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Why have your freelancing gigs not paid off? I regularly hire development contractors and the two failure modalities I see most often are: 1. Failure to commu

Why have your freelancing gigs not paid off? I regularly hire development contractors and the two failure modalities I see most often are: 1. Failure to communicate/organize/deliver on time. This is particularly pronounced amongst younger developers who frequently end up losing focus midway through a project and "go dark." The #1 way to avoid this is to set expectations, meet those expectations, and communicate along the way. Given your educational background, this is probably the biggest hurdle you have to overcome. 2. Inadequate assessment of abilities. Unfortunately many younger developers think they're a lot better than they are so they try to tackle super-challenging projects. If you're young and inexperienced, start with the easy stuff (ie. basic CRUD apps for boring businesses). Probably the best way to improve is to latch on to a popular open source project and find a mentor in that community who can teach you best practices around design patterns, testing, etc. Finally, I'd suggest that you work a bit on your personal marketing. Don't focus on your age or that you're "hungry." Fake it till you make it. Also, put a clear list of skills (with demonstrative projects linked) right up front. (I'm only 21, but you wouldn't know that from the front page of my website.)

jessehorne 12y ago
Thank you for the tips. You have answered a couple questions here that I've had for a while. I don't want to market myself as something I'm not, so I've probably been too cautious not to. I don't want to have someones expectations of me drop, but I think you're right. EDIT All of the jobs I've gotten have worked out, btw. I apologize for not answering that in the initial reply.
- morgante 12y ago
  > All of the jobs I've gotten have worked out, btw. I apologize for not answering that in the initial reply. In that case, you should immediately ask all your previous clients: 1) If they have any additional work they'd be interested in hiring you for (but phrase it something like this: "My schedule is opening up a bit in the next few weeks and I wanted to make sure you got first crack before my availability tightens up again.") 2) If they don't have any additional projects, ask them for a testimonial (on LinkedIn and your site) and to refer you to any of their friends who might need a similarly skilled developer.

jessehorne 12y ago

Thank you for the tips. You have answered a couple questions here that I've had for a while. I don't want to market myself as something I'm not, so I've probably been too cautious not to. I don't want to have someones expectations of me drop, but I think you're right. EDIT All of the jobs I've gotten have worked out, btw. I apologize for not answering that in the initial reply.

morgante 12y ago
> All of the jobs I've gotten have worked out, btw. I apologize for not answering that in the initial reply. In that case, you should immediately ask all your previous clients: 1) If they have any additional work they'd be interested in hiring you for (but phrase it something like this: "My schedule is opening up a bit in the next few weeks and I wanted to make sure you got first crack before my availability tightens up again.") 2) If they don't have any additional projects, ask them for a testimonial (on LinkedIn and your site) and to refer you to any of their friends who might need a similarly skilled developer.