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Ask HN: is it possible to earn a living US wage at oDesk?

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Re: Ask HN: is it possible to earn a living US wage at oDesk?

#31

Post by fleitz »

rdouble wrote: post #23
goodweeds wrote: post #21

Over the past 7 years using the different sites I've turned down 20 projects that I've been asked to bid on, and have only taken one when I was really in dire straits. You could probably make more on odesk than at mcdonalds, but you'll make 5-8x as much by building up a network on linkedin, and by posting your resume to craigslist once per week. I set my contracting rate on a sliding scale from $250/hour down to $125…

What do you actually do, for $250 an hour?

He/She probably provides value in excess of that to his clients. It's not about 'what you do' is about how much value that provides to the client. I can't charge that much for a website to my neighbor because it doesn't provide him much value.

On the other hand tweaking a couple buttons could be extremely valuable to a business that relies on it's website to generate leads. Smart clients don't care how much stuff costs they care how much money it will make them.

Re: Ask HN: is it possible to earn a living US wage at oDesk?

#32

Post by rdouble »

fleitz wrote: post #31
rdouble wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you actually do, for $250 an hour?

He/She probably provides value in excess of that to his clients. It's not about 'what you do' is about how much value that provides to the client. I can't charge that much for a website to my neighbor because it doesn't provide him much value. On the other hand tweaking a couple buttons could be extremely valuable to a business that relies on it's website to generate leads. Smart clients don't care how much stuff cos…

I am more interested in the specific details.

Re: Ask HN: is it possible to earn a living US wage at oDesk?

#33

Post by csomar »

GFischer wrote: post #18
csomar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm not being mistaken, you are the one who answered my question two years ago on StackOverFlow ( http://stackoverflow.com/questions/763883/options-for-a-deve... ) It was a long road. I have had lot of non-related issues and difficulties but I almost got there. I made $10K doing it last year and I may make 3 or 4 times that number this year. You are one of the persons who changed my life, although it was a simple…

Thanks for linking and for sharing as well :) . I'm in Uruguay, we have a decent developer culture here, but I want to go the freelance route as well (I'm sick of my current job - it's safe and pays a reasonable local wage but is Dilbert-esque). My programming skills are similar to what you had at the beginning. Did you blog about what you went through?

No. I'm not sure if I'm the best person to talk about it. But if I can give you an advice, it's: Go and do it. I didn't know that my skills at that time weren't high enough, so I went and I did it. I learned everything (programming, marketing, writing, handling clients, running a business...) in the road. And yes, I was alone. There are no developer/freelance culture in my small city.

Re: Ask HN: is it possible to earn a living US wage at oDesk?

#34

Post by bryanlarsen »

scottyallen wrote: post #2

I put myself through college about 6 years ago contracting. I found most of my clients through similar sites (Rentacoder and scriptlance). I was making about $30k a year working part time during the school year, and mostly full time in the summers. Not a spectacular wage when you compare it to full time Silicon Valley wages, but I'd definitely call it a "living wage" for the US. The key to being successful on these s…

Seconded. I have a couple of friends who did the same thing. They did contracts on eLance for about 6 months until they had enough clients coming directly to them. I'm sure their current rates are an order of magnitude higher now than they were during the eLance days.

Re: Ask HN: is it possible to earn a living US wage at oDesk?

#35

Post by goodweeds »

rdouble wrote: post #23
goodweeds wrote: post #21

Over the past 7 years using the different sites I've turned down 20 projects that I've been asked to bid on, and have only taken one when I was really in dire straits. You could probably make more on odesk than at mcdonalds, but you'll make 5-8x as much by building up a network on linkedin, and by posting your resume to craigslist once per week. I set my contracting rate on a sliding scale from $250/hour down to $125…

What do you actually do, for $250 an hour?

Primarily devops consulting. $250/hour is what I'll charge for emergency work from unknown entities, poorly managed entities, or for piece work from customers who aren't likely to be a significant source of project work. For small projects I don't bill hourly, but rather I'll decide that a piece of work is about 4 hours of my time, and that I'm uninterested in doing it for less than $1k.

Re: Ask HN: is it possible to earn a living US wage at oDesk?

#36

Post by rdouble »

goodweeds wrote: post #35
rdouble wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you actually do, for $250 an hour?

Primarily devops consulting. $250/hour is what I'll charge for emergency work from unknown entities, poorly managed entities, or for piece work from customers who aren't likely to be a significant source of project work. For small projects I don't bill hourly, but rather I'll decide that a piece of work is about 4 hours of my time, and that I'm uninterested in doing it for less than $1k.

Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: is it possible to earn a living US wage at oDesk?

#37

Post by GFischer »

csomar wrote: post #33
GFischer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for linking and for sharing as well :) . I'm in Uruguay, we have a decent developer culture here, but I want to go the freelance route as well (I'm sick of my current job - it's safe and pays a reasonable local wage but is Dilbert-esque). My programming skills are similar to what you had at the beginning. Did you blog about what you went through?

No. I'm not sure if I'm the best person to talk about it. But if I can give you an advice, it's: Go and do it. I didn't know that my skills at that time weren't high enough, so I went and I did it. I learned everything (programming, marketing, writing, handling clients, running a business...) in the road. And yes, I was alone. There are no developer/freelance culture in my small city.

Thanks :) . I will do it (and hopefully blog about it if I'm not too tired !).

My goal is to quit my job on April (I get a small bonus at the end of March which, coupled with some little savings, will help me through the first few months), but to start my first freelance job in January to test the waters.

Re: Ask HN: is it possible to earn a living US wage at oDesk?

#38

Post by venturebros »

I make around $1k a month just off of Elance. The key to success in freelancing is finding a niche.

The downside to freelancing is once you're in that niche it's hard to crawl out of it. I have been doing solely WordPress stuff on sites like Elance,etc. for the past 9months I have reached a point of boredom yet I can't get anything outside of that because everything in my portfolio is WordPress. So now I am screwed.

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