Good news: portfolio and real open source contributions are not the primary channels for selling freelancing gigs. The primary way is finding a business owner

Good news: portfolio and real open source contributions are not the primary channels for selling freelancing gigs. The primary way is finding a business owner and convincing them that you can build them something which will make them money. Having something you have made which you can demonstrate is of benefit (and as sibling comments have mentioned, you should probably get something which you've made into a showable state ASAP), but mostly, it's about being able to sell yourself convincingly to people who, primarily, could not tell you that Baker's Yeast is not a well-known Javascript framework for building web pages out of REST-over-XML transport engines. Also, don't sell yourself short with regards to getting jobs. While you likely can't get hired at a Bank of America or what have you, if you approach a local e.g. Rails consultancy, not having an Education section on your resume will probably not be a total disqualifier. Many people don't. You will probably be able to pass a FizzBuzz test, which actually makes you substantially better than many people with Bachelors of Science in CS in the hiring pool. I think a standard W-2 job -- heck, pitch them on an internship and just upgrade after showing you can do the work -- is likely a better fit given that you do not have the connections/experience likely to fill a freelancing pipeline at the moment. You can always revisit that decision when you're 20, at which point your high school career will never come up at a job interview that you'd actually want to pass.