10 ms·

My first month freelancing

191 points by Alan01252 14y ago

scottmkroberts 14y ago
Sounds good are you enjoying it so far, compared to full time work? I am just starting up this month freelancing/contracting for iOS apps so hopefully I can find some work.
- Alan01252 14y ago
  It's going well so far, I've had some really down days, just sending out emails and getting no responses. Or getting close to a project starting and it not happening. Fortunately it's all worked itself out in the end. I've been lucky!
  - superprime 14y ago
    it sounds like you've also been persistent.
Killswitch 14y ago
Nice post... I used to do freelance a few years ago, now I am building my own stuff. Thought about doing freelance again so I can leave my day job, but I'm iffy on it as it's not stable reliable income.
smoyer 14y ago
I think there's really only one thing to say when you've got such a short time under your belt: Don't give up and your persistence will pay off. Good luck!
tptacek 14y ago
People want to pay you hourly/per project, convince them it’s better for both you and them to pay you daily. I’ll explain why in a future post. I've burned many thousands of words here arguing the same point and will hopefully be able to spare you all a retread, so let me just say that I think a lot of good habits and useful dynamics emerge organically from this one decision. If you make no other careful strategic decisions about your consulting business, make this one: bill daily.
- arellanv 14y ago
  "I’ll explain why in a future post." The suspense is killing me. Now I want to know sooner than later haha.
- sequoia 14y ago
  link or something? I'm also curious.
  - thechangelog 14y ago
    Here's one of the times: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420303 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420303
    - sequoia 14y ago
      Cool! Lots of neat discussion there. I must say however, that "If I work an hour for you I can't work for anyone the rest of the day" argument is one I wouldn't want to pitch to a prospect. Seriously? If you work for 1 hour on project X you're done for the day? I know it's super inefficient to switch contexts and I agree about the "bill full day" assertion, but I wouldn't phrase it as "I can't ever do any context switching. Ever."
      - tptacek 14y ago
        Who's "pitching" this to a prospect? You make it sound like something you'd put on your website and in your proposals. Your terms are your terms. A client asks, "I think we'd just like you for an hour or two today, so can we just pay for that", and you say "no, sorry".
        sequoia 14y ago
        You are correct. I guess I was just concerned that declaring that working on a project for any amount of time, no matter how small, precludes work on anything else for the rest of the day sounds a bit too inflexible, bordering on incompetent. Your comments indicate that you are not actually this inflexible with good clients, to the contrary you are generous with small amounts of time, so I'm not sure why you'd want to tell them you are 'unable' to work on more than one project per day ever; it seems like you're selling your abilities short. Basically I agree but I'd phrase it in terms of efficiency and ROI: the value delivered in X amount of time plummets when you have to context switch. Anyway thanks for the sound advice!
HyprMusic 14y ago
As someone who used to rely solely on freelance income, but having wound up freelancing full time at a consultancy company, it's refreshing to hear your experiences. I often dream of going back to freelancing and working on my own side-projects, but I fear that I won't have as much luck as I did before in getting new work.
throwaway1979 14y ago
I'm impressed with your persistance! For the activities you list in "How I found work" ... did you start these before the first month? I'm curious how long it takes to get work flowing through the pipeline. The blog seems interesting and I wish you the best of luck. I think I hit a bug though ... When I make the font larger/smaller, the different elements of the screen move around and reposition themselves for a few seconds after. Also, the code samples disappear in an hap hazard manner. Am using Chrome on a MacBook Pro.
- Alan01252 14y ago
  Absolutely everything was started from April 21'st. Which is the date I returned from 8 months travelling. It took me a few weeks to get into a routine again and see friends, family etc. The first blog post was published on 2012/05/03 which is when I started really hunting for work, so it has been just over a month in total. Thanks for the bug reports. I'll investigate as soon as the site calms down a bit. :)
  - benholmen 14y ago
    I tried to subscribe to your site in Google Reader but it could not detect your feed. Since you're running Wordpress I was able to locate http://alanhollis.com/feed/ http://alanhollis.com/feed/ but you should probably add some link tags in your header that indicate the location of your RSS feed. I'm eager to hear more about your progress. Good luck!
    - Alan01252 14y ago
      Thanks benholmen. I'll put this under the 'things to learn banner'. I don't use rss so didn't even think about it. I'll be getting it sorted asap. edit: Subtle button now under the post :)
      - voltagex_ 14y ago
        I think there should also be an RSS tag somewhere in the markup to let Google Reader et al find your feed automagically.
alinajaf 14y ago
Great post. I'm in London and started freelancing a few months ago and I'd agree with everything you've said. Only things I would suggest: * Contracts. Watch this talk by Obie Fernandez[1] and take a look at his Master Services Agreement + Statement of Work bundle (paid for, but totally worth it). Not only does it protect you to some extent legally but you come across as a lot more professional to clients. * Charge more. I have a comparable amount of experience and I'm charging around double what you've listed on your price card. Many good things fall out of charging more. Even if you don't intend to charge a higher rate, I would at least quote higher on your price card page for more negotiation room. Good hunting! [1] http://www.infoq.com/presentations/fernandez-sales-do-the-hustle http://www.infoq.com/presentations/fernandez-sales-do-the-hu...
- Alan01252 14y ago
  Thanks for this alinajaf. Pricing is tricky. I've already been turned down by a few companies at my current rate because I was too expensive. This put me off raising it higher. I'm still unsure as to whether having pricing on the website is a good thing or not, it's always tricky to know what to sell yourself for.
  - alinajaf 14y ago
    > I've already been turned down by a few companies at my current rate because I was too expensive. In this market, you really, really really are not too expensive. Some concrete sources for PHP work: * http://hackerjobs.co.uk/ http://hackerjobs.co.uk/ - Quality of clients that advertise there is generally high. * If you don't mind dealing with recruiters, cwjobs.co.uk will happily email you a steady stream of PHP contracts at the £350+/day range. * The big publishing companies seemed to be hiring both fulltime and contract staff in perpetuity. I'd follow up at PHP London, as they seem to hang around there. You should be going to PHP London anyway, with business cards (side rant: not a single freelance developer I've met at a meetup has had a business card on hand. The same developers complain about how hard it is to find work. Don't be one of these developers). > This put me off raising it higher I know the feeling. There are clients in the world that can afford higher rates, but it's hard to remember this if you get turned down a few times in a row. If you're nervous about raising your rates, I would suggest that you try raising the quote by £50 at every interview you go to. If it's too expensive for the client and you really need the work, you can always invite negotiation. Other than that just stick to your guns, and remember that there are economic situations that clients can be in such they can afford to pay quadruple your daily rate without raising an eyebrow. If you'd like to grab a beverage sometime and talk shop, details are on my profile :)
moystard 14y ago
I keep the thought in my head of freelancing in the future, and whether I will do it or not, it is always nice to read about the starting of the business. I will follow your blog to see if you give more details about how you found your initial contracts, why should you ask to be paid daily, and how your enterprise will evolve on the mid-term. Thank you anyway for sharing these details.
nollidge 14y ago
Looked at another article on your blog [0] and the Crayon plugin acts really strangely in Chrome/Win7. As I mouse over a code block it keeps disappearing and reappearing. EDIT: Also...where's the RSS link? If I just follow on Twitter, I'll probably miss any updates. [0] http://alanhollis.com/silicon-milkroundabout-coding-competition-getting-started/ http://alanhollis.com/silicon-milkroundabout-coding-competit...
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ilija139 14y ago
So you actually only worked for 7 days? (£1,785.25 / 250 ~ 7) Also you say you entered a programming competition, can you share which and why you chose that one?
- Alan01252 14y ago
  A bit more than than that, unfortunately I haven't got exactly £250 from every client so far. And finding work, is work ;). I have had to negotiate as it's early days, and work for a reduced rate is better than no work. I haven't yet taken the first offer any company has offered me though, hence my advice in the post to negotiate. I entered a competition ran by a company supporting http://siliconmilkroundabout.com/ http://siliconmilkroundabout.com/, purely because the competition appealed to me, I had some free time, and I thought it would be a good way of promoting myself before the event. Unfortunately the competition wasn't as successful as I hoped it would be (very few entries). I came second overall, it's another example of work on my github profile, and I got to play with Python for the fist time, so it was a positive experience.
  - jc-denton 14y ago
    I wonder what kind of competition. Something like topcoder?
nohup 14y ago
Great to hear about your progress. I have been freelancing for the past 4 years and have done so for 6 years in my programming life of 11 years. All said and done, I find doing a honest job in estimation, no over billing and writing code to the best of your ability is the key to success. Documenting your own knowledge helps a lot. Knowing what is the latest and greatest, even if you have never tried it helps in keeping your client informed about their choices. Not living in your comfort zone is the best thing you can do to yourself. What I mean is, don't give your clients what you know, give them what is good for them even if that means you have to learn a new tool/trick/language. Maintain a healthy pipeline, it helps in keeping the stress down. On a day to day basis freelancing is more stressful then a regular job, but on an average over a month or quarter you will find it to be more relaxing and it lets have more time for yourself. Best of luck.
garagemc2 14y ago
Speaking as person that hires freelance developers it would probably be helpful if, on your blog, you mentioned what languages and frameworks you can develop in.
- Alan01252 14y ago
  Hi garagemc2. Where specifically were you looking so I can improve? http://alanhollis.com/ http://alanhollis.com/ has an overview of my skills. http://alanhollis.com/cv/ http://alanhollis.com/cv/ has more details of my experience.
marcamillion 14y ago
I will ask a question here that I wrote on the original link, because I think it may be useful for others here. I recently started freelancing (the last 12 - 18months) also, and one thing I did - to generate new business - was wrote a script that sends me a bunch of leads. Right now, it's primarily from Craigslist, but I will add other sources. I showed it to a friend and fellow web dev and he loved it. So that made me start wondering if others would find a service like that useful. Would you pay, say $9/mo, to get a handful of curated Craigslist leads (5 - 10) sent to your inbox every weekday? Thanks. P.S. The reason I would sell access to these leads is because I can't manage everything. There are some leads that want someone local, there are some that want say an iPhone or FB App developer - none of which I do.
- alinajaf 14y ago
  It would depend entirely on the quality of the leads, though I'd definitely sign up for a one month free trial to test it out. Many a thing like this exist, both paid and free. Jobpile has netted me some work in the past. Jobpile: http://www.artypapers.com/jobpile/ http://www.artypapers.com/jobpile/
  - marcamillion 14y ago
    Agreed. Admittedly - I am working on increasing the signal to noise ratio - but I never realized how valuable it was to have a constant stream of leads coming to me daily was, until I stopped doing it. I am also thinking of finding a way to make the entire process more efficient - but all it takes is a handful of leads a year and it has more than paid for itself. Does jobpile email you links - or is it just a search engine that you go to?
    - alinajaf 14y ago
      Just a search engine you go to. I was already paying a VA to trawl through most of the sites that it scrapes so using it saved me a few dollars a month. I'm quite sure there's a paid service at a similar sort of price range to what you're describing that does email you. Don't remember the name atm.
vitomd 14y ago
I am a freelancer too, and this podcast it's really good. http://rubyfreelancers.com http://rubyfreelancers.com . For getting more clients ask your current client for referrals, if you made a good work they will be happy to help you. And use social media to maintan contact and reach other clients and freelancers (They too can send you some work )
stevejalim 14y ago
Shameless, shameless plug alert: if you found Alan's post interesting, you may also like the book I've almost finished writing. Check out http://freelancedeveloperbook.com http://freelancedeveloperbook.com The plan is to ship it before the end of June - am publishing via leanpub.com (great experience so far) and it'll be a paid-for book to cover the (many, many, _many_) hours I've put into it. When it's ready, I'll make a sample available so you can try before you buy, and will be pulling out a dozen names from the early-sign-up hat for a free copy. So, if you're interested, please do sign up.
- Alan01252 14y ago
  I have signed up ;)
  - stevejalim 14y ago
    Ha, thanks Alan. Email me directly on devbook[at]somefantastic[dot]co[dot]uk so I can spot you in the sign-up list and I'll make sure you get a coupon for a free copy! :o)
- kranner 14y ago
  Looks interesting! Signed up and emailed you.
- RBerenguel 14y ago
  Signed up (even if the iPad layout is quite horrible :/) As a jack of all trades freelancer (data analysis, web development, advertising, SEO, reporting...) I'm very interested :)
  - stevejalim 14y ago
    That's interesting - I just used launchrock's templates. Could you ping me a screengrab so I can see how it looks?
    - RBerenguel 14y ago
cryofan 14y ago
Alan Hollis is in Britain, where they do not import H1B labor, unlike the USA. Any comments from the readers on the ease of doing freelance work in the USA vs Britain???
jere 14y ago
>There are a lot of failed companies with legacy code which now needs to be maintained. If they were failed companies, they wouldn't need you to manage legacy code.
- greyboy 14y ago
  What he's saying is that there are plenty of companies who have purchased software from companies that have since folded. Obviously, any support from that defunct company would then also be gone.
startupstella 14y ago
I'm actually working on a project that would help freelancers get qualified leads by doing all the scopework/qualifying for them. I've chatted with a few of you HNers about what you'd like to see, but I'd appreciate any more opinions for matchist.com in this quick survey: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFI4cjQxQmRFR3FoUlNZRzVVRkJWeUE6MQ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFI4cjQ...
c250d07 14y ago
I know a few others doing freelance design work, and they're also pretty good. They are doing very well, but I think the market for freelance programmers is a different story right now.
jc-denton 14y ago
£1,785.25 Is below to what is considered a minimum vague here. I wonder if you are happy with this and what your cost of living is. But I think UK (London especially) is also very expensive. Personally I think you need to charge (way) more.
wilhelm 14y ago
> Get the specification of work nailed down as thoroughly as you can, it’s mutually beneficial to you and your customers. I hate specs. You won't know how to solve a problem before you've already solved it, so your spec will be wrong. My customers pay for my time. Together, through an iterative process involving myself, the designers and the customer, we find good technical solutions to the problems they need solved. I can tell them “this solution is difficult” or “this solution is trivial”, and they can judge the cost-benefit ratios along the way. You've paid for 300 hours of my time. Let's make the most of that.
xiaoma 14y ago
I've been job searching since moving to SF last month. As a junior-mid level guy with a pretty generalist background (non-web ruby, iOS, JS, even some flash games), I've gotten a ton of feelers from recruiters and companies alike, but most are looking for and even desperate for more senior people. With a sense of impending doom, I got onto oDesk to do some consulting myself. What a humbling experience that has been! I must have gotten outbid on the first 10 jobs I went for, and finally had to take one at ~ $10/hour. With that experience it became easier to get a 2nd. I find myself a lot more impressed with the OP's first month than I would have before my own experience looking for freelance work.
- Alan01252 14y ago
  Thanks Xioma, It's interesting really as to when you start classifying yourself as senior? I didn't really think too much about it when I started applying for roles as I had gained that confidence in my own ability. That being said, I was almost put off working for one company because I thought at the time I might not be experienced enough. This turned out not to be the case at all and I'm so thankful I rode it out rather than letting my own self doubt influence my decision. There are going to be companies out there with people in "senior" positions with less experience/skills and talent than you. In some cases considerably less. Don't sell yourself short because of a label you've given yourself.
  - xiaoma 14y ago
    Thanks for the encouragement! In some cases there are pretty hard HR filters that look at my LinkedIn and see I only have 1 years as dev and was a pure business guy before that. In others, I truly don't have experience with all the stuff in their stack. Where possible, I'll avoid the term junior for here on out.

191 points by Alan01252 14y ago

Sounds good are you enjoying it so far, compared to full time work? I am just starting up this month freelancing/contracting for iOS apps so hopefully I can find some work.

Alan01252 14y ago
It's going well so far, I've had some really down days, just sending out emails and getting no responses. Or getting close to a project starting and it not happening. Fortunately it's all worked itself out in the end. I've been lucky!
- superprime 14y ago
  it sounds like you've also been persistent.

Killswitch 14y ago

Nice post... I used to do freelance a few years ago, now I am building my own stuff. Thought about doing freelance again so I can leave my day job, but I'm iffy on it as it's not stable reliable income.

smoyer 14y ago

I think there's really only one thing to say when you've got such a short time under your belt: Don't give up and your persistence will pay off. Good luck!

tptacek 14y ago

People want to pay you hourly/per project, convince them it’s better for both you and them to pay you daily. I’ll explain why in a future post. I've burned many thousands of words here arguing the same point and will hopefully be able to spare you all a retread, so let me just say that I think a lot of good habits and useful dynamics emerge organically from this one decision. If you make no other careful strategic decisions about your consulting business, make this one: bill daily.

arellanv 14y ago
"I’ll explain why in a future post." The suspense is killing me. Now I want to know sooner than later haha.
sequoia 14y ago
link or something? I'm also curious.
- thechangelog 14y ago
  Here's one of the times: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420303 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420303
  - sequoia 14y ago
    Cool! Lots of neat discussion there. I must say however, that "If I work an hour for you I can't work for anyone the rest of the day" argument is one I wouldn't want to pitch to a prospect. Seriously? If you work for 1 hour on project X you're done for the day? I know it's super inefficient to switch contexts and I agree about the "bill full day" assertion, but I wouldn't phrase it as "I can't ever do any context switching. Ever."
    - tptacek 14y ago
      Who's "pitching" this to a prospect? You make it sound like something you'd put on your website and in your proposals. Your terms are your terms. A client asks, "I think we'd just like you for an hour or two today, so can we just pay for that", and you say "no, sorry".
      - sequoia 14y ago
        You are correct. I guess I was just concerned that declaring that working on a project for any amount of time, no matter how small, precludes work on anything else for the rest of the day sounds a bit too inflexible, bordering on incompetent. Your comments indicate that you are not actually this inflexible with good clients, to the contrary you are generous with small amounts of time, so I'm not sure why you'd want to tell them you are 'unable' to work on more than one project per day ever; it seems like you're selling your abilities short. Basically I agree but I'd phrase it in terms of efficiency and ROI: the value delivered in X amount of time plummets when you have to context switch. Anyway thanks for the sound advice!

HyprMusic 14y ago

As someone who used to rely solely on freelance income, but having wound up freelancing full time at a consultancy company, it's refreshing to hear your experiences. I often dream of going back to freelancing and working on my own side-projects, but I fear that I won't have as much luck as I did before in getting new work.

throwaway1979 14y ago

I'm impressed with your persistance! For the activities you list in "How I found work" ... did you start these before the first month? I'm curious how long it takes to get work flowing through the pipeline. The blog seems interesting and I wish you the best of luck. I think I hit a bug though ... When I make the font larger/smaller, the different elements of the screen move around and reposition themselves for a few seconds after. Also, the code samples disappear in an hap hazard manner. Am using Chrome on a MacBook Pro.

Alan01252 14y ago
Absolutely everything was started from April 21'st. Which is the date I returned from 8 months travelling. It took me a few weeks to get into a routine again and see friends, family etc. The first blog post was published on 2012/05/03 which is when I started really hunting for work, so it has been just over a month in total. Thanks for the bug reports. I'll investigate as soon as the site calms down a bit. :)
- benholmen 14y ago
  I tried to subscribe to your site in Google Reader but it could not detect your feed. Since you're running Wordpress I was able to locate http://alanhollis.com/feed/ http://alanhollis.com/feed/ but you should probably add some link tags in your header that indicate the location of your RSS feed. I'm eager to hear more about your progress. Good luck!
  - Alan01252 14y ago
    Thanks benholmen. I'll put this under the 'things to learn banner'. I don't use rss so didn't even think about it. I'll be getting it sorted asap. edit: Subtle button now under the post :)
    - voltagex_ 14y ago
      I think there should also be an RSS tag somewhere in the markup to let Google Reader et al find your feed automagically.

alinajaf 14y ago

Great post. I'm in London and started freelancing a few months ago and I'd agree with everything you've said. Only things I would suggest: * Contracts. Watch this talk by Obie Fernandez[1] and take a look at his Master Services Agreement + Statement of Work bundle (paid for, but totally worth it). Not only does it protect you to some extent legally but you come across as a lot more professional to clients. * Charge more. I have a comparable amount of experience and I'm charging around double what you've listed on your price card. Many good things fall out of charging more. Even if you don't intend to charge a higher rate, I would at least quote higher on your price card page for more negotiation room. Good hunting! [1] http://www.infoq.com/presentations/fernandez-sales-do-the-hustle http://www.infoq.com/presentations/fernandez-sales-do-the-hu...

Alan01252 14y ago
Thanks for this alinajaf. Pricing is tricky. I've already been turned down by a few companies at my current rate because I was too expensive. This put me off raising it higher. I'm still unsure as to whether having pricing on the website is a good thing or not, it's always tricky to know what to sell yourself for.
- alinajaf 14y ago
  > I've already been turned down by a few companies at my current rate because I was too expensive. In this market, you really, really really are not too expensive. Some concrete sources for PHP work: * http://hackerjobs.co.uk/ http://hackerjobs.co.uk/ - Quality of clients that advertise there is generally high. * If you don't mind dealing with recruiters, cwjobs.co.uk will happily email you a steady stream of PHP contracts at the £350+/day range. * The big publishing companies seemed to be hiring both fulltime and contract staff in perpetuity. I'd follow up at PHP London, as they seem to hang around there. You should be going to PHP London anyway, with business cards (side rant: not a single freelance developer I've met at a meetup has had a business card on hand. The same developers complain about how hard it is to find work. Don't be one of these developers). > This put me off raising it higher I know the feeling. There are clients in the world that can afford higher rates, but it's hard to remember this if you get turned down a few times in a row. If you're nervous about raising your rates, I would suggest that you try raising the quote by £50 at every interview you go to. If it's too expensive for the client and you really need the work, you can always invite negotiation. Other than that just stick to your guns, and remember that there are economic situations that clients can be in such they can afford to pay quadruple your daily rate without raising an eyebrow. If you'd like to grab a beverage sometime and talk shop, details are on my profile :)

moystard 14y ago

I keep the thought in my head of freelancing in the future, and whether I will do it or not, it is always nice to read about the starting of the business. I will follow your blog to see if you give more details about how you found your initial contracts, why should you ask to be paid daily, and how your enterprise will evolve on the mid-term. Thank you anyway for sharing these details.

nollidge 14y ago

Looked at another article on your blog [0] and the Crayon plugin acts really strangely in Chrome/Win7. As I mouse over a code block it keeps disappearing and reappearing. EDIT: Also...where's the RSS link? If I just follow on Twitter, I'll probably miss any updates. [0] http://alanhollis.com/silicon-milkroundabout-coding-competition-getting-started/ http://alanhollis.com/silicon-milkroundabout-coding-competit...

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

ilija139 14y ago

So you actually only worked for 7 days? (£1,785.25 / 250 ~ 7) Also you say you entered a programming competition, can you share which and why you chose that one?

Alan01252 14y ago
A bit more than than that, unfortunately I haven't got exactly £250 from every client so far. And finding work, is work ;). I have had to negotiate as it's early days, and work for a reduced rate is better than no work. I haven't yet taken the first offer any company has offered me though, hence my advice in the post to negotiate. I entered a competition ran by a company supporting http://siliconmilkroundabout.com/ http://siliconmilkroundabout.com/, purely because the competition appealed to me, I had some free time, and I thought it would be a good way of promoting myself before the event. Unfortunately the competition wasn't as successful as I hoped it would be (very few entries). I came second overall, it's another example of work on my github profile, and I got to play with Python for the fist time, so it was a positive experience.
- jc-denton 14y ago
  I wonder what kind of competition. Something like topcoder?

nohup 14y ago

Great to hear about your progress. I have been freelancing for the past 4 years and have done so for 6 years in my programming life of 11 years. All said and done, I find doing a honest job in estimation, no over billing and writing code to the best of your ability is the key to success. Documenting your own knowledge helps a lot. Knowing what is the latest and greatest, even if you have never tried it helps in keeping your client informed about their choices. Not living in your comfort zone is the best thing you can do to yourself. What I mean is, don't give your clients what you know, give them what is good for them even if that means you have to learn a new tool/trick/language. Maintain a healthy pipeline, it helps in keeping the stress down. On a day to day basis freelancing is more stressful then a regular job, but on an average over a month or quarter you will find it to be more relaxing and it lets have more time for yourself. Best of luck.

garagemc2 14y ago

Speaking as person that hires freelance developers it would probably be helpful if, on your blog, you mentioned what languages and frameworks you can develop in.

Alan01252 14y ago
Hi garagemc2. Where specifically were you looking so I can improve? http://alanhollis.com/ http://alanhollis.com/ has an overview of my skills. http://alanhollis.com/cv/ http://alanhollis.com/cv/ has more details of my experience.

marcamillion 14y ago

I will ask a question here that I wrote on the original link, because I think it may be useful for others here. I recently started freelancing (the last 12 - 18months) also, and one thing I did - to generate new business - was wrote a script that sends me a bunch of leads. Right now, it's primarily from Craigslist, but I will add other sources. I showed it to a friend and fellow web dev and he loved it. So that made me start wondering if others would find a service like that useful. Would you pay, say $9/mo, to get a handful of curated Craigslist leads (5 - 10) sent to your inbox every weekday? Thanks. P.S. The reason I would sell access to these leads is because I can't manage everything. There are some leads that want someone local, there are some that want say an iPhone or FB App developer - none of which I do.

alinajaf 14y ago
It would depend entirely on the quality of the leads, though I'd definitely sign up for a one month free trial to test it out. Many a thing like this exist, both paid and free. Jobpile has netted me some work in the past. Jobpile: http://www.artypapers.com/jobpile/ http://www.artypapers.com/jobpile/
- marcamillion 14y ago
  Agreed. Admittedly - I am working on increasing the signal to noise ratio - but I never realized how valuable it was to have a constant stream of leads coming to me daily was, until I stopped doing it. I am also thinking of finding a way to make the entire process more efficient - but all it takes is a handful of leads a year and it has more than paid for itself. Does jobpile email you links - or is it just a search engine that you go to?
  - alinajaf 14y ago
    Just a search engine you go to. I was already paying a VA to trawl through most of the sites that it scrapes so using it saved me a few dollars a month. I'm quite sure there's a paid service at a similar sort of price range to what you're describing that does email you. Don't remember the name atm.

vitomd 14y ago

I am a freelancer too, and this podcast it's really good. http://rubyfreelancers.com http://rubyfreelancers.com . For getting more clients ask your current client for referrals, if you made a good work they will be happy to help you. And use social media to maintan contact and reach other clients and freelancers (They too can send you some work )

stevejalim 14y ago

Shameless, shameless plug alert: if you found Alan's post interesting, you may also like the book I've almost finished writing. Check out http://freelancedeveloperbook.com http://freelancedeveloperbook.com The plan is to ship it before the end of June - am publishing via leanpub.com (great experience so far) and it'll be a paid-for book to cover the (many, many, _many_) hours I've put into it. When it's ready, I'll make a sample available so you can try before you buy, and will be pulling out a dozen names from the early-sign-up hat for a free copy. So, if you're interested, please do sign up.

Alan01252 14y ago
I have signed up ;)
- stevejalim 14y ago
  Ha, thanks Alan. Email me directly on devbook[at]somefantastic[dot]co[dot]uk so I can spot you in the sign-up list and I'll make sure you get a coupon for a free copy! :o)
kranner 14y ago
Looks interesting! Signed up and emailed you.
RBerenguel 14y ago
Signed up (even if the iPad layout is quite horrible :/) As a jack of all trades freelancer (data analysis, web development, advertising, SEO, reporting...) I'm very interested :)
- stevejalim 14y ago
  That's interesting - I just used launchrock's templates. Could you ping me a screengrab so I can see how it looks?
  - RBerenguel 14y ago

cryofan 14y ago

Alan Hollis is in Britain, where they do not import H1B labor, unlike the USA. Any comments from the readers on the ease of doing freelance work in the USA vs Britain???

jere 14y ago

>There are a lot of failed companies with legacy code which now needs to be maintained. If they were failed companies, they wouldn't need you to manage legacy code.

greyboy 14y ago
What he's saying is that there are plenty of companies who have purchased software from companies that have since folded. Obviously, any support from that defunct company would then also be gone.

startupstella 14y ago

I'm actually working on a project that would help freelancers get qualified leads by doing all the scopework/qualifying for them. I've chatted with a few of you HNers about what you'd like to see, but I'd appreciate any more opinions for matchist.com in this quick survey: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFI4cjQxQmRFR3FoUlNZRzVVRkJWeUE6MQ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFI4cjQ...

c250d07 14y ago

I know a few others doing freelance design work, and they're also pretty good. They are doing very well, but I think the market for freelance programmers is a different story right now.

jc-denton 14y ago

£1,785.25 Is below to what is considered a minimum vague here. I wonder if you are happy with this and what your cost of living is. But I think UK (London especially) is also very expensive. Personally I think you need to charge (way) more.

wilhelm 14y ago

> Get the specification of work nailed down as thoroughly as you can, it’s mutually beneficial to you and your customers. I hate specs. You won't know how to solve a problem before you've already solved it, so your spec will be wrong. My customers pay for my time. Together, through an iterative process involving myself, the designers and the customer, we find good technical solutions to the problems they need solved. I can tell them “this solution is difficult” or “this solution is trivial”, and they can judge the cost-benefit ratios along the way. You've paid for 300 hours of my time. Let's make the most of that.

xiaoma 14y ago

I've been job searching since moving to SF last month. As a junior-mid level guy with a pretty generalist background (non-web ruby, iOS, JS, even some flash games), I've gotten a ton of feelers from recruiters and companies alike, but most are looking for and even desperate for more senior people. With a sense of impending doom, I got onto oDesk to do some consulting myself. What a humbling experience that has been! I must have gotten outbid on the first 10 jobs I went for, and finally had to take one at ~ $10/hour. With that experience it became easier to get a 2nd. I find myself a lot more impressed with the OP's first month than I would have before my own experience looking for freelance work.

Alan01252 14y ago
Thanks Xioma, It's interesting really as to when you start classifying yourself as senior? I didn't really think too much about it when I started applying for roles as I had gained that confidence in my own ability. That being said, I was almost put off working for one company because I thought at the time I might not be experienced enough. This turned out not to be the case at all and I'm so thankful I rode it out rather than letting my own self doubt influence my decision. There are going to be companies out there with people in "senior" positions with less experience/skills and talent than you. In some cases considerably less. Don't sell yourself short because of a label you've given yourself.
- xiaoma 14y ago
  Thanks for the encouragement! In some cases there are pretty hard HR filters that look at my LinkedIn and see I only have 1 years as dev and was a pure business guy before that. In others, I truly don't have experience with all the stuff in their stack. Where possible, I'll avoid the term junior for here on out.