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Any advice for a new freelancer?
What should I look out for? How much lower should my pricing be than average? Is it okay or recommended to offer a few hours upfront (depending on project size) so the client can decide if they should go with me? I only have two portfolio projects that I coded in my free-time for fun so I assumed this would be a good idea.
Also any other things I should know?
- timothybone 14y agoIn answer to your first question, there's a fair bit of advice found on Hacker News: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=freelance http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=freelance
- yourapostasy 14y agoYou need to give more details about what services you are freelancing. When you say "portfolio", it can imply design, coding, architecture, the gamut of potential services that can be presented in a portfolio is huge. You also need to give more details about your goal(s). What advice you receive should differ based upon whether you need to make money now to pay rent by the end of the month, or sacrifice a little money now to build up your sales pipeline (in either quantity and/or quality) because you have some cushion cash built up for the next 6-18 months. In extremely general terms, you want to move away from differentiating on price as soon as possible, and get as close as possible to directly helping people make/save money with your services. By "directly", I mean find the person with check-signing authority, and find a pain point you can clearly solve for that person. Plan on spending about half or more of your time marketing and selling yourself. If you think that equals 20 hours a week, then expand your notion of "your time" to approximately 60-80 hours a week, likely in bursts separated by more sane 40 hour weeks. Take good care of your body and soul, you're going to need the literal physical stamina and the emotional fortitude to push through the really dark, hard periods. Never, never, never, EVER, disrespect or show discourtesy to someone, no matter how menial their role, no matter how unrelated they are to your current assignment. Always. Be. Selling. This doesn't mean you are a doormat, however.
- sharemywin 14y agoI would offer to spec out their project for free. if you want to give out free time. This gives you the inside tracking getting the project and also gives you the most important part of the project which is usually skipped or glossed over.
- stevejalim 14y ago[Note: I've uhmed and ahed about whether to promote my own stuff here, but given how quiet this question has been...] Yep, plenty. Enough, in fact, that I took the time to wrire them up in a book, which I'll also be extending as time goes on, based on feedback/requests from readers: https://leanpub.com/freelancedeveloperbook https://leanpub.com/freelancedeveloperbook Use the coupon SHAMELESSPLUG before Jan 4 to get it for $9.99
- stevejalim 14y ago(Note: This thread probably isn't getting much traffic because its title doesn't include the "Ask HN:" prefix)