

What kind of work do freelance RoR programmers get? - tiramisucode

What kind of clients do freelance Ruby on Rails programmers usually get?  I guess this question can be rephrased as "I can't design. I can only make web apps. Who would hire me?"<p>The only kind of clients that I can imagine are small local businesses who would like a website for their store.  I can't imagine them hiring me to make a website with no design. Heck, to them, the web design IS the website!  What kind of clients would only need the web app, and not the design?
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trapexit
Don't be a freelancer. Be a consultant.

Talk to big companies (they have money!). Learn how to discover their problems
and then sell them solutions.

Don't sell them on Rails apps or even on web apps. Find problems that are
taking money out of their pockets and sell _solutions_ to those problems.

Find problems that your customer doesn't even realize can be solved with a
simple web app. Once you get outside the programmer world, virtually everyone
you meet is less skilled at solving problems with web apps than you are.

Charge accordingly. (For rush projects, I've quoted prices that worked out to
over $1000/hr for me, and the customer didn't blink.)

They pay you $X, and in return you make them software that causes them to save
(or earn) $X * 10. Everybody is happy.

When you're at this level, design doesn't matter. The app is probably an
internal thing and uncustomized Twitter Bootstrap is the fanciest thing
they'll have ever seen. And even if fancy design is required for the project,
the budget will be large enough that you can just take that part of the
project to an agency.

~~~
caw
My team at large megacorp has 2 Bootstrap designed products, one I created,
and one an intern created after I showed him Bootstrap. Everyone thinks it's
some of the best design they've seen out of an internal project in a while.
None of them have ever heard of Bootstrap, and none of them care that it looks
like other Bootstrap websites.

~~~
askar
This happened exactly to me as well...fresh new idea with a few tweaks with a
Bootstrap theme for a few internet projects and they were ecstatic.

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DividesByZero
Medium sized companies in niche industries often don't have a web presence and
desire one. These companies often have existing branding or an in-house
marketing team that would work with you to design their web-app.

That said, having some design skills significantly increases your pool of
potential freelance candidates, and there are plenty of ways to learn
something about it.

