

Ask HN: Freelancers, how did you find your first paying client? - tagabek

Whether you&#x27;re just starting out or have been in the game for a while, how did you go about getting your first payed client?
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robflynn
A friend of mine was doing a video shoot for some church organization. They
needed a new web host and some changes on their website, so he referred them
to me. Through them, I picked up another client or two with which they were
associated.

From there, someone familiar with that church group learned about me via them
and asked me to help with a project he was doing.

From my work there, that client ended up funneling several clients to me.

As far as money goes, I think I started at around $20/hr and began raising my
rates to $30, $50, and now $75-$100/hr depending on the project. For a while
there, I had too many smaller paying clients coming to me but no real way to
scale it other than just funneling them off to someone else and losing out on
the potential income. Raising rates helped with that filter that out. Now if I
get overwhelmed, I can actually afford to subcontract out to other folks that
I trust without taking a big hit. I have collected a small list of people that
I trust (a programmer or two and a graphic designer guy) that I use when I
need them.

I still work a full time job, so I just try to balance my freelance gigs as
best I can. My hope with raising my rates is that I can plan an eventual
transition into full time freelancing.

I had a previous venture into freelancing many years ago, but only had one or
two clients. I had worked out a residual payment sort of deal with them based
on the amount of users they had paying each month. This was my full time job
for a year or two until they lost their main source of users.

This ended up being much more of a rambling session that I intended. I guess
my main point is, "by talking to people." Talk to your friends. Talk to
colleagues. Talk to folks at your social gathering place of choice. It seems
that someone always knows someone who needs some sort of work done. They may
not be willing to pay top dollar, but to get your foot in the door I think
that's okay.

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jmduke
While I don't suggest this to be universal, I think you'll find that the
majority of freelancers don't have first clients, they have first favors: a
buddy who needs a website, an old acquaintance from high school or college who
remembers you being the one who knew what RAM was an acronym for, etc.

I'd say, broadly, there are two types of early freelancing requests:

1\. The prospective client knows exactly what the finished product needs to
be. He does not, on the other hand, know what technology is necessary or how
long/expensive it will be. (These are the clients who say sentences like "Hey,
how much would it cost per month to have a web page?"). These are typical
first clients, who aren't quite aware of the gulf between "how much effort it
is to set up a five-page Wordpress" and "how much value a five-page Wordpress
brings to a small services firm," and tend to think of technology as an
investment.

2\. The prospective client who has read an article or a book about something
like SEO or social media or something like that and doesn't really know what
it entails but feels as though they need it. These people generally think of
technology as a cost -- or, at the very least, they don't know exactly what
they'd be investing in.

To answer the question: I got my first client way back in tenth grade by being
referred by a non-profit for which I had set up a Wordpress account; I got in
touch with the non-profit through my high school's web design club; I heard
about the web design club through one of my buddies in Algebra II.

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sachin0235
You will never get your first client sitting in front of your laptop. Few
things you can do is - Build a free site for a small business in your
neighbourhood. Go out and talk to them. Build it like you are building your
own. Then slowly word-of-mouth publicity will start getting you clients.

If you are planning to register on websites like oDesk, then i would suggest
you to work under someone who is already there and have a client base. Then
slowly start building your own.

I hope this will help you. Good Luck!!

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dangle
It was very clear that a friend's workplace could leap 40 years into the
future with a basic user database and eCommerce platform, so I explained the
financial/productivity benefits at a party and offered to do it at a really
low rate.

Other clients have come from telling friends I was freelancing, especially
developer friends who will refer you when they're too busy to take on new
work. If you have no developer friends, show up at meetups, design events, and
start introducing yourself to others as a freelancer. You shouldn't start hard
selling in social environments necessarily-- make authentic connections with
people you vibe with so when they have some work down the line, they think of
you.

For me it has boiled down to what is effectively networking, though the
term/concept as I understood it from afar always made me nervous and
misanthropic.

Its essential for freelancers, though.

I watched a lot of Ramit Sethi videos on youtube about social behavior in
negotiations, networking, and how to not being a weirdo in otherwise anxiety
producing environments. These helped immensely. And the amount of free info is
amazing.

Money in the bank:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb03mTqI2Io&feature=c4-overvi...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb03mTqI2Io&feature=c4-overview-
vl&list=PLFECEFDAC97C06DE7)

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clockwork_189
The hard part about freelancing is that more often than not, paying clients
want to see your portfolio. Now when you are starting off, most of the time
you will have little to nothing to show(or atleast I did :P).

I started off by helping out student organizations in my university and
building websites for them. I then used those websites in my portfolio. Within
the universities, some organizations caught wind of my work and asked me to
build their sites for them. Soon, I had people tell me that their
family/friend wants a website and I found myself building those sites. Then I
started branching off into the community. I posted on local boards and got a
couple more clients there. After this point, I started getting word of mouth
referrals.

In a gist, you start with customers who will pay you little to nothing. Do a
good job and advertise that work, you will attract higher paying customers.
Having a few personal projects will also help, just make sure that they look
good (remember "To the user, the interface is the product".

Good luck!

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jcooper2
Craigslist, it was a local who was seeking a developer for a porn website.
Worked part time for a few weeks, paid ok initially. However he screwed me
(figuratively) for a few thousand dollars for the last installment.

It was part-time and I didnot care, however I got to see a live porno (DP)
series in San Fernando valley.

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tagabek
My first payed client actually found me. I received an email one day from
someone that was interested in me building an iOS App for them. We shared a
few more emails, and then had a Skype conversation to move things along. Their
app idea wasn't huge, but it was a week-long project, which was perfect for me
at the time.

A week later, they had a new app ready for submission, and I had a Paypal
notification of their transfer to me.

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dalerus
My first project was a favor for my father-in-law. His church needed a new
website.

When I started freelancing professionally 5 years ago, I booked my first real
jobs through Elance. The pay wasn't great but got some portfolio pieces and
references. Over time I left Elance, but I still have some agency clients that
found me from Elance.

~~~
tagabek
Thanks for sharing, dalerus. Would you recommend that beginning freelancers
use sites like Elance?

~~~
dalerus
It's a good place to start to get portfolio pieces and I still maintain a
presence there. I have an alert that emails me if anything gets posted in the
10K+ range.

Also I just started hiring developers via oDesk and I enjoy their system
better than Elance. But I can't say how good they are for leads.

