Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 50 posts

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

#41

Post by chc »

tptacek wrote: post #20

If you're smart enough to ask this question, why are you thinking of ways to shoehorn a business into oDesk? It's a seller's market for dev talent in 2011 and probably for all of 2012. The ability to solve business problems using software development skills is not a commodity. It isn't sold by bidding prices down. No, the opposite of that. This is one of those places where a reasonable amount of extra effort yields a…

I don't think anybody's actually saying, "I'm looking for a place where I can sell my services at a lower price."

Here's what happens: No matter how you position yourself, billing $500 an hour to the zero prospective customers you (the general "you") have right now is still not very profitable. Most developers have about as much idea of how to find customers as they do about how to perform open-heart surgery. Connecting developers and clients is the one area where oDesk shines — and since it's the same area where engineers are weak, many can't help but consider it.

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

#42

Post by tptacek »

chc wrote: post #41
tptacek wrote: post #20

If you're smart enough to ask this question, why are you thinking of ways to shoehorn a business into oDesk? It's a seller's market for dev talent in 2011 and probably for all of 2012. The ability to solve business problems using software development skills is not a commodity. It isn't sold by bidding prices down. No, the opposite of that. This is one of those places where a reasonable amount of extra effort yields a…

I don't think anybody's actually saying, "I'm looking for a place where I can sell my services at a lower price." Here's what happens: No matter how you position yourself, billing $500 an hour to the zero prospective customers you (the general "you") have right now is still not very profitable. Most developers have about as much idea of how to find customers as they do about how to perform open-heart surgery. Connect…

For a freelancer, not being able to find customers is a scarlet-fever-grade problem, and oDesk is an aspirin-grade solution.

I'm not going to berate anyone for using oDesk, especially if they've found an oDesk groove that works for them. But I'd strongly encourage freelancers --- especially prospective freelancers --- to put lots and lots of effort into figuring out how they're going to do customer acquisition outside of sites like oDesk.

Whatever you may think about how convenient oDesk is, you are at the nadir of your professional competitive positioning on sites like that, and will probably (and avoidably) get your worst possible bill rate as a result.

I'd generally like HN'ers to be better at freelancing (it's the best way to start a new company, and it's the direction the industry is moving long-term), and so I'm prickly about things like oDesk which make it harder, not easier, to be a going freelance concern.

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

#43

Post by bks »

patio11 wrote: post #8

I know a gentleman who swears by oDesk, mostly as a billing/mediation platform for custom Twilio apps. I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, but he charges enough to make it viable.

I was at the Twilio conference this year and there was a talk from Tim Lytle who only uses oDesk for his clients. He claims to have a pretty good client base and is busy from the work.

Twilio also endorses oDesk as a platform for people to find qualified programmers http://www.twilio.com/blog/2011/06/twilio-partners-with-odes..., maybe the answer is to specialize and differentiate to become more successful when competing against $10 per hour international outsourcers.

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

#44

Post by bks »

oneiroscopist wrote: post #13
endtime wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suggest being more specific than "US". Either name a part of the country, or, better yet, just name an income.

Fair enough. I'd say 80K for a 50 hour week (since freelancers are expected to buy their own health insurance, do not get any paid time off, so 80K is a very modest wage for a developer in those circumstances) I realize a college student/single guy does not need all that much, but for a 29+, with a family, I think that's the minimum (again, with all the self-employment taxes, insurance etc).

I have a ruby on rails outsourcer that gets paid $5000 USD per month for 60 hours of work. I referencing my earlier post - I think specializations and showing competence in your chosen language / API / platform or type of work you do is key.

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

#45

Post by mattm »

tptacek wrote: post #42
chc wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anybody's actually saying, "I'm looking for a place where I can sell my services at a lower price." Here's what happens: No matter how you position yourself, billing $500 an hour to the zero prospective customers you (the general "you") have right now is still not very profitable. Most developers have about as much idea of how to find customers as they do about how to perform open-heart surgery. Connect…

For a freelancer, not being able to find customers is a scarlet-fever-grade problem, and oDesk is an aspirin-grade solution. I'm not going to berate anyone for using oDesk, especially if they've found an oDesk groove that works for them. But I'd strongly encourage freelancers --- especially prospective freelancers --- to put lots and lots of effort into figuring out how they're going to do customer acquisition outsid…

This is something I struggle with. Do you have any suggestions for how to do customer acquisition remotely?

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

#46

Post by mattm »

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…

Would you be available for specific questions concerning how you built up your network on LinkedIn? You don't have an email address in your profile.

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

#47

Post by gwhy »

venturebros wrote: post #38

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.

Not to throw the thread off track, but have some q's for you. Would you mind dropping me a mail? Your e-mail isn't listed. gy92663 at gmail. Thanks!

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

#48

Post by scottyallen »

csomar wrote: post #6
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…

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…

Wow:) That's really, really awesome to hear. Congratulations on building your business - I feel very honored to have nudged you in the right direction, however slightly.

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

#49

Post by scottyallen »

GFischer wrote: post #37
csomar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think starting freelancing before you quit is very wise. One of the things about switching from full-time employment to freelancing is that it often takes much longer to get paid, and cash flow is much less steady. It also takes a while to build up enough of a pipeline of work that you stay busy all the time. This all boils down to it being nice to have a paycheck while you're ramping up.

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

#50

Post by scottyallen »

oneiroscopist wrote: post #3
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…

Thanks for reply, Scotty. What technologies were you using?

Most of my work was basic LAMP stack (perl and php). I developed a set of long term clients that relied on me to run the web infrastructure for their small online business, whatever that happened to entail. Usually a mixture of system administration, new development, and maintenance programming.

One of the things I loved about freelancing was that it was really easy to find an excuse to learn a new piece of technology - I just used it on the next project I worked on.

Post reply on HN