Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

There's really no excuse here for not getting something on-line. Twitter bootstrap, Theme Forest, etc make it easy to create something that looks reasonably good.

Also do you have any projects on github/bitbucket? Have you contributed to any open source projects? These are all things employers look for and set you apart from other developers.

I've found people aren't too interested in my previous job roles, they're more interested in talking to me. Every time I've sat down and talked to a client, not only have they felt confident enough to hire me as a freelancer, I'm almost always asked if I'm looking for full time work.

I don't market myself as a web designer. I'm a web developer, I do programming not design, and I make that clear right from the start. The companies I work for have more than enough people who can do design. They don't have people with the skills and experience I do as a developer.

Try to market yourself to design/ad agencies. They always need contractors and have a huge network of clients that need professional work and have the budget for it. I'm currently on salary (working remotely, though), but almost all the work I've ever had came through my connections from a 2 year stint I did at a design firm. If you're in a large city it should be easy to find some industry events to check out (AIGA events are a good place to start). I always had a lot of luck selling my developer skills to designers, and selling my design skills to developers.

I think you should look at it from the perspective of the client. Clients want to make sure that they can feel secure in your ability to accomplish the task properly, and they want to feel like they will not be ripped off.

As someone who has hired contractors before, I can tell you what makes me feel comfortable. One is to hear specifics about how the contractor has experience with the specific technologies I use. If I am using Python/Django and the contractor mentions experience with that, then I know he or she read my specification and has the particular types of qualification that I need. I also like it when contractors have some open source work they can point to, since that gives me an example of their work and also makes me feel that they are active and interested in their field.

Not everyone on freelancing sites is choosing the cheapest bid. It might be worth it to you to give it a try even if you take a few less than ideal projects to begin with, just to build up a portfolio and a job history.

Also (and I know this view isn't super popular on HN), I like working with a new contractor on a fixed-price payment plan. If they are willing to do that, to me it indicates that they have confidence in their ability to complete the task promptly, and I don't risk that a bad contractor will drag the project out and cost me lots of money. Perhaps that would help you reassure clients that you are capable before they have had the chance to work with you, at least until you have a strong portfolio to demonstrate your skills. Good luck!

I'm also interested in hearing more.

Same thing, slightly different connotations.

Consulting implies a more advisory role while freelancing implies you are working on something.

Another similar term is contracting. The implication of contracting is that you only work on one project at a time. Often enough at the company's office as well. Contracting is more like a temporary work situation.

'Creative' industries like web design and development have a tendency to use freelancing. While consulting or contracting would almost always be used when developing a java program for a bank.