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Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

13 points by jkaykin 14y ago

Can you suggest any websites (without cheap Indian development firms) to find freelance work? What techniques work best for you?

larrykubin 14y ago
The best way to find freelance work is to not use websites. My best clients have come from: 1) renting/sharing an office or coworking space with other freelancers. Spent a few thousand on this one year even though I could have just worked at home, but it resulted in connections to some great people and good projects. Has paid for itself many times over. 2) having drinks with new people. Just going to a lot of meet ups, being social, putting yourself out there and letting people know what you do over and over again. Lots of times nothing happens or something falls through, but sometimes you end up in the right place at the right time. 3) talking to former clients or coworkers from a previous job and letting them know I am available for freelance work. 4) referrals from clients gained from 1, 2, and 3 Others I have seen be successful just focus hard on a particular open source project. I've seen a group of guys go from not knowing PHP to focusing on Drupal, contributing source code, becoming recognized experts, then speaking at conferences and getting huge clients in only a few years.
fatalerrorx3 14y ago
You should clarify cheap, you mean cheap as in price, not necessarily in quality. Indian developers are able to charge much less in USD because of the conversion rate, that doesn't necessarily mean that their work is cheap. I used to use Elance a lot several years ago, and found that's a good way to pickup good clients. Also going to local meetups is definitely valuable.
bdcravens 14y ago
So you want a low barrier of entry listing of freelance work that doesn't have any of the folks that are attracted to low barriers of entry listings? If that's the approach you want, you need to ask yourself if you're a value add over "cheap" developers, worth more for any reason other than the fact that you have a higher cost of living.
timjahn 14y ago
As others have commented, when you're first starting out as a freelancer, it's helpful to start in your local community at in person events. Meetups, niche events, networking events, etc. Of course, the frequency of such events depends on your local market size. There are a variety of sites out there, and a lot compete on price like you hint at. I'm working on a new startup called matchist (http://matchist.com/talent http://matchist.com/talent) that finds you quality clients that pay on time, every time, without competing in a race to the bottom on price.
frankacter 14y ago
This thread may be a good place to start: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4992618 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4992618
thisisdallas 14y ago
I often see this question asked and I often see the same answers; go to meet ups, partner with other local devs/designers, network etc. etc. Those are all good suggestions but I feel like most answers that come from this type of question are directed to those who live in a pretty heavily populated area. For example, if someone lives in a smaller town than there most likely will not be " tech related meet ups" or coworking spaces. For those people who live in a smaller area, finding freelance work will be quite a bit harder at the start. Because of this, I would suggest going directly to small/medium sized businesses and offering your services to them directly. Do your homework first. Get online and find out what businesses don't have a website or have an old outdated website. Then put together a few pages of information that explains how a website can directly impact their business and how you are the person to get that done. You could also include additional services such as setting up social media accounts or getting Google Analytics set up etc. etc. Those wouldn't take too much time for you to do but they would add an increase in the value to what you can offer a business. Be sure to present your services as something that can help them sell more of their product. After you finish a site ask the client to fill out a short customer satisfaction survey and ask if it's ok to use quotes from it on your personal website/portfolio. Also, ask your clients to refer you to other businesses if they think you did a good job. When you have several sites done and several clients taken care of then word of mouth will start helping you get some more clients.

13 points by jkaykin 14y ago

Can you suggest any websites (without cheap Indian development firms) to find freelance work? What techniques work best for you?

larrykubin 14y ago

The best way to find freelance work is to not use websites. My best clients have come from: 1) renting/sharing an office or coworking space with other freelancers. Spent a few thousand on this one year even though I could have just worked at home, but it resulted in connections to some great people and good projects. Has paid for itself many times over. 2) having drinks with new people. Just going to a lot of meet ups, being social, putting yourself out there and letting people know what you do over and over again. Lots of times nothing happens or something falls through, but sometimes you end up in the right place at the right time. 3) talking to former clients or coworkers from a previous job and letting them know I am available for freelance work. 4) referrals from clients gained from 1, 2, and 3 Others I have seen be successful just focus hard on a particular open source project. I've seen a group of guys go from not knowing PHP to focusing on Drupal, contributing source code, becoming recognized experts, then speaking at conferences and getting huge clients in only a few years.

fatalerrorx3 14y ago

You should clarify cheap, you mean cheap as in price, not necessarily in quality. Indian developers are able to charge much less in USD because of the conversion rate, that doesn't necessarily mean that their work is cheap. I used to use Elance a lot several years ago, and found that's a good way to pickup good clients. Also going to local meetups is definitely valuable.

bdcravens 14y ago

So you want a low barrier of entry listing of freelance work that doesn't have any of the folks that are attracted to low barriers of entry listings? If that's the approach you want, you need to ask yourself if you're a value add over "cheap" developers, worth more for any reason other than the fact that you have a higher cost of living.

timjahn 14y ago

As others have commented, when you're first starting out as a freelancer, it's helpful to start in your local community at in person events. Meetups, niche events, networking events, etc. Of course, the frequency of such events depends on your local market size. There are a variety of sites out there, and a lot compete on price like you hint at. I'm working on a new startup called matchist (http://matchist.com/talent http://matchist.com/talent) that finds you quality clients that pay on time, every time, without competing in a race to the bottom on price.

frankacter 14y ago

This thread may be a good place to start: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4992618 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4992618

thisisdallas 14y ago

I often see this question asked and I often see the same answers; go to meet ups, partner with other local devs/designers, network etc. etc. Those are all good suggestions but I feel like most answers that come from this type of question are directed to those who live in a pretty heavily populated area. For example, if someone lives in a smaller town than there most likely will not be " tech related meet ups" or coworking spaces. For those people who live in a smaller area, finding freelance work will be quite a bit harder at the start. Because of this, I would suggest going directly to small/medium sized businesses and offering your services to them directly. Do your homework first. Get online and find out what businesses don't have a website or have an old outdated website. Then put together a few pages of information that explains how a website can directly impact their business and how you are the person to get that done. You could also include additional services such as setting up social media accounts or getting Google Analytics set up etc. etc. Those wouldn't take too much time for you to do but they would add an increase in the value to what you can offer a business. Be sure to present your services as something that can help them sell more of their product. After you finish a site ask the client to fill out a short customer satisfaction survey and ask if it's ok to use quotes from it on your personal website/portfolio. Also, ask your clients to refer you to other businesses if they think you did a good job. When you have several sites done and several clients taken care of then word of mouth will start helping you get some more clients.