When I was first getting started, I just looked up every web design firm in town and called them. A lot of the local firms just had people building websites wit

When I was first getting started, I just looked up every web design firm in town and called them. A lot of the local firms just had people building websites with Wordpress or Joomla on managed hosting services, so being able to say "I know a guy that writes custom code" was good for their business. In a bigger city, there's a lot more coders, but there's also a lot more businesses, so I would think this would work just about anywhere. There's a business incubator nearby that I frequented, and I found companies there that were using technologies that I knew. If you run into a collective like this, it's a good idea to introduce yourself to administrators, because they're always looking to solve their member companies problems with a suggestion. I introduced myself and let them know my skill set. The companies always found themselves in a pinch eventually, and I built a reputation for going into the middle of a project and helping to put out fires. I would take strategic walks through areas where I knew there were technology companies, and just walk in and introduce myself. Events are even better. If you can find business speakers at a local college, or business networking groups, these are great to go and find out what types of problems people have. Then you can come up with solutions and go back and try to sell them. You shouldn't even try to code anything, just pitch them your solution and tell them you'll build it for $X, get a down payment and start coding.