4 ms·

If you don't mind me asking, how did you find those clients? I assume it was all mouth to mouth advertisement? How did you switch between those types of work?

If you don't mind me asking, how did you find those clients? I assume it was all mouth to mouth advertisement? How did you switch between those types of work? Reason I'm asking is because I recently started freelancing in software/web development (about 6 months ago) and I think I'm doing okay. I love to design and think out all of the odd, interesting or difficult back-end problems and so far all of my clients love my work, and with that I'm slowly increasing my rate, started at 50eu/h ($55/hr) and am currently at 75eu/h ($82). This is all in Europe (The Netherlands) However I feel like I'm a bit stuck, the clients I'm able to find don't want to pay more then $80 and with that the work isn't as challenging as I'd like it to be. At the same time it feels like the clients that do want to pay more aren't looking for me.

robinduckett 7y ago
This is just under what I charge per day for fully remote full-stack JS development and whilst I do need to charge more in future I am happy with my current client and the work is challenging and engaging. As the OP says, if you don't find the work engaging then move on.
- chirau 7y ago
  you charge just above $80 per day?
im_down_w_otp 7y ago
A combination of word if mouth and eventually targeted business development activities (not sales, but business development). To make it easier to charge more you have to go after customers who are less price sensitive, whose problems are costing them a lot of money, and who are accustom to acquiring outside help for things outside what they consider to be their core business & expertise. In my case this was big enterprises. Nationwide law firms, banking & fin. tech. institutions, international distribution & logistics companies, etc. It took a long time to build up to that point and to get access to those parts of the market. The way it worked for me was, early-on, I'd be doing smaller jobs for big companies. Sometimes with another vendor as an intermediary. So, I might work with Boeing or Lockheed indirectly, but I was fastidious about establishing direct personal relationships. Once I hit the media & marketing world, it was the same pattern. Work through an existing vendor of say Pepsi or Nike, and then make direct personal relationships that could grow later for their adjacent or orthogonal needs. Eventually you have enough contacts and enough of a reputation that you don't need to leverage the credibility of intermediaries anymore. I don't know that such a path would work for everyone for all kinds of work (everything I ever did was kind of esoteric for its time), but that's what worked for me.

robinduckett 7y ago

This is just under what I charge per day for fully remote full-stack JS development and whilst I do need to charge more in future I am happy with my current client and the work is challenging and engaging. As the OP says, if you don't find the work engaging then move on.

chirau 7y ago
you charge just above $80 per day?

im_down_w_otp 7y ago

A combination of word if mouth and eventually targeted business development activities (not sales, but business development). To make it easier to charge more you have to go after customers who are less price sensitive, whose problems are costing them a lot of money, and who are accustom to acquiring outside help for things outside what they consider to be their core business & expertise. In my case this was big enterprises. Nationwide law firms, banking & fin. tech. institutions, international distribution & logistics companies, etc. It took a long time to build up to that point and to get access to those parts of the market. The way it worked for me was, early-on, I'd be doing smaller jobs for big companies. Sometimes with another vendor as an intermediary. So, I might work with Boeing or Lockheed indirectly, but I was fastidious about establishing direct personal relationships. Once I hit the media & marketing world, it was the same pattern. Work through an existing vendor of say Pepsi or Nike, and then make direct personal relationships that could grow later for their adjacent or orthogonal needs. Eventually you have enough contacts and enough of a reputation that you don't need to leverage the credibility of intermediaries anymore. I don't know that such a path would work for everyone for all kinds of work (everything I ever did was kind of esoteric for its time), but that's what worked for me.