
Ask HN: How did you get started as a freelancer? - benicafe
How did you land your first customer? How did&#x2F;do you market yourself? ...
======
ageitgey
I write a lot online about machine learning (especially for a broad audience).
I don't do it intentionally as a marketing strategy, but people researching
those topics naturally read what I write and some email to ask if I can help
them with their projects. That leads to connections and sometimes to new
projects. That's the best way to market other than just meeting people and
networking.

The real skill you have to develop is who to say "no" to. One good customer
can keep you busy for a year and pay really well. 500 bad customers with small
projects and small budgets can require 500x the work and result in less
overall money.

I got my first customer that way and most of my best customers that way. But
once you get a couple of customers and do a good job, that naturally leads to
more work and other opportunities through word of mouth.

Another strategy that has worked for friends is to contract part-time for a
place they used to work that needs temporary help. One friend made nearly his
full-time salary working half-time doing this. That left him with the other
half of his time to work on his other projects.

One other strategy that works well in a big city is to go work in a shared
office like a WeWork. It's easy to meet people that way just through proximity
and end up doing projects together or get new leads.

~~~
codegeek
"he real skill you have to develop is who to say "no" to. One good customer
can keep you busy for a year and pay really well. 500 bad customers with small
projects and small budgets can require 500x the work and result in less
overall money."

This. So important to ensure that you find the "right" clients that fit what
you are offering.

------
ta4352
I was working at a mom and pop shop, and we used a saas web application for
managing online shipping. For funzies I cobbled together some python that
would poll a usb scale upon http request which would get called from a button
on the web app injected by a greasemonkey script and fill out the lb and oz
fields with the weight.

When I got it working I was so excited that I immediately opened up their live
chat and asked support if it'd be something they were interested in. They were
a small operation and it ended up being the businesses owner who was on the
other side. After a few emails back and forth we agreed on $3500 (plus our
shop would get to use their app for free) in exchange for windows and mac
versions of the code.

Oh man, now was I really excited. $3.5k for a couple weekends of work, I've
hit the big time!

Later they sold to stamps.com for $50 million. I've since learned to charge
more and to better estimate my time.

------
peterholcomb
After I proposed to my wife, we did a pre-marital counseling class about
budgeting. She knew that I had credit card debt but she didn't know how much
and it shocked her when I laid out the real numbers (over $10k). We had about
10 months until the wedding so I told her I was going to try to pick up some
moonlighting projects to pay down the debt.

Fast-forward a couple of months and I've picked up a few really simple
websites, blogs and a simple web application that I found through responding
to ads on craigslist.

I did these types of pretty crappy jobs for a few years until I finally got
enough of a portfolio to start bidding on larger and more interesting
projects.

Currently I no longer prospect but work as a resource for other creative
agencies who need devs on various projects for a few months at a time. It's
good work and all started by realizing that I could take more control over my
debt and get it paid off quicker if I was willing to give up my tv time in the
evenings.

And I did eventually pay off that credit card debt, but not quite before the
wedding.

------
sharkweek
Worked in a specific industry for a while, made some connections in that time.
Left my full-time job and let my contacts know I'd be doing
freelance/consulting work. Landed a few starter clients from this, then just
asked for word of mouth referrals (by far the best leads for me).

I'd also suggest having a landing page for your business/service, and
maintaining a blog on this site where you write commentary on things relevant
to your focus. Post links to your articles across social media. At the
beginning and end of every post, make it known you're available as a
consultant.

It's mostly just about putting yourself out there a bit. This didn't come
natural for me at all, so it was a learned skill. But after a while you get
kind of used to it. Routinely posting on LinkedIn et al. when you're looking
for more work (phrase it like "I have room for a new client in my consulting
portfolio..." or something along those lines, see who reaches out).

Just a word to the wise, if you're new to the freelance game, you'll probably
accidentally undercharge all your clients for your first year (or few years).
Don't be afraid to raise prices on them when you recognize what you've done.

Take your hourly rate from a full-time position and basically double it.

~~~
burn_cycle
This is really good advice. In addition:

1) Your network will be your main source of work. I've been freelancing for
just over a year and every single job I've had has come as a result of
relationships I made when I was in full-time employment.

2) In terms of billing do not be afraid to charge a lot more than you would
expect to make if doing the same work as an employee. You'll get better at
this.

3) It also helps if you can save a few months worth of money before hand. I've
found that it helps psychologically when negotiating if you know you don't
need to take a job. In practice you will (ideally) a fair amount of what you
are offered, this can be because some jobs simply aren't worth taking and the
opportunity cost of a mediocre pay-day.

4) Take time off when you can and always sleep well. You will switch between
periods of no work and periods of too much work. Relax during the former so
you are ready for the latter.

5) Know your stuff and work hard.

~~~
passiveincomelg
IMHO "Know your stuff" in this case means _specialize_ (in tech) and find a
niche (in an industry/domain and the market/clients you work with). Speaking
from experience of doing the opposite for the better part of a decade. Cannot
recommend. Would not do again.

------
djjk
I'm doing freelance EE hardware design.

About 5 years into my career I worked for a small consulting firm that did a
lot of mechanical engineering and a little electrical. The owner could not
find enough work for the mechanical guys and was tired of the ups and downs of
consulting so he closed the business. I asked him if I could continue working
directly for one of his old clients and he said sure. So that would give me
one customer if I wanted it, but I would need to find more.

I was pretty young and wasn't sure I could do it. I interviewed for one full
time job with a startup. At the end of the day I met with two people: 1) my
previous mentor who was consulting there at a high level and 2) the CEO. I was
open and honest with my mentor and told him I wasn't sure the startup was
right for me, and I was considering striking out on my own as a freelancer,
like him, even though I recognized I was probably too young to do that. He,
being a compassionate and reasonable person, encouraged me and said "well,
people should do what they want to do". So, when I met the CEO, I felt I
should tell her what I was thinking - I was leaning strongly toward consulting
work. Why was I so honest with her? I don't know. It's just my style. But, she
blew up. She started yelling at me, saying "You are too young! People become
consultants after years and years of experience for a reason! Let me tell you
what you need to do! You need to get a job!!!" And she basically threw me out
of the building.

From that moment on I was resolved to prove her wrong and become a successful
freelancer. It's now 15 years later and I am sure I made the right choice. All
my advertising is via word of mouth / previous clients. I've been busy every
day I wanted to be busy.

~~~
jpm_sd
Got a portfolio you can link to?

~~~
djjk
Sorry, I'm new to HN and not sure about posting it here. I could contact you
offline via email or some other means.

------
acconrad
No joke my first client was from a HackerNews "Who is Hiring" thread. I had
been doing part-time freelancing while working a full-time job, and had enough
of a portfolio that they took a chance on me. That was my first 5 months, and
now I'm in month 11 with a 2nd major client that I got through my network of
people in my local city.

------
danielvf
In 1999 I’d been building websites for several years. I learned how to build a
“Database driven site with PHP and MySQL” from a SitePoint tutorial. My
youngest brother was into making modded cars for Need for Speed 3. I built him
a website so people could download the cars.

I showed the site to a neighbor. A few days later, I got an email from the
neighbor’s sister’s husband’s cousin, looking for a quote on building a MLS
real estate search system. I sent a quote, he accepted, and I’ve been working
freelance ever since.

I think all of my customers, over 19 years worth, have been referrals either
from people I know, people I’ve volunteered with, or previous customers.

(And both those sites from 1999 are up and working to this day.)

------
swatcoder
The smoothest way to get started is to transition from employee to contractor,
bringing your employer or some loyal clients (if at an agency) with you into
your new independent venture.

This provides some even ground to help the bills get paid while you explore
the growth techniques that will work best for you.

That's what I did.

I worked for years in a contracting firm, and -- with their blessing -- took a
couple long-term clients out with me. It was easier for me to keep working
with them than to force a transition.

To gather new clients, I also identified a specialty/niche, created a clear
brand for myself, and started marketing it in the places my potential clients
would look. It really helps to narrow things down this way in the beginning,
so you can have some focus in your pursuit of clients.

Over time, growth became more word of mouth and holding to the niche became
less important. When new clients are referred to me now, I just assess whether
it's work I want and sell them on it.

------
BjoernKW
My first consulting gig was mostly born out of necessity. At that time (2011),
I was one of the founders of a startup, whose product was an enterprise /
intranet search engine.

As is common with enterprise products sales was hard. Not being Microsoft, IBM
or any other of the big names in the industry didn't exactly help either.
Suffice it to say, the company didn't do too well.

However, trying to sell an enterprise product came with the benefit of making
a lot of new contacts, many of whom needed bespoke software development and
consulting (rather than a turnkey enterprise search solution).

Hence, I quickly transitioned into the IT consulting business.

In more generally applicable terms, networking and becoming known for an area
of expertise in my opinion is absolutely key for continued, sustainable
success as a freelancer / consultant.

So, here for some more general pieces of advice:

Go to events / meetups. Talk to both people from the industry you market your
services to and fellow entrepreneurs and engineers. When doing this
continuously and consistently consulting gigs almost inevitably will come up.

Create a professional website that describes the services you provide and the
value you create for your clients. This is essential. Don't just put up a CV
and be done with that. If you want to stand out you have to explain why you're
not just a commodity paid by the hour but how you can solve a problem for your
clients.

On that website, write about your current work and your area of expertise in
general. If such opportunity presents itself (which it also almost inevitably
will once you start networking with others at meetups or other events) give
talks about these subjects.

------
rvanlaar
To be honest, I've never really marketed myself as a freelancer. That's one of
my weak spots. So here it is, I'm looking for customers with an idea that want
a webapplication built. I focus on educational customers. I'm also for hire
writing python code.

After working a couple years with python and going to meetups I started to
know some people in the community. That paid out. First getting a different
job. (Thanks Reinout)

One of the people I knew recommended me. That was a part-time gig. Since then,
most customers got a recommendation from someone in my network.

Other freelance jobs were via recruiters. They search mostly on linkedin.

If you've got questions drop me a note.

------
bxc
I was already working remotely, but I'd quit a job of several years because of
a disagreement.

Someone wanted to give me work, but they preferred to give me a job through a
company-based contract rather than being an employee (for work permit
reasons). It was pretty straightforward to make that happen from my side. Once
I was in that game of "you contract for some of my time, but not all of it", I
just carried on.

That someone found me through word-of-mouth / personal recommendation, which
is also how everything after that has come along.

I don't market myself particularly hard, but I like to think that my
reputation is "brutally honest".

------
h1d
Self taught programming while making a web service that I thought was ace
while in university but never made any money after overstaying in university
and finally quit and I had to get a job.

Joined some startup who was struggling to get their services right as they
didn't have any proper programmer. I just kept fixing stuff left and right
with my 10 years experience and it was apparent even from their clients who
the guy was that kept fixing stuff.

I was planning to quit the place in a year (without planning anything ahead)
but as I quit, everyone started asking me for work, even from the company I
left.

------
stefanfisk
A friend of mine was interning as a creative at an ad agency, and they wanted
a webpage done for waaay to little money. I was currently just living of my
savings and had nothing better to do, so I did my best and took the project
on. It was hell, but eventually my first webpage ever was done!

Now I’ve been freelancing for eight years, doing quite the variety of web and
iOS projects. Never did I really need to find customers, friends always
directed enough work towards me.

------
Hoasi
Started overseas, right after dropping from school and landed my first job by
pure chance, in the so-called creative industry. Had no money, knew nothing
and had to learn the ropes in real life situation. The fact that this was a
completely different environment helped a lot. I had to start from scratch and
pay attention to everything. Luck played a large part. My first client was a
big ad agency so this gave me a bit of a buffer time and also helped to get
new clients—that job led to the next, building a portfolio and clients
references. For a long time, I didn't know how to market myself, however. It
took me years to learn some of the basics in that regard. These are things you
only realize in hindsight, after trials and errors, in my case. When you are
freelancing one of the danger is that you get a false sense of freedom. When
things go well you tend to believe that you are at the steering wheel of your
career. But at the end of the day, you depend very much on clients and things
that are out of your control. If not careful you can quickly become
expendable.

------
aidos
If you're currently working at an agency, one trick is to see if they have any
smallish clients that you could take with you when you leave. For an agency
those customers can be more noisy than they're worth so they're pleased to see
the back of them - but they can be valuable as a freelancer. It's worked out
well for me in the past (and was a win all round).

~~~
abeyer
I'd just point out that you probably want to be very clear what your existing
contract forbids here, and get any exceptions/releases to that very clearly
spelled out in writing before attempting this. Companies can get vindictive if
they think you're stealing their clients without permission.

A client is seldom worth a lawsuit that you'll likely lose.

~~~
aidos
I guess I’ve just worked at friendlier places? When I did it, it was at a
small agency and they were happy to send the clients over to me because it was
best for everyone. Yeah, don’t go about poaching clients, that’s just trouble.

------
jlg23
I built up connections during employment and open source communities (the
latter was much easier 2 decades ago). Ever since, my "marketing" is:

* Try to over-deliver in some aspect important to the customer (time to delivery, documentation, client integration)

* Try to detect clients I cannot interact with properly and refuse them upfront (refer them to a friend who can deal with this type of client!)

* Bring lube. As an extern, you are causing more friction than an employee. A small present to whoever has to deal with the extra overhead and lots of work towards making his/her work easier help a _lot_.

* Be professional. Never ever talk bad about a client in public, no matter how bad they are; when you want to mention them in a positive public statement, ask for permission (most will say yes anyways and you pointed them at the free advertising you do for them)

Works for me; I don't even have a website nor any picture of me online with my
real name. I don't make public appearances at all.

------
misiti3780
i worked for near free for a few months to prove my chops and built up a bunch
of clients + a portfolio and started from there.

~~~
starpilot
Where did you find clients?

~~~
misiti3780
i reached out to a bunch of start ups and offered to work for free basically
-- it was 8 years ago, so i think times were a lot different, there were a lot
less start up backs then, i think its probably a lot easier to find paid work

------
whitefang
I used to work at a startup and got fired. I always wanted to try freelancing
but didn't have the courage to leave a well paying full-time job and take the
risk. This gave me that opportunity.

My family wanted me to take another job but I asked for 3 months and if I
couldn't earn equal to my last salary I would take up a job.

It was very hard in the beginning, I emailed people, posted on social forums
but the response rate was very low(we all know that now) which was again
emotionally challenging.

I had a good profile working with Ruby and JavaScript so some of my clients
got interested. And I still work with them it has been almost a year.

@ageitgey said a very good thing about finding the good client, which stays
longer and pay well.

I have also realised that in the freelance world the turnaround time is
slightly high. What I mean by that is even after a client says yes, it takes
almost 15 to 30 days before you really get started.

That's my story!

------
RobertRoberts
I did really well in college, so when a company contacted the school and asked
an advisor who'd they recommend, my name came up first.

fyi, I spent my time in school actually learning, when I felt a class
assignment was worthless, and I saw slackers getting A's by pandering to the
teacher, I'd focus on learning something new and screw my grades. (did just
fine, but wasn't straight A's because of this)

My methods paid off. I got an internship my second semester (teacher in my
first class at school told me to apply at his work place), was hired as
employee after 9 months in related field while still in school, and got my
first freelance gig the last month before I graduated. Freelance ever since...
been working on a startup for too long now though, lol. (I think many people
here are working on startups)

------
nicolaslem
I started freelancing a few months ago, what I did to land my first gig was:

\- Specialize in something during normal employment (Python backend/cloud
infra).

\- Build and contribute to a few Open Source projects. Thanks to that I have a
small portfolio to show to potential clients.

\- Use an agency to help me find clients. Since I didn't really know where to
start I looked for advice. An old HN thread mentioned Toptal so I registered
without really thinking it would work. After a quite long interview process I
got into the platform and landed my first customer a few days after. Overall
it is a positive experience and a good way to get started, but other HN
comments are more nuanced so YMMV.

------
BenFrantzDale
On three occasions I’ve consulted for my previous employer (three different
companies). Once while I was in grad school, once after I had left but the
company still wanted some of my time, and once on a project for a company that
had let me go when they moved operations but wanted to collaborate. From that,
and through entrepreneurs I know, I’ve gotten several other jobs. I’ve been
full-time nearly five years now (Formlabs: we are hiring:
[http://formlabs.com/jobs](http://formlabs.com/jobs)) but before that,
consulting had become a pretty regular thing to do between full-time
employment.

------
eswat
My first freelance gig was a friend whose startup just came out of a YC co-
hort and needed UI/front-end help (I had just left the company both of us had
worked together at at one point).

He already knew what I was capable of so there wasn’t much marketing/selling
involved. That came after, through local networking and finding odd projects
on Dribbble and hiring websites that had a section for remote designers. I had
kept my main site sparse—and still do—so I had an easier time to drive initial
conversation towards business goals instead of pixels and colours.

------
rpm33
Is anyone on gigster or upwork ? I've taken a few months off work and I want
to do some freelancing to make money on the side and also stay up to date but
I'm unable to find quality work out there.

~~~
fakeElonMusk
You can get work from gigster or upwork but you will not make the rate you
should be making. They have access to the clients - find your own clients and
charge hourly or weekly, 2-3x per hour what you made as an employee. As
everyone else has said, use your network. That's the best way to get good
work.

------
icc97
I worked at a company for a few years then moved overseas and went freelance
for them then. Also at the same time started working for friends who had a
promising startup.

------
jnetterf
I got started by using an organization's API on a platform they didn't support
and then offering to be a contractor when they sent me a cease and desist.

I found other odd dev work through family friends and by making a well-
performing app for a small platform. This was all a nice supplement during
university and internships, but not enough to compete with full-time remote
work.

------
DoreenMichele
I started with a service:

[https://digitalmicroenterprise.blogspot.com/2018/05/starting...](https://digitalmicroenterprise.blogspot.com/2018/05/starting-
with-service-as-way-to-learn.html)

Proviso: Not really a programmer, though I do little plug-and-play websites
these days in addition to freelance writing and resume editing.

------
citilife
I don't do contracting as much now, but I used to get work through referrals
and also blogging. If I toss an item on my blog, do a few blog posts:

[https://austingwalters.com/](https://austingwalters.com/)

And I'll probably get some hits within a week or so.

------
oneplane
Started with message boards (the physical kind!), went from small/private jobs
to b2b jobs by using the small/private people's references to get in to their
employers and business networks (the people network kind).

In the space of about 6 months went from 100% private jobs to 50% private, 25%
small business and 25% medium business.

As much as people seem to be busy with their CV and references, it's often
more the presentation of your skills in-situ and the impression you make on
potential sources of jobs that will get you a constant flow. In the space of
about 18 months I was booked about half a year in advance. This is in a
western european country with about 17 million people to give you some
context.

About said context: it really depends on your location, rules, lawyerisms and
style of capitalism.

------
chad_strategic
Someone previous mentioned target a coding niche.

I have had a good amount of success on upwork.com, targeting financial / stock
trading algorithms.

Check my profile for details...

------
cm2012
Reach out to your network.

------
davidkatz
I started

------
jowiar
Still brand new to this, but have pretty much hit the tipping point from
"unsure if enough work" to "too much work" immediately.

If the goal is to be on your own, one thing that is incredibly useful is to
build a network of people who would be in a complimentary business to yours,
are likely to stumble across work that you would be able to do, and aren't in
the position to do themselves. For me, that's working with a former coworker
whose business is data science + the strategy around it, or a larger
consulting firm where I used to work that has projects come across their plate
for steady clients that are too small to be worth their time, but can be quite
lucrative for an individual.

~~~
tixocloud
Curious but what business are you in that's complementary to data science?

~~~
jowiar
I’m primarily an engineer, though I have worn the data scientist hat in the
past. There’s a bunch of data engineering/plumbing work that’s necessary in
any data science organization, as well as data visualization for things that
are beyond a standard chart.

~~~
tixocloud
Interesting. Do you have a website?

------
OkiiEli
I used to work at a multi-national and got fired. I always wanted to try
freelancing but didn't have the courage to leave a well paying full-time job
and take the risk. This gave me that opportunity and I went ahead to started a
productized content-as-a-service
[http://contentiskey.co](http://contentiskey.co) which offers unlimited
content for $250/mo Right now am busy searching for customers, you can join me

