Ask HN: How do I get into consulting / freelancing?

Best advice I have is just to talk to lots of people. Reconnect with old friends, college classmates, old coworkers. Go out to lunch with them, invite them to an activity, whatever. At some point, mention what you're doing and the kind of work you're looking for. Then wait. After a while, one of your friends will message you and ask if it's ok to give someone your phone number/email that needs some work done.

You talk to them and usually sign the deal relatively quickly and easily without any competitors. Usually, for the type of client that reaches out to their network for a personal recommendation, that recommendation is 90% of the way to closing. These types of clients also are often less price sensitive.

I am in similar shoes as OP.

I see "networking" a lot, but how exactly? Unfortunately, I am not in contact with any of my former colleagues of employers apart from being connected on LinkedIn. Starting conversations with them on LinkedIn would be awkward and weird. What else can you do?

It doesn't help that I'm a introvert, not really a social person. Probably contracting is just not for me.

A good way to get started is not to ask "How do I become a freelancer/consultant" but rather "what valuable business outcomes can I deliver with my technical skills" and then find clients who have those problems and solve them.

Yes, this ignores the hard part of "finding those clients".

I know people with expertise in improving website performance, for example, and the mindset shift here is not to think about response times but rather improvement in conversion rates, decrease in shopping cart abandonment rate, etc. Clients don't really care about caching or asset preloading but they really, really care about squeezing the extra dollar from their website visitors. Help them make that extra dollar and you get to keep some portion of it.

Once you establish this foundation, getting to the right clients is easier than if you put yourself out there advertising "will write Python code for $$$".

So for instance, I wouldn't necessarily attend technical conferences / meetups but perhaps conferences where, I don't know, ecommerce website operators discuss issues that are critical to them. Those are your potential clients who can be perceptive to the right pitch. I think that technical conferences are a better fit if you're looking for a job and selling your resume.

Having said all of this, when I started out as a freelance dev, I did use Upwork to get some experience and reviews that I could later repurpose as testimonials on my website.

There's nothing wrong with hands-on freelance coding to get started somehow. It can be hard to define what specific business outcomes I could deliver with technical skills/existing resume, so getting some real-world experience can help with refining that. Always be on a lookout for that answer: once you understand "why" your clients keep paying you (hint: not for the code itself), you can find your niche and improve your sales pitch.

Finally: yes, it's critical to get out there and connect with people! Be it on LinkedIn, email, forums, Discords: you won't get clients unless you talk to people. Talking to past connections could also be a good way to find contract opportunities esp. if you've kept in touch over the years. Being a solo dev/consultant is 80% people work and only 20% technical work.

PS There's another way: you can ignore all of the above and apply to contract jobs (1099) using recruiters to get to clients. That's very similar to employment (clients tend to treat you just like staff) but you can potentially get better rates. I've been doing this for years with "success" but frankly, it's only marginally better than employment plus you get no benefits like vacation days etc. Real, actual consulting/freelance work can be a lot more satisfying if you can make it work!

Consulting is hard, it's hard to keep your pipeline of projects full so you have consistent work.

First try looking for a remote contract position as a software engineer. This will get you back to work. You could even try to get a contract working 30 hours per week to give you blocks of time for your side project building.

After that you can look at building your network for future consulting gigs.

Your best projects will come from people you know and referrals. Build open source projects in the framework or stack that you use, get to know people in the community for your framework or stack.

Create a blog to share interesting things you learn.

Connect with MeetUps and groups for your framework and stack.

Attend local business events where you can talk to business owners about their problems and issues. Be ready to suggest how a custom web/mobile application can help them solve their problem(s) and print money.

I think working a contract position would be a good fit for you to have income, not be an employee and build your business.

Check out the book Getting Stared in consulting by Alan Weis.