3 ms·

you want to find a freelance job? Get in your car, go to the town center, and go talk to all the small business owners there. Offer to build them a site for the

by vaksel 18y ago

you want to find a freelance job? Get in your car, go to the town center, and go talk to all the small business owners there. Offer to build them a site for their business, or redo their current one. Or you can pickup a phone and try to pitch over the phone. Out of the trip you'll snag a couple of jobs, and you can charge decent prices, since the guys have no idea about all the freelance sites.

erlanger 18y ago
This tactic is far more effective if the store owners recognize you as a frequent customer. At that point, it's fish in a barrel.
Tichy 18y ago
How much can you charge for building a site for a small business? While that is probably more fun, I suspect "enterprise projects" for big companies pay way better.
- vaksel 18y ago
  Since these guys really don't know anything about the web, you could throw up a simple HTML template and charge them 5K...on a freelancer site that same job would go for $200
  - Tichy 18y ago
    5K is not a lot of money though, for freelancing. I mean it is OK, but it would be only one job. You would have to generate lot's of such "small" jobs. With the "enterprise jobs" you can go for months making >10K every month. Are those "freelancer sites" mentioned those "joke" sites where people bid on jobs, and offer to program an ebay clone for 50$? I would not waste time with such sites. On Jobserve and Gulp the rates I have seen have generally been fair, (supposedly ~70€ per hour on average).
rw 18y ago
the set of talented techies != the set of website designers
- zacharydanger 18y ago
  That's a very true observation. Being a PHP developer everyone assumes I know how to operate Photoshop and often ask for a portfolio when >95% of my work is subcutaneous. I've never wooed anyone with sexy accounting interfaces. Chances are, I never will.
  - patio11 18y ago
    You can surely show them a portfolio of sites which you programmed that are pretty because of the template and/or designer you use, right? That's no more dishonest than a photographer showing a picture of a beautiful woman despite not actually being a beautiful woman.
    - sachinag 18y ago
      Or use crowdSPRING to show off lots of various designs so that you don't get pigeonholed by your designer.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
callmeed 18y ago
"go talk to all the small business owners there. Offer to build them a site for their business, or redo their current one." Even better: go talk to the successful and plugged-in small business owners. Pick their brain for startup ideas. Create an industry/niche app/web-app that will help them make/save more money. Then turn it into a product.

by vaksel 18y ago

erlanger 18y ago

This tactic is far more effective if the store owners recognize you as a frequent customer. At that point, it's fish in a barrel.

Tichy 18y ago

How much can you charge for building a site for a small business? While that is probably more fun, I suspect "enterprise projects" for big companies pay way better.

vaksel 18y ago
Since these guys really don't know anything about the web, you could throw up a simple HTML template and charge them 5K...on a freelancer site that same job would go for $200
- Tichy 18y ago
  5K is not a lot of money though, for freelancing. I mean it is OK, but it would be only one job. You would have to generate lot's of such "small" jobs. With the "enterprise jobs" you can go for months making >10K every month. Are those "freelancer sites" mentioned those "joke" sites where people bid on jobs, and offer to program an ebay clone for 50$? I would not waste time with such sites. On Jobserve and Gulp the rates I have seen have generally been fair, (supposedly ~70€ per hour on average).

rw 18y ago

the set of talented techies != the set of website designers

zacharydanger 18y ago
That's a very true observation. Being a PHP developer everyone assumes I know how to operate Photoshop and often ask for a portfolio when >95% of my work is subcutaneous. I've never wooed anyone with sexy accounting interfaces. Chances are, I never will.
- patio11 18y ago
  You can surely show them a portfolio of sites which you programmed that are pretty because of the template and/or designer you use, right? That's no more dishonest than a photographer showing a picture of a beautiful woman despite not actually being a beautiful woman.
  - sachinag 18y ago
    Or use crowdSPRING to show off lots of various designs so that you don't get pigeonholed by your designer.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

callmeed 18y ago

"go talk to all the small business owners there. Offer to build them a site for their business, or redo their current one." Even better: go talk to the successful and plugged-in small business owners. Pick their brain for startup ideas. Create an industry/niche app/web-app that will help them make/save more money. Then turn it into a product.