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Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

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Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#21
Interesting parallel, as I freelanced from September 2014 to the start of this year. I also experienced significant difficulty in finding clients, yet I ended up doing fantastic, well-paying client work - without even looking for it.

The secret is code mentoring. I mentor for Bloc, Thinkful, and Codementor. Mentoring puts you in regular contact with all kinds of people who have a need to understand software. Inevitably, you'll intersect with people whose needs are more geared towards having a product than knowing exactly how to make it. It also helps that you'll be forced to work on your English and you'll make money from mentoring regardless, so you can stay afloat longer while you seek higher-value contracts.

With regards to the three platforms I mentioned, I highly recommend all three, although they are all very different. Bloc pays mentors a fixed weekly rate depending on number of students and their course length (shorter = more work = more sessions = more pay). Thinkful pays an hourly rate which also applies towards reviewing student projects and helping out on message boards. Codementor lets users and mentors set up long term schedules although to me it's more of a place I go to if I need help with a framework or concept I haven't worked with enough to figure it out on my own. I don't hang out on Codementor too much but when I do (and set my status to 'available for session') I'll get various messages, sometimes from multiple people in one day. The downside there is you need to spend your first free five minutes (generally expected and built into their system) proving you know what you're talking about to a person and a codebase you've never seen before, but I've never frozen up in the past, so it's not too bad.

All in all, each have their strengths and their weaknesses. Look into all three and cast a wide net. Although I'm in a great position now with client work, it took me months to get there, half the time waiting for the right student-turned-client to show up, other half waiting for the details to be hashed out before I can begin proper work.

Good luck.

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#22

If it's only been a few months, certainly it's great to seek advice, but possibly your expectation of instant success was just too optimistic? Things take time..

Thanks, this is the comment I was expecting :) no that is bad.

My first plan is to be consistent, but I prefer to be more proactive, freelancing is new to me. I leave a job that even it was not interesting for me it was stable, with the certain that I'm capable to learn what is necessary to improve myself.

If I'm being to optimistic about the time it will take? probably, I think we all feel that the first days of a year put you in a revision state, and I want to start well.

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#24
Freelancing is generally not long term work.

The most important lesson I've learnt is the difference between freelancing, contracting, consulting, and beyond.

It is possible you are trying to be a freelancer and desiring the stability of a contractor / consultant.

You have to find long term customers who need regular ongoing work.

To do this, you'll have to do things that are closer to the creation of value in a company, rather than at the edge. For example, someone that is doable by many people is not as valuable. If you help them with strategy as well as implementation, that is value.

Many small businesses would pay $1000/month for someone for ongoing work when they cannot afford a full time person. Get 10 of them and you have steady work. This is how I started in 1999 when there were far fewer people online. The need is much greater today.

Lastly, about your point on patience, you are right. Everyone seems to want to magically reinvent their lives in 6-18 months. That happens for outliers who are willing to learn and do whatever it takes. The above advice that I've helped my own friends implement in their lives is relative to execution, dedication, patience, commitment, resilience, and remembering how you add value.

You are now a business. You have to do the work of a business whether you like it or not. The health of any business is how good it is at getting new customers, and keeping/growing existing ones. Applying this to a smaller freelancing/consultant scale is doable and quite beneficial to review regularly.

My advice would be to find opportunities where you add the highest value, and seek some sort of a monthly retainer that is affordable for the customer and meaningful for you x10.

Once there is stability, there is an opportunity to pursue prosperity. Too many people try to thrive before learning to survive, and actually make more money than they need to use for growth. It's the single biggest important lesson for business and startups.

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#26
post #5

It may be unpopular to refer anyone to WordPress, but I made a 5-6 figure income as a freelance developer working with WordPress clients. WordPress is often a good fit for non-tech, small-medium size businesses that do not have an in-house tech department. Many of them will keep coming back as they see the potential that you offer them. If you know PHP, WordPress is easy to pick up. The backwards compatibility emphas…

This sounds like solid advice. I've done freelance work with Wordpress for one of my clients and it showed potential. Any tips on pitching WordPress to those who are not sure what it can do for them? This client, in particular, I was working with was interested in setting up an online store using WooCommerce. FWIW, I am a developer with strong Linux/unix admin knowledge, and plenty of PHP experience.

Find out their business problems and talk to them about those. People don't care about the technology (ok, most of them) but they do care about their problems.

Don't even mention wordpress.

More here: http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/get-started/

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#28
post #13

You talk about having "5 star ratings," and such. Where are you finding these jobs and where are you getting ratings? It sounds like you're using a website where people post jobs they want done and you bid on them. If so, that could be your problem. Those types of web sites tend to attract the lowest bidders with either the most boring work or the most unrealistic expectations about what could be done for what amount…

> You talk about having "5 star ratings," and such.

Usually 'odesk' or equivalent.

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#29
post #25
post #6

Where are you located? Do you want to work remote or locally?

Bolivia. And I'm looking for remote work.

Thank you. I probably have a job for you, if you want to talk this over send me an email please (email in profile).

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#30
> my clients just contact me to small short projects, I want it to change

What type of work are you looking for? Part of the problem is you're using freelance sites that have tiny gigs and force you to work within their platform.

I don't want to be a shill, but I can't help it: my friends and I run https://gun.io - we vet freelance clients on your behalf (to have budgets above $10k~ and be serious, etc). After you're introduced, you're free to work w/ that person forever, however you think is best.

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