
Ask HN: Freelancers, are you crazy dry these days?  or is it just me? - jMyles
In a nutshell, I&#x27;m wondering if the market has shifted in the past 10-15 months or so, and how we can measure it.<p>I get the sense that, socially, we&#x27;re not supposed to talk about these things.  To acknowledge that I&#x27;ve had trouble finding work makes me seem weak or less valuable.  To discuss money at all is a social taboo.<p>I don&#x27;t know about y&#x27;all, but for my part, I had absolutely no trouble finding work - usually without even really trying - from mid-2011 to mid-2016.<p>I have no doubt that I&#x27;m valuable in the right contexts, and that hasn&#x27;t changed in the timeframe I&#x27;m talking about.  I&#x27;m neither &quot;junior grade&quot; nor out of date.  I feel totally in my prime.<p>Nor have the technologies on which I&#x27;m most often contracted to work (python, usually web stuff, usually django) lost enough market share to explain it.<p>My rate ($6k &#x2F; week) is not, in my estimation, too high for the value I provide.<p>So my question: is anyone else having a similar experience?  Is there a way that we can gauge changes in the market?<p>And then also: whether or not my experience is unique, what&#x27;s the best thing to do when you have long stretches without solid work?  Learn a new skill?<p>I&#x27;ve been working a lot lately on Raspberry Pi, off-grid tech, power monitoring, etc.  I live on a school bus (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thisisthebus.com&#x2F;) and I&#x27;ve developed a lot of interesting tech for that purpose.  But then once you start to feel comfortable with new skills, how do you develop a new client base?
======
patio11
Consulting is high variance, particularly when consultants underinvest in
marketing/sales. It's absolutely nothing to be ashamed of; we're all in
business here (some more straightforwardly than others). There is nothing
wrong with making customers being hard; it's the fun, necessary hard that,
combined with making customers happy, is why business drives the world
forward.

Since consulting is high variance, at any given time some people perceive "the
market" as being on fire and some perceive it as being in a slump, but for
small consulting firms, your kite flies in basically all weather conditions.

 _what 's the best thing to do when you have long stretches without solid
work?_

Do more sales and marketing.

Not kidding.

Take every happy client you have from the last two years. Send them each an
email asking them how business is going and whether $FOO is still working up
to their expectations. Follow up gracefully if they don't respond. After
reconnecting, get them on a call to talk about their plans over next 3~6
months. Talk yourself into those plans. If you cannot talk yourself into those
plans, ask if they will introduce you to 2~3 people who should have something
like $FOO in their own business.

 _I 've been working a lot lately on Raspberry Pi, off-grid tech, power
monitoring, etc._

Awesome projects. I mean nothing untoward with the following observation:
generally, when you're solving problems for customers who are not plugged into
the power grid, you're solving problems for people who don't exactly have
signing authority for a $20k engagement starting next week. (I can imagine
there are industrial applications for which this is not true! If you've got
those leads, ignore this observation.) I might consider, if you're looking for
technical skills to expand your business opportunity, whether these are the
skills you want to develop or whether you want to develop ones which select
for clients who have expensive problems that they'll happily pay to solve.

~~~
JSeymourATL
Take every happy client you have from the last two years. Send them each an
email...

Brilliant! This falls into the 'Get Out of The Building' category of client
discovery/relationship management. The best guy I've seen do this has a
rotation list of 100 individuals he regularly pings for coffee/lunch meetings
throughout the course of the year. The upshot, he's gets to select the
projects takes on.

------
git-pull
I posted about this in a thread at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13872807](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13872807).

I think freelancing is dead. To sum it up, employers, including startups
that'd dry up their runway in 1 to 3 years, are demanding developers go full
time and onsite.

As if they really could give job security. That's the frustrating thing.
They're making you jump through hoops for work that, save them being acquired,
won't last.

Yes, exceptions exist. But the new norm is that. And norm means being able to
have some sense of reliability, not some person's luck. Yes, I ask recruiters
to look around for remote opportunities and they try to help, but the good
paying jobs are back in SF and want me in the office. Full time.

Nope, no gigs. No one wants 3 months, 6 months.

Yeah, I've heard all the talk about consulting. To me, it's just more growth
hack / NLP talk about value that doesn't represent the realities of being a
developer in our market these days. Startups shun the thought of outside
experts or opinions, unless it's a SAAS tool. These CTO's, even if they don't
know better, see advice from an outside expert as losing control. I think this
is because they want employees who they can mold in their image, rather than
someone who could help them in a pinch.

The other thing is hiring happens a lot slower. A lot of these places keep
passing over qualified candidates because they feel they have so many options.

And no, employers aren't winning either with the lack of flexibility they
have. Going remote opens up yourself to a ton of candidates. They're
ultimately isolating themselves from skilled workers with experience. It's
completely understandable to not want to be in SF and to accommodate working
remote if you're a seasoned programmer.

~~~
BjoernKW
The software development world is more than just startups. I work as a
consultant in the B2B / enterprise segment. There absolutely is no shortage of
work to be done in these areas and these companies are very open to working
with freelancers and consultant.

~~~
jMyles
How do you break into that world? And is there room for serious engineering,
not just consulting?

~~~
BjoernKW
Recruiters are one way, not necessarily the best in the long run but a good
short-term stopgap approach if you need to quickly find clients.

In my opinion the preferable long-term sustainable path is pretty much like in
most businesses: Become useful and become noticeable. Create solutions and
talk about it. A company website, blog, conference talks, networking events
testimonials for instance are useful components of a marketing plan for a
consultant.

As for the second question I'm not sure this is the right attitude. For
example analysing a company's software creation process and pointing out ways
to improve it is serious engineering but it doesn't involve writing a single
line of code and often is more about human communication than hard engineering
facts.

Value creation starts when you first talk to a prospective client not just
when you write the first line of code.

------
BjoernKW
It sounds like you're approaching this from the wrong. Do marketing / sales /
networking first (and do it a lot, consulting is as much about talking to
people as it is about implementing solutions). Try to find out about the
problems people and companies are having. Only then ask yourself how you can
apply your expertise to that area.

------
babyrainbow
6000 dollars a week !?

Just curious. What kind of work do you usually do for that kind of money?

~~~
devopsproject
$6000 a week is $150 an hour and seems to be a pretty reasonable rate.

What you are missing is: not every week will be booked.

