Previous thread that might provide value: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21189801 ("Ask HN: How do I make the move to consultant?" (2019))
Ask HN: How do I get into consulting / freelancing?
11–20 of 36 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do I get into consulting / freelancing?
#12If you have to ask, it's not going to work out for you. The market is saturated with unemployed tech workers. Unless you have exceptional skills at rock bottom prices, there will be nothing anyone will pay you to do. Harsh reality of the current economic situation.
Re: Ask HN: How do I get into consulting / freelancing?
#13The best freelancing jobs I got were from my network. Mostly people who were contacted by someone for a gig and they referred my name.
Re: Ask HN: How do I get into consulting / freelancing?
#14[dead]
Re: Ask HN: How do I get into consulting / freelancing?
#15I'm surprised no one has mentioned Linkedin yet. It's been an essential tool for maintaining and expanding my professional network. I've also found that the occasional life update post gets me in front of a lot of potential clients. It gets shown to those in my network, and if they interact with it, those in their networks as well. To be fair, though, my life has been more "exciting" than most, recently, so your mileage may vary.
Re: Ask HN: How do I get into consulting / freelancing?
#16By far the best way to operate is via in-network connections you already have. This could be former employers who were happy with your work as an employee, former colleagues at those jobs, people you know from your local university or tech community, even niche Discords / Slacks / forums, and so on: places where you are a known quantity and not a commodity, places where you are not competing with a million anonymous…
Should help OP an awful lot… you nailed it!
Re: Ask HN: How do I get into consulting / freelancing?
#17Look at Codementor. The pay to do their typical "mentoring calls" isn't terrible, and it's not uncommon for mentoring to blossom into larger consulting gigs.
Upwork is of course terrible, but if you qualify as a US-based contractor, the rates are generally much higher on projects with the US-only filter.
Controversial take, but consider it: try to do some lower-paid gigs on Upwork. The key isn't the money you make, but jump-starting your momentum with positive reviews.
Post your information on the "Seeking Freelancer" monthly posts here on HN.
This is more long-tail, but setup your social media accounts and a blog/website. Make a concerted effort to post content in your specialities, and very importantly, don't discuss anything else.
Re: Ask HN: How do I get into consulting / freelancing?
#18I have started and stopped freelancing a few times now, each time basically just starting from scratch again. What works for me in the beginning is casting a net far and wide. You can post in the freelancer thread here in the beginning of the month, join programming Slack channels / Discords, sign up for freelancing services that aren't bottom of the barrel, reach out to recruiters, find forums with people that need your expertise, etc. There are a lot more options I am leaving out, but you get the picture. Once you get a few good clients if they are happy with you they may refer you to people they know, who in turn will do the same. Next thing you know you've got more work to do than you can handle. If you like building apps, you could focus on something that requires some custom work to go along with it. You could also use an app to advertise your consulting services to the users.
Re: Ask HN: How do I get into consulting / freelancing?
#19[dead]
Re: Ask HN: How do I get into consulting / freelancing?
#20I wrote this, maybe helpful.
https://typicalprogrammer.com/how-to-start-freelancing-and-g...
Free, no ads, popups, or other nonsense.
I have freelanced for over ten years.