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Open source. Most of our incoming enquiries from potential customers are people already using software that myself and my team wrote or are helping to maintain

by mst 5y ago

Open source. Most of our incoming enquiries from potential customers are people already using software that myself and my team wrote or are helping to maintain. I'm aware there's a level of privilege to this but while it took years to get to the point where that was what's doing it's still the truth. I know this probably doesn't help you today, and I'm sorry about that and it isn't your fault, but it's being paying my bills for fifteen years now and it's my honest answer as to where I'm finding work. Good luck, mate.

itake 5y ago
did you start these projects or did you just become an active maintainer of existing projects? If the latter, how would you identify open source projects that may lead to freelance work?
- mst 5y ago
  To be honest my open source stuff has largely been out of the usual reason of being annoyed something didn't already exist, sometimes adding features, sometimes building something from the ground up. The thing is, working on stuff that was useful for myself and for the clients we already had naturally meant it would be useful to similar companies so the whole process sort of self-selected for working without there being much intentionality involved. The nice part of it though is that it helps with work you already have available, so to a great extent it then helping find work later can be regarded as a helpful side effect. It's also notable that I've done a lot of helping people out on IRC, mailing lists, etc. which naturally (a) means you get excellent help when you're the one who's stuck (b) builds up people who recognise you and may recommend you later. Quite a number of customers over the years have been conversions from support channels because people have thought to themselves "if the free support for these projects is this good, I bet paying for dedicated attention will be even better for me" and Shadowcat has done our best to prove them right to have thought that ;)
MichaelMoser123 5y ago
Do people see your work on cpan and contact you based on it?

by mst 5y ago

itake 5y ago

did you start these projects or did you just become an active maintainer of existing projects? If the latter, how would you identify open source projects that may lead to freelance work?

mst 5y ago
To be honest my open source stuff has largely been out of the usual reason of being annoyed something didn't already exist, sometimes adding features, sometimes building something from the ground up. The thing is, working on stuff that was useful for myself and for the clients we already had naturally meant it would be useful to similar companies so the whole process sort of self-selected for working without there being much intentionality involved. The nice part of it though is that it helps with work you already have available, so to a great extent it then helping find work later can be regarded as a helpful side effect. It's also notable that I've done a lot of helping people out on IRC, mailing lists, etc. which naturally (a) means you get excellent help when you're the one who's stuck (b) builds up people who recognise you and may recommend you later. Quite a number of customers over the years have been conversions from support channels because people have thought to themselves "if the free support for these projects is this good, I bet paying for dedicated attention will be even better for me" and Shadowcat has done our best to prove them right to have thought that ;)

MichaelMoser123 5y ago

Do people see your work on cpan and contact you based on it?