To my ears, even though you've given some specific examples, your advice is really "get out there and hustle." I totally agree. You should do anything and ever

To my ears, even though you've given some specific examples, your advice is really "get out there and hustle." I totally agree. You should do anything and everything you can think of to get your foot in the door. Hitting the pavement and contacting businesses unsolicited would be extremely nerve-racking for me. I'd probably go more for contract jobs and/or existing consulting companies who are overloaded. It probably depends on your personality, whether you are good at sales and if you have your accounting/billing worked out. I ran a consulting business for five years and my ex-employer became my first client. That allowed me to pay the bills. After that I started searching job boards for contract opportunities and eventually some of them turned into clients as well. If you're doing quality work then pretty soon the word will get out and the next thing you know you'll be so busy that you'll need to hire somebody. Then you can offer some other person their foot in the door!