Ask HN: How does an experienced freelancer get work?

I've actually taken this route as of a few months ago, and the best advice is to share your new plans with people you've worked with in the past who have appreciated your work. Former managers, CIO/CTOs, even contingency recruiters who have placed you in the past (worst case, you work something out on a corp-to-corp basis and they'll have plenty of work and leads for you).

I mostly do data warehouse ETL recovery/refactoring, database performance tuning, and some data architect work. The way I sell it is to distill my previous work down to some easily digestible details: "Automated recovery of existing processes, eliminating manual hand-held recovery. Improved performance of evening batch processes by 1500%. Reduced replication time to DR site by 70%". Then, when asked about details, feel free to explain it in excruciating detail over lunch. If they have a specific need, odds are you can get them the results their looking for -- explain your approach, common issues, and get in the door. Even for something like, "I need X built", you have to look past "I can do it" and try to figure out what the customer is looking to get out of it (increased sales, conversion, etc.) and explain not only how can deliver on those metrics, but ideally back it up with previous history.

I've had lunches with former bosses, and talked to former co-workers. I'm not the guy who networks at all (< 20 LinkedIn connections, ~20 friends on Facebook), but I was almost immediately inundated. I have more work than I can take on at the moment, which means I'm simply raising my rate by 60% for the next client -- and they think that new rate is just ducky.

Patio also covered this topic rather well: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/09/17/ramit-sethi-and-patrick-...

1) They want to grow, lack full development strength, and will subcontract you to work under their name. The rates aren't as high as you could get on your own, but it's still good pay and you didn't have to go selling. Attend a few meetings, live with a project manager, but work from home and build the relationship.

2) Projects that are too small for them to consider are immediately passed to you (and their other staff). "Sorry, we can't help you with this one, but we can recommend this guy who's done lots of good work for us."

2: Once you win a few contracts on the freelancing websites, your customers should start coming to you directly and recommending you to others. You can then you can start raising your rates to something reasonable.

3: Send an email to the leaders of all the open source projects you have contributed to. It's quite possible they have more contracting work than they can handle and are willing to send work your way since they already know and trust you.

1. Emailed the larger web design and creative agencies in the local area. ( Maximum around 1 1/2 hour drive is acceptable to me )

2. Created a personal website, and did some very basic ( and always improving ) keyword optimisation, for my areas of expertise.

I've been busy for the last four months solid. Right now is the first time I'm actively looking for work again, and it's mainly because I stopped emailing companies. Big mistake.

It's worth noting that the clients who have found me via my website/blog ( I try to post at least once a week) are happy to pay considerably more than the web design agencies. From my experience most web design agencies don't know how much a good developer can be worth in terms of code maintainability and time saved delivering the project.

On another note I always recommend getting face to face with potential clients. My confidence in my ability shines through when I'm in stood/sat in front of them, and really helps to build that trust factor.

As repeated in many other replies here, and something I'm only just learning myself. Find a problem that people want solving and sell yourself as the solution to that problem.

I'm still not sure what problem I'm solving or can help someone solving, but I'm hoping to figure it out sooner rather than later. :)

Hope this helps.

If you say "I don't know anyone" then start networking. Sure, it's easier said than done. But if you have the chops, and do just a few good projects, word will get around.

To take it to the next level, try to find a company that is run by or that employs a master sales person. Take that person to lunch and get a crash course in sales. Because once you have the referral, you're warm; when you know how to close, you'll be hot.

Reach out to people you feel you can help. Don't be arrogant, but offer an honest and articulate reasoning for offering up your services.

As a developer, have (at least) two things online: a list of recent projects (could be as simple as a Github account) and a blog/notebook with some of your work. I know a lot of the developers that I follow just from coming across an article or tutorial they wrote.

Try putting up a personal site that says who you are (a profile, photo, etc.), what you can do (services), and a rough cost estimate of working together (i.e. my projects start at $X,XXX and average $X,XXX).

Sell yourself on HN. Make sure your profile says what you can do and has contact info. Also, checkout the monthly "Seeking Freelancers" thread. It's a great jumpstart when you're looking for work.

So, I'd say make your approach a very personal one. Try to get them invested in you as a person. This will be difficult to do with those "one-off" jobs, but will work great for clients that have multiple projects that need to be completed. It also works well if you work as a contractor for local agencies (as suggested by @iantrerell).

Also, a decent source of information is Freelance Switch (http://freelanceswitch.com/).

1) Find a project 2) Finish project on time and budget exceeding expectations 3) Wait for client to send you referrals

Repeat steps 1-3.

Your very best clients will come from personal recommendations. Avoid close friends recommending you; one of my first clients was recommended by a close friend, and you feel an obligation to both the client and the friend. Not fun - especially when you make a cock up and the friend calls you to say they are a bit let down. At least without the friend in the equation it is only your professional reputation at risk :)

But good clients come from acquaintances. My very best clients (around 5 regulars) come from a single friend I knew at university - they are marketing person with a big network. I didn't know them very well but they recalled I did software engineering, and got in touch a couple of years after we graduated with a client in need of help.

Tip 1: Check your wider network for possible good "contacts" and tap them for work. You don't have to be embarassed, they weren't that good a friend!

Avoid freelancer sites for the most part. You can get good income from them, but lets face it; you're looking for fun and varied work, with great money and time to call your own. Freelancing sites don't do that for you. They have limitations. You tend to find yourself grinding for work, which you then have to offer competitive prices for. People who post work to freelancer sites are often looking for value, not quality. What are you offering?

Especially this is important when starting out. I had a false start way back 4 years ago when I spent a week looking for freelancing work on those sites & failed dismally. So I went back to my day job.

Tip 2: Ignore freelance sites, mostly. At least till you are established

Learn how to sell yourself - and learn new skills! I started out as a "PHP developer". Screw that - now I am a "Full stack software engineer". I learned how to set up a server and optimise it for load. When a client I had previously done a days work for rang up, months later, in a panic because they had a flood of traffic and couldn't cope... I didn't have to turn them away, I knew how to get them up and running.

Use the right language; You. Are. An. Engineer. That is a skilled consultancy job. Don't undersell yourself as a code monkey jobbing for work. (of course, you then have to live up to that promise)

Tip 3: Learn new skills. Market those skills

Other good work comes from recommendations - these are the best because if someone has been told "Tom gets things done", and they call me, then they are already sold.

The way to make sure you get good recommendations:

- Be 100% professional and competent. Make the effort to write properly in emails, and to include an email footer etc. Little things that make you stand out as capable.

- Get things done. If it's broken, don't waste time. Fix it, then email them the result.

- Be pro-active. If I get a client ring up with a possible project I immediately follow up with an email summarising our phone call - adding some ideas if I can. It shows commitment to them as a customer in a way that adds value to the relationship (without costing them...).

- When the customer calls at 9pm with an emergency, don't fob them off. Fix it. They will happily pay your overtime rates (I once charged a customer £100/hr for overtime emergency work when the normal work I was doing for them was at £45/hr. And they gave me an added 50% bonus because they were so grateful)

- Genuinely offer "full stack". I designed a simple site once, sent the HTML and told them to FTP it to their web host.. the reply was "do what? do we need a domain address?". Clients want you to make things work for them; registering domains and FTPing files is menial in terms of your skill level - the client has no concept of this :) (#1 freelancer rookie mistake).

Tip 4: Be accessible, competent, pro-active and GTD!

Don't worry too much about your website or online portfolio. It's actually a distraction. Find work pro-actively - passively obtained work, unless you are marketing yourself beyond just the website, tends not to be as good!

Tip 5: Find work, don't let it find you

Contact design agencies and recruiters in your area. The latter will annoy you with lots of irrelevant calls ("We have an excellent full time role for you in the Aberdeen area" - uh, hundreds of miles away doing data entry you mean...) but I have also picked up some excellent clients through them. If someone is going to a design agency or recruiter then they have money to burn, and are often looking for a premium service.

Tip 6: Recruiters have clients with cash to spend

Go local. I canvassed my area for small businesses etc. that might benefit from a website. I threw together a leaflet & microsite, plus revamped my own CMS code... and spent a week dropping leaflets through letterboxes. It's good business because I can sell them a design & host package which brings me in half a days work plus yearly ongoing revenue (as it stands, I charge £65/year for domain, hosting and support & have 25 customers with several more interested. In hindsight that was too cheap, I could have gone to £100/yr I suspect.)

This might sound like small change, but the work is regular and if I don't have a "big" contract in a week I can usually fill it with this sort of work via a few phone calls. A couple of the customers have followed up with fully featured website (i.e. booking portals etc.) which earned me good money.

It will surprise you how many business are in your local area - and how much money some of them have to spend!

Tip 7: Look for work locally

That might sound like boring work for an engineer; but it's kinda fun, and very varied. It has also helped build up my design skills to the extent I could tentatively justify calling myself "designer" as well. The next idea I am working on is to partner with some local business improvement initiatives to run "internet" workshops and other technical training sessions for businesses. The first class is at the end of November and it is already oversubscribed - my profit should be > £5,000 for a days work (plus a 3-4 days reusable prep).

I also just launched, locally, an intensive "educate your company about the web/internet etc." consultancy. No clients yet, but some interest.

Tip 8: Diversify

Hope that helps (I know I drifted a little off-topic :))

When I started freelancing I got my first gig through the HN Monthly 'Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer?' thread, highly recommend posting in there on the 1st of each month.

I get steady work through the agency for whom I used to be a full time employee (only now I get paid double, AND get to cherry pick my work. never burn bridges)

I also cold called all the local agencies I could find offering my services, and that's got me a fair bit of work.

I've now got 5 big clients that give me enough steady work to live on, so I'm no longer actively seeking new clients. However I still get people emailing me having found me through google searches and HN. With google searches it's mostly people searching for local devs, eg: 'Freelance PHP developer Hampshire', so try optimising your website for those kinds of keywords.

And of course, personal recommendations is always the best way to find work. Good luck with freelancing, there's nothing like having the freedom to work when and where you like. This summer I took 8 weeks off to motorcycling around Europe, couldn't have done that so easily if I was an employee :)

Only key advice i would suggest is simply not to lock yourself into one contract for too long, unless its a great one. Nothing worse than some great work coming up, and not being able to take it because you're already too busy.

The plan is the launch into the US in the next few months (SF, LA & NY initially).

There are some key differences between our platform and recruitment & outsourcing

1. Transparency: There is no middle man on the platform. Agencies can search all the freelancers on the platform and contact them directly (phone & email is available on every profile).

2. No Rates!! - There are no rates shown on the platform. All rate are negotiated directly between the freelancer and the agency. Freelancers rates fluctuate on factors such as agency size, contract length, project type and general happiness working with the agency. It also means no one on the platform competes on price, but rather skill & ability.

3. High Quality: All freelancers on the platform are vetted before they get access (likewise the agencies are vetted as well). We verify that freelancers have 3 - 5 years experience in their field and have worked with agencies before. This keeps the quality high and maintains that skill & ability is the focus rather than price.

4. Local: The platform is focused no local freelancers. This is what agencies are looking for, and it allows freelancers to leverage their key competitive advantage over foreign workers... they are LOCAL!

Keen to hear feedback, and if you're looking for local freelance work sign up. We will get in contact with you when we roll out in your area. Our platform is focused on playing to the advantages of local freelancers.

You might also want to start by making a name for yourself by working on your own projects (iPhone app, web app, etc.). If you make something cool, you're bound to have people asking you to make cool things for them, too.

For me it was a bit intimidating to begin with since I had to compete against developers whose bids were a fraction of the price I quoted. However, I soon found out that there are still people out there who value quality and are willing to pay more for it, so the "secret" is to make sure you put a quality bid. What worked for me was:

1. Make sure that your offer refers to the project description. Even highlight issues you find. There are lots of people out there who don't read the details and so people offering work appreciate it when someone actually read and thought about their project.

2. Describe how the project relates to an experience you have. Show a couple of examples work you have done with similar nature.

3. Include a sample of your work. In a couple of projects I was told that I was the only person who did that. I won both contracts although I had the most expensive bid.

4. Be responsive if the customer is asking questions before they make the decisions. Despite not winning all those projects where I had contact with the customer, it gave me an insight to their thought process, and even when I didn't win, it was useful to know I was a runner-up (and where possible, why I didn't win the contract).

5. Don't under-price yourself. There are probably cheaper developers than you, but are they as experienced as you are?

6. Don't over-price yourself. There are some naive customers who estimate a work to be more expensive than you think it should be (yes, really). It's tempting to be greedy and up your price, but I found out that being fair led to long-term relationships and to people who kept me so busy I didn't have to look for new clients for a while.

Hope this helps.

Edit: formatting.

Don't compete with low-cost overseas developers and spend all day bidding for projects.

Instead, sign up for the matchist beta (http://matchist.com/talent). We believe in matching you with projects you want to work on and have the skills for.

Freelancer marketplaces are a race-to-the-bottom commodity market.

1. Network especially with people you have already worked with/for in industry that you are now freelancing in. Most ppl underestimate this. For example, I have a list of contacts whom I email at least once a year just saying hi. I usually do it during christmas/new year eve. Never burn bridges with anyone and always try and stay in touch.

2. Get found by people/clients/recruiters/employers by building a strong online presence. I constantly get good offers through linkedin. To do this however, you need to focus on a more specialist profile vs. a generalist profile. Focus on your niche, add the right keywords and experience, get recommendations online in that domain and frequently update your profile.

I'd partner with a web-contracting agency in your area to start doing work through them -- something where you work directly with clients on a day to day basis.

After you've worked for a dozen or so clients, you'll start to have a reputation, and from what I've found with friends, once you quit your contracting job you'll find clients wanting to still give you work based on what you've done. From there word of mouth does a good deal of work, and going to networking events and forming relationships does the rest.

What's your main area of expertise? Go to online communities where that expertise is discussed and join the conversation. When somebody enters the conversation that needs a problem solved, you'll be headed towards a new client.

Social networking is your friend. A month ago, I got a new client using Quora - through a question I asked about how to find new clients.

The more companies you talk to, the closer you'll get to finding somebody that needs you. Remember, they want you to consult for them as much as you want to consult for them, so go out there and find them. From my perception, the environment is very pro-consultant right now.

And client relationships that come via connections are often far better and more lucrative than those that come through freelancing websites.

Main thing is to put the word out. Have projects of your own. Offer advice freely. Be helpful. I normally have more work than I want and can be fairly choosy.

But I've got to admit, if it all dried up, I'm not sure how I'd go about 'looking' for work. (that said, I'm not sure I'd want to)

But else, industry and personal contacts, building up contacts through giving speeches and being a part of the development community (user groups, etc...) works best for me.

Things i have done to get work-

Network- attend tech conferences and talk to people

Blog about your area of interest

I ran google adwords on specific key terms, this helped to get a decent bulk of work with a 20x ROI

Over time your network will build up.

Craigslist is a sham.

I tried working on vWorker.com but I had a terrible experience with a client in Pakistan. Never again.

Right now I'm making enough to pay my bills and I have work lined up for the next couple of months. Not too bad.

If you are a programmer (not web designer) what you want is 'contract programming', not 'freelancing'. Your chances to get a direct contract with a big company (i.e. a company that can afford you) are minimal. Big customers don't talk to single persons. They only talk to other companies. You need to offer your service to one of those companies who will sell you to their big customers on demand.

They highly recommend two books for freelancers, "Get Clients Now!" by CJ Hayden, and "Book Yourself Solid" by Michael Port. The Hayden book, in particular, might be viewed as agile marketing, so developers can feel right at home.

Try using your personal network to find a local business / organization that is struggling with some piece of software / website. Or donate some work to a non-profit and ask them to spread your name around. Every successful project should bring you at least two more to work on.

be consistent in bids (don't bid ridiculously low or ridiculously high on project of some efforts).

give your employer a bit of detail about your implementation methods and road map, even thou they will not understand anything they will get good impression of you.

start off with few free or low priced projects to get a good rating in freelancing websites.