I write a lot online about machine learning (especially for a broad audience). I don't do it intentionally as a marketing strategy, but people researching those topics naturally read what I write and some email to ask if I can help them with their projects. That leads to connections and sometimes to new projects. That's the best way to market other than just meeting people and networking.
The real skill you have to develop is who to say "no" to. One good customer can keep you busy for a year and pay really well. 500 bad customers with small projects and small budgets can require 500x the work and result in less overall money.
I got my first customer that way and most of my best customers that way. But once you get a couple of customers and do a good job, that naturally leads to more work and other opportunities through word of mouth.
Another strategy that has worked for friends is to contract part-time for a place they used to work that needs temporary help. One friend made nearly his full-time salary working half-time doing this. That left him with the other half of his time to work on his other projects.
One other strategy that works well in a big city is to go work in a shared office like a WeWork. It's easy to meet people that way just through proximity and end up doing projects together or get new leads.
"he real skill you have to develop is who to say "no" to. One good customer can keep you busy for a year and pay really well. 500 bad customers with small projects and small budgets can require 500x the work and result in less overall money."
This. So important to ensure that you find the "right" clients that fit what you are offering.
I was working at a mom and pop shop, and we used a saas web application for managing online shipping. For funzies I cobbled together some python that would poll a usb scale upon http request which would get called from a button on the web app injected by a greasemonkey script and fill out the lb and oz fields with the weight.
When I got it working I was so excited that I immediately opened up their live chat and asked support if it'd be something they were interested in. They were a small operation and it ended up being the businesses owner who was on the other side. After a few emails back and forth we agreed on $3500 (plus our shop would get to use their app for free) in exchange for windows and mac versions of the code.
Oh man, now was I really excited. $3.5k for a couple weekends of work, I've hit the big time!
Later they sold to stamps.com for $50 million. I've since learned to charge more and to better estimate my time.
After I proposed to my wife, we did a pre-marital counseling class about budgeting. She knew that I had credit card debt but she didn't know how much and it shocked her when I laid out the real numbers (over $10k). We had about 10 months until the wedding so I told her I was going to try to pick up some moonlighting projects to pay down the debt.
Fast-forward a couple of months and I've picked up a few really simple websites, blogs and a simple web application that I found through responding to ads on craigslist.
I did these types of pretty crappy jobs for a few years until I finally got enough of a portfolio to start bidding on larger and more interesting projects.
Currently I no longer prospect but work as a resource for other creative agencies who need devs on various projects for a few months at a time. It's good work and all started by realizing that I could take more control over my debt and get it paid off quicker if I was willing to give up my tv time in the evenings.
And I did eventually pay off that credit card debt, but not quite before the wedding.
Worked in a specific industry for a while, made some connections in that time. Left my full-time job and let my contacts know I'd be doing freelance/consulting work. Landed a few starter clients from this, then just asked for word of mouth referrals (by far the best leads for me).
I'd also suggest having a landing page for your business/service, and maintaining a blog on this site where you write commentary on things relevant to your focus. Post links to your articles across social media. At the beginning and end of every post, make it known you're available as a consultant.
It's mostly just about putting yourself out there a bit. This didn't come natural for me at all, so it was a learned skill. But after a while you get kind of used to it. Routinely posting on LinkedIn et al. when you're looking for more work (phrase it like "I have room for a new client in my consulting portfolio..." or something along those lines, see who reaches out).
Just a word to the wise, if you're new to the freelance game, you'll probably accidentally undercharge all your clients for your first year (or few years). Don't be afraid to raise prices on them when you recognize what you've done.
Take your hourly rate from a full-time position and basically double it.
1) Your network will be your main source of work. I've been freelancing for just over a year and every single job I've had has come as a result of relationships I made when I was in full-time employment.
2) In terms of billing do not be afraid to charge a lot more than you would expect to make if doing the same work as an employee. You'll get better at this.
3) It also helps if you can save a few months worth of money before hand. I've found that it helps psychologically when negotiating if you know you don't need to take a job. In practice you will (ideally) a fair amount of what you are offered, this can be because some jobs simply aren't worth taking and the opportunity cost of a mediocre pay-day.
4) Take time off when you can and always sleep well. You will switch between periods of no work and periods of too much work. Relax during the former so you are ready for the latter.
IMHO "Know your stuff" in this case means specialize (in tech) and find a niche (in an industry/domain and the market/clients you work with). Speaking from experience of doing the opposite for the better part of a decade. Cannot recommend. Would not do again.
About 5 years into my career I worked for a small consulting firm that did a lot of mechanical engineering and a little electrical. The owner could not find enough work for the mechanical guys and was tired of the ups and downs of consulting so he closed the business. I asked him if I could continue working directly for one of his old clients and he said sure. So that would give me one customer if I wanted it, but I would need to find more.
I was pretty young and wasn't sure I could do it. I interviewed for one full time job with a startup. At the end of the day I met with two people: 1) my previous mentor who was consulting there at a high level and 2) the CEO. I was open and honest with my mentor and told him I wasn't sure the startup was right for me, and I was considering striking out on my own as a freelancer, like him, even though I recognized I was probably too young to do that. He, being a compassionate and reasonable person, encouraged me and said "well, people should do what they want to do". So, when I met the CEO, I felt I should tell her what I was thinking - I was leaning strongly toward consulting work. Why was I so honest with her? I don't know. It's just my style. But, she blew up. She started yelling at me, saying "You are too young!
People become consultants after years and years of experience for a reason! Let me tell you what you need to do! You need to get a job!!!" And she basically threw me out of the building.
From that moment on I was resolved to prove her wrong and become a successful freelancer. It's now 15 years later and I am sure I made the right choice. All my advertising is via word of mouth / previous clients. I've been busy every day I wanted to be busy.
No joke my first client was from a HackerNews "Who is Hiring" thread. I had been doing part-time freelancing while working a full-time job, and had enough of a portfolio that they took a chance on me. That was my first 5 months, and now I'm in month 11 with a 2nd major client that I got through my network of people in my local city.
In 1999 I’d been building websites for several years. I learned how to build a “Database driven site with PHP and MySQL” from a SitePoint tutorial. My youngest brother was into making modded cars for Need for Speed 3. I built him a website so people could download the cars.
I showed the site to a neighbor. A few days later, I got an email from the neighbor’s sister’s husband’s cousin, looking for a quote on building a MLS real estate search system. I sent a quote, he accepted, and I’ve been working freelance ever since.
I think all of my customers, over 19 years worth, have been referrals either from people I know, people I’ve volunteered with, or previous customers.
(And both those sites from 1999 are up and working to this day.)
The smoothest way to get started is to transition from employee to contractor, bringing your employer or some loyal clients (if at an agency) with you into your new independent venture.
This provides some even ground to help the bills get paid while you explore the growth techniques that will work best for you.
That's what I did.
I worked for years in a contracting firm, and -- with their blessing -- took a couple long-term clients out with me. It was easier for me to keep working with them than to force a transition.
To gather new clients, I also identified a specialty/niche, created a clear brand for myself, and started marketing it in the places my potential clients would look. It really helps to narrow things down this way in the beginning, so you can have some focus in your pursuit of clients.
Over time, growth became more word of mouth and holding to the niche became less important. When new clients are referred to me now, I just assess whether it's work I want and sell them on it.
My first consulting gig was mostly born out of necessity. At that time (2011), I was one of the founders of a startup, whose product was an enterprise / intranet search engine.
As is common with enterprise products sales was hard. Not being Microsoft, IBM or any other of the big names in the industry didn't exactly help either. Suffice it to say, the company didn't do too well.
However, trying to sell an enterprise product came with the benefit of making a lot of new contacts, many of whom needed bespoke software development and consulting (rather than a turnkey enterprise search solution).
Hence, I quickly transitioned into the IT consulting business.
In more generally applicable terms, networking and becoming known for an area of expertise in my opinion is absolutely key for continued, sustainable success as a freelancer / consultant.
So, here for some more general pieces of advice:
Go to events / meetups. Talk to both people from the industry you market your services to and fellow entrepreneurs and engineers. When doing this continuously and consistently consulting gigs almost inevitably will come up.
Create a professional website that describes the services you provide and the value you create for your clients. This is essential. Don't just put up a CV and be done with that. If you want to stand out you have to explain why you're not just a commodity paid by the hour but how you can solve a problem for your clients.
On that website, write about your current work and your area of expertise in general. If such opportunity presents itself (which it also almost inevitably will once you start networking with others at meetups or other events) give talks about these subjects.
To be honest, I've never really marketed myself as a freelancer. That's one of my weak spots.
So here it is, I'm looking for customers with an idea that want a webapplication built. I focus on educational customers.
I'm also for hire writing python code.
After working a couple years with python and going to meetups I started to know some people in the community.
That paid out. First getting a different job. (Thanks Reinout)
One of the people I knew recommended me. That was a part-time gig.
Since then, most customers got a recommendation from someone in my network.
Other freelance jobs were via recruiters. They search mostly on linkedin.
I was already working remotely, but I'd quit a job of several years because of a disagreement.
Someone wanted to give me work, but they preferred to give me a job through a company-based contract rather than being an employee (for work permit reasons). It was pretty straightforward to make that happen from my side. Once I was in that game of "you contract for some of my time, but not all of it", I just carried on.
That someone found me through word-of-mouth / personal recommendation, which is also how everything after that has come along.
I don't market myself particularly hard, but I like to think that my reputation is "brutally honest".
Self taught programming while making a web service that I thought was ace while in university but never made any money after overstaying in university and finally quit and I had to get a job.
Joined some startup who was struggling to get their services right as they didn't have any proper programmer. I just kept fixing stuff left and right with my 10 years experience and it was apparent even from their clients who the guy was that kept fixing stuff.
I was planning to quit the place in a year (without planning anything ahead) but as I quit, everyone started asking me for work, even from the company I left.
A friend of mine was interning as a creative at an ad agency, and they wanted a webpage done for waaay to little money. I was currently just living of my savings and had nothing better to do, so I did my best and took the project on. It was hell, but eventually my first webpage ever was done!
Now I’ve been freelancing for eight years, doing quite the variety of web and iOS projects. Never did I really need to find customers, friends always directed enough work towards me.
Started overseas, right after dropping from school and landed my first job by pure chance, in the so-called creative industry. Had no money, knew nothing and had to learn the ropes in real life situation. The fact that this was a completely different environment helped a lot. I had to start from scratch and pay attention to everything. Luck played a large part. My first client was a big ad agency so this gave me a bit of a buffer time and also helped to get new clients—that job led to the next, building a portfolio and clients references. For a long time, I didn't know how to market myself, however. It took me years to learn some of the basics in that regard. These are things you only realize in hindsight, after trials and errors, in my case. When you are freelancing one of the danger is that you get a false sense of freedom. When things go well you tend to believe that you are at the steering wheel of your career. But at the end of the day, you depend very much on clients and things that are out of your control. If not careful you can quickly become expendable.
If you're currently working at an agency, one trick is to see if they have any smallish clients that you could take with you when you leave. For an agency those customers can be more noisy than they're worth so they're pleased to see the back of them - but they can be valuable as a freelancer. It's worked out well for me in the past (and was a win all round).
I'd just point out that you probably want to be very clear what your existing contract forbids here, and get any exceptions/releases to that very clearly spelled out in writing before attempting this. Companies can get vindictive if they think you're stealing their clients without permission.
A client is seldom worth a lawsuit that you'll likely lose.
I guess I’ve just worked at friendlier places? When I did it, it was at a small agency and they were happy to send the clients over to me because it was best for everyone. Yeah, don’t go about poaching clients, that’s just trouble.
I had a somewhat comparable experience working for an agency. The agency and their client I was working for had some sort of angry falling-out (never discovered what triggered that war of nasty words). The client liked my work so I got the agency to release both the client and myself for our respective contracts - got that it writing on their letterhead to be extra sure. Then continued working for the client - splitting the agency's markup between us, i.e. I got half the markup and the client saved their half of the markup. Ended up working for that client for over 2 years and still in touch with the project manager who was caught in that bind at the time.
I built up connections during employment and open source communities (the latter was much easier 2 decades ago). Ever since, my "marketing" is:
* Try to over-deliver in some aspect important to the customer (time to delivery, documentation, client integration)
* Try to detect clients I cannot interact with properly and refuse them upfront (refer them to a friend who can deal with this type of client!)
* Bring lube. As an extern, you are causing more friction than an employee. A small present to whoever has to deal with the extra overhead and lots of work towards making his/her work easier help a lot.
* Be professional. Never ever talk bad about a client in public, no matter how bad they are; when you want to mention them in a positive public statement, ask for permission (most will say yes anyways and you pointed them at the free advertising you do for them)
Works for me; I don't even have a website nor any picture of me online with my real name. I don't make public appearances at all.
Otherwise, it was probing friends for connections. For instance, I had friends who worked in bakeries and restaurants (advantage of living downtown in an urban city), and I offered services to their managers or business owners. Often it would get whittled down to me offering the service for free before they accepted.
Once you have a [relevant] portfolio going, then it becomes easier to approach like businesses. I never sold to large clients so I can't comment there.
Another good place to look is survey your local sports and other non-profit organizations and determine whether you think you could offer them something improved upon what they currently have for web or other operational tools.
You'll get shot down a lot—especially at first, so don't let it get to you. It can be a bit of a slog at the start.
I'll add that if you're currently working full-time, then stay that way and start on the side. At least while you build up a portfolio, etc.
If you're just exiting school or have some personal financial runway of any kind then that changes things, but I can't tell you what to do there.
i reached out to a bunch of start ups and offered to work for free basically -- it was 8 years ago, so i think times were a lot different, there were a lot less start up backs then, i think its probably a lot easier to find paid work
I used to work at a startup and got fired. I always wanted to try freelancing but didn't have the courage to leave a well paying full-time job and take the risk. This gave me that opportunity.
My family wanted me to take another job but I asked for 3 months and if I couldn't earn equal to my last salary I would take up a job.
It was very hard in the beginning, I emailed people, posted on social forums but the response rate was very low(we all know that now) which was again emotionally challenging.
I had a good profile working with Ruby and JavaScript so some of my clients got interested. And I still work with them it has been almost a year.
@ageitgey said a very good thing about finding the good client, which stays longer and pay well.
I have also realised that in the freelance world the turnaround time is slightly high. What I mean by that is even after a client says yes, it takes almost 15 to 30 days before you really get started.
I did really well in college, so when a company contacted the school and asked an advisor who'd they recommend, my name came up first.
fyi, I spent my time in school actually learning, when I felt a class assignment was worthless, and I saw slackers getting A's by pandering to the teacher, I'd focus on learning something new and screw my grades. (did just fine, but wasn't straight A's because of this)
My methods paid off. I got an internship my second semester (teacher in my first class at school told me to apply at his work place), was hired as employee after 9 months in related field while still in school, and got my first freelance gig the last month before I graduated. Freelance ever since... been working on a startup for too long now though, lol. (I think many people here are working on startups)
I started freelancing a few months ago, what I did to land my first gig was:
- Specialize in something during normal employment (Python backend/cloud infra).
- Build and contribute to a few Open Source projects. Thanks to that I have a small portfolio to show to potential clients.
- Use an agency to help me find clients. Since I didn't really know where to start I looked for advice. An old HN thread mentioned Toptal so I registered without really thinking it would work. After a quite long interview process I got into the platform and landed my first customer a few days after. Overall it is a positive experience and a good way to get started, but other HN comments are more nuanced so YMMV.
On three occasions I’ve consulted for my previous employer (three different companies). Once while I was in grad school, once after I had left but the company still wanted some of my time, and once on a project for a company that had let me go when they moved operations but wanted to collaborate. From that, and through entrepreneurs I know, I’ve gotten several other jobs. I’ve been full-time nearly five years now (Formlabs: we are hiring: http://formlabs.com/jobs) but before that, consulting had become a pretty regular thing to do between full-time employment.
My first freelance gig was a friend whose startup just came out of a YC co-hort and needed UI/front-end help (I had just left the company both of us had worked together at at one point).
He already knew what I was capable of so there wasn’t much marketing/selling involved. That came after, through local networking and finding odd projects on Dribbble and hiring websites that had a section for remote designers. I had kept my main site sparse—and still do—so I had an easier time to drive initial conversation towards business goals instead of pixels and colours.
Is anyone on gigster or upwork ? I've taken a few months off work and I want to do some freelancing to make money on the side and also stay up to date but I'm unable to find quality work out there.
You can get work from gigster or upwork but you will not make the rate you should be making. They have access to the clients - find your own clients and charge hourly or weekly, 2-3x per hour what you made as an employee. As everyone else has said, use your network. That's the best way to get good work.
I worked at a company for a few years then moved overseas and went freelance for them then. Also at the same time started working for friends who had a promising startup.
I got started by using an organization's API on a platform they didn't support and then offering to be a contractor when they sent me a cease and desist.
I found other odd dev work through family friends and by making a well-performing app for a small platform. This was all a nice supplement during university and internships, but not enough to compete with full-time remote work.
Started with message boards (the physical kind!), went from small/private jobs to b2b jobs by using the small/private people's references to get in to their employers and business networks (the people network kind).
In the space of about 6 months went from 100% private jobs to 50% private, 25% small business and 25% medium business.
As much as people seem to be busy with their CV and references, it's often more the presentation of your skills in-situ and the impression you make on potential sources of jobs that will get you a constant flow. In the space of about 18 months I was booked about half a year in advance. This is in a western european country with about 17 million people to give you some context.
About said context: it really depends on your location, rules, lawyerisms and style of capitalism.
Still brand new to this, but have pretty much hit the tipping point from "unsure if enough work" to "too much work" immediately.
If the goal is to be on your own, one thing that is incredibly useful is to build a network of people who would be in a complimentary business to yours, are likely to stumble across work that you would be able to do, and aren't in the position to do themselves. For me, that's working with a former coworker whose business is data science + the strategy around it, or a larger consulting firm where I used to work that has projects come across their plate for steady clients that are too small to be worth their time, but can be quite lucrative for an individual.
I’m primarily an engineer, though I have worn the data scientist hat in the past. There’s a bunch of data engineering/plumbing work that’s necessary in any data science organization, as well as data visualization for things that are beyond a standard chart.
I used to work at a multi-national and got fired.
I always wanted to try freelancing but didn't have the courage to leave a well paying full-time job and take the risk.
This gave me that opportunity and I went ahead to started a productized content-as-a-service http://contentiskey.co which offers unlimited content for $250/mo
Right now am busy searching for customers, you can join me
I write a lot online about machine learning (especially for a broad audience). I don't do it intentionally as a marketing strategy, but people researching those topics naturally read what I write and some email to ask if I can help them with their projects. That leads to connections and sometimes to new projects. That's the best way to market other than just meeting people and networking.
The real skill you have to develop is who to say "no" to. One good customer can keep you busy for a year and pay really well. 500 bad customers with small projects and small budgets can require 500x the work and result in less overall money.
I got my first customer that way and most of my best customers that way. But once you get a couple of customers and do a good job, that naturally leads to more work and other opportunities through word of mouth.
Another strategy that has worked for friends is to contract part-time for a place they used to work that needs temporary help. One friend made nearly his full-time salary working half-time doing this. That left him with the other half of his time to work on his other projects.
One other strategy that works well in a big city is to go work in a shared office like a WeWork. It's easy to meet people that way just through proximity and end up doing projects together or get new leads.
"he real skill you have to develop is who to say "no" to. One good customer can keep you busy for a year and pay really well. 500 bad customers with small projects and small budgets can require 500x the work and result in less overall money."
This. So important to ensure that you find the "right" clients that fit what you are offering.
I was working at a mom and pop shop, and we used a saas web application for managing online shipping. For funzies I cobbled together some python that would poll a usb scale upon http request which would get called from a button on the web app injected by a greasemonkey script and fill out the lb and oz fields with the weight.
When I got it working I was so excited that I immediately opened up their live chat and asked support if it'd be something they were interested in. They were a small operation and it ended up being the businesses owner who was on the other side. After a few emails back and forth we agreed on $3500 (plus our shop would get to use their app for free) in exchange for windows and mac versions of the code.
Oh man, now was I really excited. $3.5k for a couple weekends of work, I've hit the big time!
Later they sold to stamps.com for $50 million. I've since learned to charge more and to better estimate my time.
After I proposed to my wife, we did a pre-marital counseling class about budgeting. She knew that I had credit card debt but she didn't know how much and it shocked her when I laid out the real numbers (over $10k). We had about 10 months until the wedding so I told her I was going to try to pick up some moonlighting projects to pay down the debt.
Fast-forward a couple of months and I've picked up a few really simple websites, blogs and a simple web application that I found through responding to ads on craigslist.
I did these types of pretty crappy jobs for a few years until I finally got enough of a portfolio to start bidding on larger and more interesting projects.
Currently I no longer prospect but work as a resource for other creative agencies who need devs on various projects for a few months at a time. It's good work and all started by realizing that I could take more control over my debt and get it paid off quicker if I was willing to give up my tv time in the evenings.
And I did eventually pay off that credit card debt, but not quite before the wedding.
Worked in a specific industry for a while, made some connections in that time. Left my full-time job and let my contacts know I'd be doing freelance/consulting work. Landed a few starter clients from this, then just asked for word of mouth referrals (by far the best leads for me).
I'd also suggest having a landing page for your business/service, and maintaining a blog on this site where you write commentary on things relevant to your focus. Post links to your articles across social media. At the beginning and end of every post, make it known you're available as a consultant.
It's mostly just about putting yourself out there a bit. This didn't come natural for me at all, so it was a learned skill. But after a while you get kind of used to it. Routinely posting on LinkedIn et al. when you're looking for more work (phrase it like "I have room for a new client in my consulting portfolio..." or something along those lines, see who reaches out).
Just a word to the wise, if you're new to the freelance game, you'll probably accidentally undercharge all your clients for your first year (or few years). Don't be afraid to raise prices on them when you recognize what you've done.
Take your hourly rate from a full-time position and basically double it.
This is really good advice. In addition:
1) Your network will be your main source of work. I've been freelancing for just over a year and every single job I've had has come as a result of relationships I made when I was in full-time employment.
2) In terms of billing do not be afraid to charge a lot more than you would expect to make if doing the same work as an employee. You'll get better at this.
3) It also helps if you can save a few months worth of money before hand. I've found that it helps psychologically when negotiating if you know you don't need to take a job. In practice you will (ideally) a fair amount of what you are offered, this can be because some jobs simply aren't worth taking and the opportunity cost of a mediocre pay-day.
4) Take time off when you can and always sleep well. You will switch between periods of no work and periods of too much work. Relax during the former so you are ready for the latter.
5) Know your stuff and work hard.
IMHO "Know your stuff" in this case means specialize (in tech) and find a niche (in an industry/domain and the market/clients you work with). Speaking from experience of doing the opposite for the better part of a decade. Cannot recommend. Would not do again.
I'm doing freelance EE hardware design.
About 5 years into my career I worked for a small consulting firm that did a lot of mechanical engineering and a little electrical. The owner could not find enough work for the mechanical guys and was tired of the ups and downs of consulting so he closed the business. I asked him if I could continue working directly for one of his old clients and he said sure. So that would give me one customer if I wanted it, but I would need to find more.
I was pretty young and wasn't sure I could do it. I interviewed for one full time job with a startup. At the end of the day I met with two people: 1) my previous mentor who was consulting there at a high level and 2) the CEO. I was open and honest with my mentor and told him I wasn't sure the startup was right for me, and I was considering striking out on my own as a freelancer, like him, even though I recognized I was probably too young to do that. He, being a compassionate and reasonable person, encouraged me and said "well, people should do what they want to do". So, when I met the CEO, I felt I should tell her what I was thinking - I was leaning strongly toward consulting work. Why was I so honest with her? I don't know. It's just my style. But, she blew up. She started yelling at me, saying "You are too young! People become consultants after years and years of experience for a reason! Let me tell you what you need to do! You need to get a job!!!" And she basically threw me out of the building.
From that moment on I was resolved to prove her wrong and become a successful freelancer. It's now 15 years later and I am sure I made the right choice. All my advertising is via word of mouth / previous clients. I've been busy every day I wanted to be busy.
Got a portfolio you can link to?
Sorry, I'm new to HN and not sure about posting it here. I could contact you offline via email or some other means.
how do I hire?
Are you looking for hardware engineers?
No joke my first client was from a HackerNews "Who is Hiring" thread. I had been doing part-time freelancing while working a full-time job, and had enough of a portfolio that they took a chance on me. That was my first 5 months, and now I'm in month 11 with a 2nd major client that I got through my network of people in my local city.
In 1999 I’d been building websites for several years. I learned how to build a “Database driven site with PHP and MySQL” from a SitePoint tutorial. My youngest brother was into making modded cars for Need for Speed 3. I built him a website so people could download the cars.
I showed the site to a neighbor. A few days later, I got an email from the neighbor’s sister’s husband’s cousin, looking for a quote on building a MLS real estate search system. I sent a quote, he accepted, and I’ve been working freelance ever since.
I think all of my customers, over 19 years worth, have been referrals either from people I know, people I’ve volunteered with, or previous customers.
(And both those sites from 1999 are up and working to this day.)
The smoothest way to get started is to transition from employee to contractor, bringing your employer or some loyal clients (if at an agency) with you into your new independent venture.
This provides some even ground to help the bills get paid while you explore the growth techniques that will work best for you.
That's what I did.
I worked for years in a contracting firm, and -- with their blessing -- took a couple long-term clients out with me. It was easier for me to keep working with them than to force a transition.
To gather new clients, I also identified a specialty/niche, created a clear brand for myself, and started marketing it in the places my potential clients would look. It really helps to narrow things down this way in the beginning, so you can have some focus in your pursuit of clients.
Over time, growth became more word of mouth and holding to the niche became less important. When new clients are referred to me now, I just assess whether it's work I want and sell them on it.
My first consulting gig was mostly born out of necessity. At that time (2011), I was one of the founders of a startup, whose product was an enterprise / intranet search engine.
As is common with enterprise products sales was hard. Not being Microsoft, IBM or any other of the big names in the industry didn't exactly help either. Suffice it to say, the company didn't do too well.
However, trying to sell an enterprise product came with the benefit of making a lot of new contacts, many of whom needed bespoke software development and consulting (rather than a turnkey enterprise search solution).
Hence, I quickly transitioned into the IT consulting business.
In more generally applicable terms, networking and becoming known for an area of expertise in my opinion is absolutely key for continued, sustainable success as a freelancer / consultant.
So, here for some more general pieces of advice:
Go to events / meetups. Talk to both people from the industry you market your services to and fellow entrepreneurs and engineers. When doing this continuously and consistently consulting gigs almost inevitably will come up.
Create a professional website that describes the services you provide and the value you create for your clients. This is essential. Don't just put up a CV and be done with that. If you want to stand out you have to explain why you're not just a commodity paid by the hour but how you can solve a problem for your clients.
On that website, write about your current work and your area of expertise in general. If such opportunity presents itself (which it also almost inevitably will once you start networking with others at meetups or other events) give talks about these subjects.
To be honest, I've never really marketed myself as a freelancer. That's one of my weak spots. So here it is, I'm looking for customers with an idea that want a webapplication built. I focus on educational customers. I'm also for hire writing python code.
After working a couple years with python and going to meetups I started to know some people in the community. That paid out. First getting a different job. (Thanks Reinout)
One of the people I knew recommended me. That was a part-time gig. Since then, most customers got a recommendation from someone in my network.
Other freelance jobs were via recruiters. They search mostly on linkedin.
If you've got questions drop me a note.
I was already working remotely, but I'd quit a job of several years because of a disagreement.
Someone wanted to give me work, but they preferred to give me a job through a company-based contract rather than being an employee (for work permit reasons). It was pretty straightforward to make that happen from my side. Once I was in that game of "you contract for some of my time, but not all of it", I just carried on.
That someone found me through word-of-mouth / personal recommendation, which is also how everything after that has come along.
I don't market myself particularly hard, but I like to think that my reputation is "brutally honest".
Self taught programming while making a web service that I thought was ace while in university but never made any money after overstaying in university and finally quit and I had to get a job.
Joined some startup who was struggling to get their services right as they didn't have any proper programmer. I just kept fixing stuff left and right with my 10 years experience and it was apparent even from their clients who the guy was that kept fixing stuff.
I was planning to quit the place in a year (without planning anything ahead) but as I quit, everyone started asking me for work, even from the company I left.
A friend of mine was interning as a creative at an ad agency, and they wanted a webpage done for waaay to little money. I was currently just living of my savings and had nothing better to do, so I did my best and took the project on. It was hell, but eventually my first webpage ever was done!
Now I’ve been freelancing for eight years, doing quite the variety of web and iOS projects. Never did I really need to find customers, friends always directed enough work towards me.
Started overseas, right after dropping from school and landed my first job by pure chance, in the so-called creative industry. Had no money, knew nothing and had to learn the ropes in real life situation. The fact that this was a completely different environment helped a lot. I had to start from scratch and pay attention to everything. Luck played a large part. My first client was a big ad agency so this gave me a bit of a buffer time and also helped to get new clients—that job led to the next, building a portfolio and clients references. For a long time, I didn't know how to market myself, however. It took me years to learn some of the basics in that regard. These are things you only realize in hindsight, after trials and errors, in my case. When you are freelancing one of the danger is that you get a false sense of freedom. When things go well you tend to believe that you are at the steering wheel of your career. But at the end of the day, you depend very much on clients and things that are out of your control. If not careful you can quickly become expendable.
If you're currently working at an agency, one trick is to see if they have any smallish clients that you could take with you when you leave. For an agency those customers can be more noisy than they're worth so they're pleased to see the back of them - but they can be valuable as a freelancer. It's worked out well for me in the past (and was a win all round).
I'd just point out that you probably want to be very clear what your existing contract forbids here, and get any exceptions/releases to that very clearly spelled out in writing before attempting this. Companies can get vindictive if they think you're stealing their clients without permission.
A client is seldom worth a lawsuit that you'll likely lose.
I guess I’ve just worked at friendlier places? When I did it, it was at a small agency and they were happy to send the clients over to me because it was best for everyone. Yeah, don’t go about poaching clients, that’s just trouble.
I had a somewhat comparable experience working for an agency. The agency and their client I was working for had some sort of angry falling-out (never discovered what triggered that war of nasty words). The client liked my work so I got the agency to release both the client and myself for our respective contracts - got that it writing on their letterhead to be extra sure. Then continued working for the client - splitting the agency's markup between us, i.e. I got half the markup and the client saved their half of the markup. Ended up working for that client for over 2 years and still in touch with the project manager who was caught in that bind at the time.
I built up connections during employment and open source communities (the latter was much easier 2 decades ago). Ever since, my "marketing" is:
* Try to over-deliver in some aspect important to the customer (time to delivery, documentation, client integration)
* Try to detect clients I cannot interact with properly and refuse them upfront (refer them to a friend who can deal with this type of client!)
* Bring lube. As an extern, you are causing more friction than an employee. A small present to whoever has to deal with the extra overhead and lots of work towards making his/her work easier help a lot.
* Be professional. Never ever talk bad about a client in public, no matter how bad they are; when you want to mention them in a positive public statement, ask for permission (most will say yes anyways and you pointed them at the free advertising you do for them)
Works for me; I don't even have a website nor any picture of me online with my real name. I don't make public appearances at all.
i worked for near free for a few months to prove my chops and built up a bunch of clients + a portfolio and started from there.
I did something similar during my brief stint.
Also volunteered. I highly recommend United Nations Online Volunteers. I cannot recommend this enough:
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https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en
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Otherwise, it was probing friends for connections. For instance, I had friends who worked in bakeries and restaurants (advantage of living downtown in an urban city), and I offered services to their managers or business owners. Often it would get whittled down to me offering the service for free before they accepted.
Once you have a [relevant] portfolio going, then it becomes easier to approach like businesses. I never sold to large clients so I can't comment there.
Another good place to look is survey your local sports and other non-profit organizations and determine whether you think you could offer them something improved upon what they currently have for web or other operational tools.
You'll get shot down a lot—especially at first, so don't let it get to you. It can be a bit of a slog at the start.
I'll add that if you're currently working full-time, then stay that way and start on the side. At least while you build up a portfolio, etc.
If you're just exiting school or have some personal financial runway of any kind then that changes things, but I can't tell you what to do there.
Where did you find clients?
i reached out to a bunch of start ups and offered to work for free basically -- it was 8 years ago, so i think times were a lot different, there were a lot less start up backs then, i think its probably a lot easier to find paid work
I used to work at a startup and got fired. I always wanted to try freelancing but didn't have the courage to leave a well paying full-time job and take the risk. This gave me that opportunity.
My family wanted me to take another job but I asked for 3 months and if I couldn't earn equal to my last salary I would take up a job.
It was very hard in the beginning, I emailed people, posted on social forums but the response rate was very low(we all know that now) which was again emotionally challenging.
I had a good profile working with Ruby and JavaScript so some of my clients got interested. And I still work with them it has been almost a year.
@ageitgey said a very good thing about finding the good client, which stays longer and pay well.
I have also realised that in the freelance world the turnaround time is slightly high. What I mean by that is even after a client says yes, it takes almost 15 to 30 days before you really get started.
That's my story!
I did really well in college, so when a company contacted the school and asked an advisor who'd they recommend, my name came up first.
fyi, I spent my time in school actually learning, when I felt a class assignment was worthless, and I saw slackers getting A's by pandering to the teacher, I'd focus on learning something new and screw my grades. (did just fine, but wasn't straight A's because of this)
My methods paid off. I got an internship my second semester (teacher in my first class at school told me to apply at his work place), was hired as employee after 9 months in related field while still in school, and got my first freelance gig the last month before I graduated. Freelance ever since... been working on a startup for too long now though, lol. (I think many people here are working on startups)
I started freelancing a few months ago, what I did to land my first gig was:
- Specialize in something during normal employment (Python backend/cloud infra).
- Build and contribute to a few Open Source projects. Thanks to that I have a small portfolio to show to potential clients.
- Use an agency to help me find clients. Since I didn't really know where to start I looked for advice. An old HN thread mentioned Toptal so I registered without really thinking it would work. After a quite long interview process I got into the platform and landed my first customer a few days after. Overall it is a positive experience and a good way to get started, but other HN comments are more nuanced so YMMV.
On three occasions I’ve consulted for my previous employer (three different companies). Once while I was in grad school, once after I had left but the company still wanted some of my time, and once on a project for a company that had let me go when they moved operations but wanted to collaborate. From that, and through entrepreneurs I know, I’ve gotten several other jobs. I’ve been full-time nearly five years now (Formlabs: we are hiring: http://formlabs.com/jobs) but before that, consulting had become a pretty regular thing to do between full-time employment.
My first freelance gig was a friend whose startup just came out of a YC co-hort and needed UI/front-end help (I had just left the company both of us had worked together at at one point).
He already knew what I was capable of so there wasn’t much marketing/selling involved. That came after, through local networking and finding odd projects on Dribbble and hiring websites that had a section for remote designers. I had kept my main site sparse—and still do—so I had an easier time to drive initial conversation towards business goals instead of pixels and colours.
Is anyone on gigster or upwork ? I've taken a few months off work and I want to do some freelancing to make money on the side and also stay up to date but I'm unable to find quality work out there.
You can get work from gigster or upwork but you will not make the rate you should be making. They have access to the clients - find your own clients and charge hourly or weekly, 2-3x per hour what you made as an employee. As everyone else has said, use your network. That's the best way to get good work.
I worked at a company for a few years then moved overseas and went freelance for them then. Also at the same time started working for friends who had a promising startup.
I got started by using an organization's API on a platform they didn't support and then offering to be a contractor when they sent me a cease and desist.
I found other odd dev work through family friends and by making a well-performing app for a small platform. This was all a nice supplement during university and internships, but not enough to compete with full-time remote work.
I started with a service:
https://digitalmicroenterprise.blogspot.com/2018/05/starting...
Proviso: Not really a programmer, though I do little plug-and-play websites these days in addition to freelance writing and resume editing.
I don't do contracting as much now, but I used to get work through referrals and also blogging. If I toss an item on my blog, do a few blog posts:
https://austingwalters.com/
And I'll probably get some hits within a week or so.
Started with message boards (the physical kind!), went from small/private jobs to b2b jobs by using the small/private people's references to get in to their employers and business networks (the people network kind).
In the space of about 6 months went from 100% private jobs to 50% private, 25% small business and 25% medium business.
As much as people seem to be busy with their CV and references, it's often more the presentation of your skills in-situ and the impression you make on potential sources of jobs that will get you a constant flow. In the space of about 18 months I was booked about half a year in advance. This is in a western european country with about 17 million people to give you some context.
About said context: it really depends on your location, rules, lawyerisms and style of capitalism.
Someone previous mentioned target a coding niche.
I have had a good amount of success on upwork.com, targeting financial / stock trading algorithms.
Check my profile for details...
Reach out to your network.
I started
Still brand new to this, but have pretty much hit the tipping point from "unsure if enough work" to "too much work" immediately.
If the goal is to be on your own, one thing that is incredibly useful is to build a network of people who would be in a complimentary business to yours, are likely to stumble across work that you would be able to do, and aren't in the position to do themselves. For me, that's working with a former coworker whose business is data science + the strategy around it, or a larger consulting firm where I used to work that has projects come across their plate for steady clients that are too small to be worth their time, but can be quite lucrative for an individual.
Curious but what business are you in that's complementary to data science?
I’m primarily an engineer, though I have worn the data scientist hat in the past. There’s a bunch of data engineering/plumbing work that’s necessary in any data science organization, as well as data visualization for things that are beyond a standard chart.
Interesting. Do you have a website?
I used to work at a multi-national and got fired. I always wanted to try freelancing but didn't have the courage to leave a well paying full-time job and take the risk. This gave me that opportunity and I went ahead to started a productized content-as-a-service http://contentiskey.co which offers unlimited content for $250/mo Right now am busy searching for customers, you can join me
Good to know about the choices you have made.. well Done!