Ask HN: Where can I find good freelance opportunities?

The most important thing to learn/know is the mindset of the buyer. Applies to pretty much any industry, but for freelance development it's even more important.

Business owners, project managers and the like hire experts who fit their needs and here's the part to take note of "solve their problems."

Their problem might include some Ruby, PHP, C# or whatever language work, but that's not what they are interested in. They want to know you can get the job done and solve their problem in a reasonable amount of time, within budget and without causing them extra headaches.

I have never, ever sold anyone on 'php'. Always on their needs (solving a problem).

I've found many high quality clients through TopTal. Please use my referral link: http://www.toptal.com/?ref=35

Quick facts about us: everyone is really cool. You get to work with top notch clients. All the developers who work with us are seriously talented: we make sure, since you will need to take a short coding test and show us some of your code before we let you in.

I highly recommend it.

By the way, it's not like oDesk where there is bidding. Bidding is not part of the process. You can set a weekly fixed rate for full or part, or just set your hourly. No haggling involved. Clients know they are getting a developer of a certain quality when they choose us, and they know what that costs.

It's not that for all your current clients you charge more, just when you start feeling overwhelmed and you're getting requests for more work is when you say ok my rate is going up x amount. That way you keep quality clients high, less stress, and more money.

I am also getting started with this process and these are things that have helped me:

It seems like you are very aware of what you are capable of. It's great to be realistic, but also realize that you are now in the professional market like everyone else. Like the other posts say here, NETWORK. Go to local meetups and present yourself as a real professional. Create business cards (BONUS: Make yours stand out from the rest). You will receive many business cards by going to these meetups. You can probably gauge what would make yours flashier.

Update your LinkedIn, Twitter, HackerNews, Blog, etc immediately with solid and presentable information. If you're unsure of how to do this professionally, check out other professionals' pages and emulate success.

Now, BUILD THAT PORTFOLIO. Even one side project is generally enough to show someone that you can do the work. Do you want to show off your skills, but you're not sure what to build? Take a popular site and build a small client for it.

This is one of the most exciting things you will ever go through. We hear about people building businesses all of the time, and it seems amazing. There is so much more passion - in my experience - when you are building yourself. Congratulations on taking this huge step!

Please feel free to contact me if you have any basic questions about the whole freelancing process. I'm happy to help in any way! (Email in profile)

what about ruby or django? How good are the opportunities? I'm an asp.net developer and I'm wanting to branch out a bit. Not sure which platform to start with. I tried PHP a bit but it seems very unorganized and incapable of doing large scale web applications.