Ask HN: Pay for first few clients or hire a salesperson? Need freelance advice

I am working for a large corp as an analytics manager. I would like to do freelance work on the side and hopefully turn it into a full time gig. I would like to know whether it's worthwhile to hire a salesperson to find my first few clients, or to instead do jobs for free (or at a discount) and build a portfolio to attract attention. Finding access to subcontractors to fill the demand won't be a problem. My business will be focused on analytics and data visualization, ETL, etc.