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I once took six months off to freelance early in my career, and failed spectacularly. Four years later, I took six months off and tried the same, and was able

I once took six months off to freelance early in my career, and failed spectacularly. Four years later, I took six months off and tried the same, and was able to replicate my full-time salary without too much difficulty. YMMV, my by experience is having a few years of solid, full-time employment experience (along with good portfolio, network, and all the other things a freelance career requires) will pay dividends in the freelance field - primarily in convincing potential clients you're skilled enough to accomplish their projects.

pyre 12y ago
> along with ... network I'm curious. Are you talking networking with other developers, or within a niche (e.g. with potential clients)?
- eropple 12y ago
  Depending on what you do, other developers may be clients. As I note in my sibling comment to yours, I'm not currently doing consulting, but I get a lot of free lunches bought for me so people can pick my brain about clustering, scaling, Docker, Chef, etc.
- joshavant 12y ago
  Literally everyone you know, both professional and personally. When staring in freelancing, at least initially, you will be casting a line out into the vast pool of the people you know, and desperately hoping someone has a need for your services, bites, and ultimately gives you some money. Some of my initial freelancing gigs came from places like stray tweets, random run-ins at non-tech-related parties, VC friends who passed my name on to their portfolio companies, ex-bosses who did the same, etc etc. For many, freelancing, at first, can be getting on by the seat of your pants and simply hoping the cosmos divines you with a new gig (often from somewhere or someone you never saw coming) before your savings account dwindles to zero.
eropple 12y ago
This is pretty much what I was going to say. I think that the best way to be a good consultant is to first be a good creator of value and to be confident in the value you create. I didn't quite flame out doing consulting (I was doing fairly low-level stuff while in college), but knew I wasn't going to be able to eat off of it, so I went to work. I'm 27 now and, in all likelihood, I'm going to go consult again whenever my current gig peters out. Difference is that now I've stepped on many of the rakes and learned my lessons--and gotten much, much, much better than I was when I was 22. Five years isn't a long time, but it's long enough to learn a few things and be able to both create more value and explain how I create value to prospective clients.

pyre 12y ago

> along with ... network I'm curious. Are you talking networking with other developers, or within a niche (e.g. with potential clients)?

eropple 12y ago
Depending on what you do, other developers may be clients. As I note in my sibling comment to yours, I'm not currently doing consulting, but I get a lot of free lunches bought for me so people can pick my brain about clustering, scaling, Docker, Chef, etc.
joshavant 12y ago
Literally everyone you know, both professional and personally. When staring in freelancing, at least initially, you will be casting a line out into the vast pool of the people you know, and desperately hoping someone has a need for your services, bites, and ultimately gives you some money. Some of my initial freelancing gigs came from places like stray tweets, random run-ins at non-tech-related parties, VC friends who passed my name on to their portfolio companies, ex-bosses who did the same, etc etc. For many, freelancing, at first, can be getting on by the seat of your pants and simply hoping the cosmos divines you with a new gig (often from somewhere or someone you never saw coming) before your savings account dwindles to zero.

eropple 12y ago

This is pretty much what I was going to say. I think that the best way to be a good consultant is to first be a good creator of value and to be confident in the value you create. I didn't quite flame out doing consulting (I was doing fairly low-level stuff while in college), but knew I wasn't going to be able to eat off of it, so I went to work. I'm 27 now and, in all likelihood, I'm going to go consult again whenever my current gig peters out. Difference is that now I've stepped on many of the rakes and learned my lessons--and gotten much, much, much better than I was when I was 22. Five years isn't a long time, but it's long enough to learn a few things and be able to both create more value and explain how I create value to prospective clients.