company CEO, CTO, or COO are in fact written by someone else and at least half the time in those cases they were written by someone that doesn't even work there.

I'd love to see some kind of evidence to support this claim.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#108

Post by drorco » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

As someone who has been hiring a lot of freelance engineers for web dev projects, here are my tips assuming you'd like to check that path and assuming you are still not very experienced:

1. Only take projects you're confident you could ace. Customers would often not tolerate work that isn't accurate, not built according to best practices and is not delivered on time.

2. NEVER fail your client. Assuming the clients is honest and not someone looking to abuse you, if you've committed to a project you must complete it on time and deliver something great. If you can't make it one time, let the client know ASAP. If you can't get the right quality, let the client know ASAP. The client may ask to cancel the deal and get the money back but your reputation will not suffer as much as if you'd waste any more of their time by being late or delivering low quality deliverable.

3. Never submit your work without THOROUGHLY TESTING IT. I see way too many junior engineers saying "I'm done, check it out" only to find out whatever they build easily breaks the moment we start playing with it. CHECK YOUR SHIT before you deliver it or else your client will lose trust in you.

Even if your first few projects turn out to be not that great, if you'll learn from your mistakes and push through, you should be able to maintain clients who will be working with you for the long-term.

The amounts of money you're looking for are a non-issue for many companies.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#109

Post by brainless » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #21

What I've seen that has worked in the past is this: Pick an open source project that is in a language that is respectable and commit to contributing to it for three or four months. Full time. Try to make sure that your written English is clear and professional in things like PRs. Try to keep your code as clean and as well tested and linted as possible. Once the core team gets to know you a bit you'll be able to reach…

I am from India and this is how I started my career about 14 years back. I used to contribute bits and pieces to Drupal and other open source projects. Drupal was really new in India but also like globally.

I got my biggest clients (all over the world) from there, then got into Google SoC, contributed to Drupal Google GData plugin. Made lots of money (through consulting)*, lost all in bootstrapping, rest is history.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#110

Post by caymanjim » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

dessant wrote: post #9

deathhand wrote: post #3

I've hired through UpWork.com

People are usually exploited on freelancing sites like UpWork to work for considerably less money than the market value of their work, so I wouldn't recommend that, unless they're in a desperate situation.

OP is in a desperate situation. They already said they have modest needs and are looking to get a foot in the door.