I'm having trouble working this out, because I have to earn money to pay for car insurance and such, but software companies are not willing to hire people my age for good reason. My resume is also limited because I have only built applications for a few businesses who I had previous connections with. I'm looking for advice for how to start freelancing, because that seems to be the most viable way, without a large resume to start.
Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?
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Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?
#2Search for patio11's posts. Also, develop a great website as part of a portfolio.
Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?
#3I would recommend getting involved with Udacity as a classroom mentor/forum mentor/project reviewer. All you have to do is demonstrate enough domain experience for whichever course you want to help out in. You can do that by either completeing the course in stellar fashion or demonstrating your skills via a stellar personal project. For more info on it, you can check out my other comment from a couple of days ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14472353
Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?
#4Make open source contributions and establish yourself as someone whose code is trusted and accepted by your peers (the open source community). I don't mean to just publish your own open source project, but rather to be involved in other people's projects, specifically the ones that you plan to use for employment.
Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?
#5Get on Upwork or similar sites and price low and deliver. You can up your rate as you earn reviews and a portfolio.
Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?
#6What languages and platforms do you know?
Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?
#7Don't use UpWork or similar. The rates are low even for a teenager.
The best projects and rates are through your network.
Family friends, businesses your family uses like you mention.
So start asking around who needs a website or web application. Those will be your best gigs, projects and clients.
Look for ways to setup recurring revenue. Maybe a business needs a website offer to build them a basic website, maintenance, hosting, backups and updates for $99/mo set it up with Stripe or Paypal recurring payments. Increase the cost as pages grow. Offer to include once monthly limited updates, usually clients will only update a page every month or so but you can adjust pricing accordingly.
Or if you build a web application for a client offer a maintenance plan that includes hosting, maintenance, database backups, etc.
This podcast has some great information to start building your own products and apps.
Startupsfortherestofus.com
And like others have mentioned patio11 has tons of great info.
Good luck.
Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?
#8Don't use UpWork or similar. The rates are low even for a teenager. The best projects and rates are through your network. Family friends, businesses your family uses like you mention. So start asking around who needs a website or web application. Those will be your best gigs, projects and clients. Look for ways to setup recurring revenue. Maybe a business needs a website offer to build them a basic website, maintenan…
>Maybe a business needs a website offer to build them a basic website, maintenance, hosting, backups and updates for $99/mo set it up with Stripe or Paypal recurring payments.
I did this as a teenager and it ended up being a nightmare because you become a magnet for people who want thousands upon thousands of work done for no upfront cost and a low monthly fee. And it puts you in a terrible spot as you are strongly incentivized to say "Yes" to those people because you are desperate for the money and experience.
My recommendation would be to estimate and bill for the actual time put into those projects and have a fair hourly rate that reflects your knowledge and experience.
Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?
#9Don't use UpWork or similar. The rates are low even for a teenager. The best projects and rates are through your network. Family friends, businesses your family uses like you mention. So start asking around who needs a website or web application. Those will be your best gigs, projects and clients. Look for ways to setup recurring revenue. Maybe a business needs a website offer to build them a basic website, maintenan…
The rates are low for your first jobs, but if you're good at what you do you can still charge a lot more on those sites.
Yeah, they're obviously not as good as your own network. But, if you literally don't have anything else going on they're a start.
Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?
#10Don't use UpWork or similar. The rates are low even for a teenager. The best projects and rates are through your network. Family friends, businesses your family uses like you mention. So start asking around who needs a website or web application. Those will be your best gigs, projects and clients. Look for ways to setup recurring revenue. Maybe a business needs a website offer to build them a basic website, maintenan…
The best projects/rates are through your network if your network is in a rich country. For someone who is in an average country, and even more so for a teenager, upwork and similar places can be very useful. Definitely were for me when I was a teen.
Regarding the rates being low on sites like this. Sure there are low rate jobs, and a bunch of people who compete by lowering rates. That doesn't mean you have to do that. It's completely possible to ask for more money on upwork & friends. The classic patio11 advice of charging more works just as fine on upwork as it does elsewhere.