Ask HN: Where do you (programmers) find freelancing gigs? - stopachka
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shanelja
Mostly here, my freelance work tends to come from me posting an informative
comment on someone's Show HN page, telling them what is good, what is bad and
what needs to change.

I often take an in depth look if there are bugs, going to my console, editing
the javascript on their site and the css, to see if I can solve the bugs for
them and then I email them to the poster or in the comments of the post,
normally with an up vote to help them to notice quicker.

Occasionally the person will offer me work, or I will offer to do it for them,
sometimes for free, sometimes for money, I'm normally not really bothered, I
remember one guy bought me a pint from 2,500 miles away using an online
ordering service, which was pretty cool.

I don't know about how professionals find it though, I prefer my day job to
freelance work, I only take it on nights where I have nothing to do.

~~~
madsravn
Pretty smooth. I like the idea of looking at the work before offering to fix
it.

Think I will try this approach someday. Could be a learning experience as well

~~~
shanelja
Most pieces added to Show HN don't need that much fixing, that's why I tend to
check, plus it's good to be useful to the community as a whole, there's no
point only half trying, especially not if you expect to land work from it.

------
enobrev
Early on in my career, I was slowly switching from graphic / web design to web
programming. I used to spend quite a bit of time in a couple well known
graphic design forums. I had a fairly intense day job, so it's not like I was
there 10 hours a day, but I would chime in from time to time for my own
interest as well as looking for people with programming questions.

I mostly did it for my own learning. I'd been picking up very small freelance
projects from an independent web host as the time, and every time I found an
interesting question on the designer forums, I'd do the research and come up
with an answer.

In time, I became one of the main web programming resources in that community.
I wasn't necessarily a very good programmer, but I'd always dig in and find
the answer and try to find a way to present it well to a non-programmer group.
As someone who used to be a designer, I knew how to approach the question and
answer in a way that would benefit whomever asked.

Over time as the designers in that community got further in their careers,
they would come to me, whether for work or advice. Some came to me back then.
Some, years later. I had a potential client pop up about 6 months ago (at
least 8 years since I'd stopped visiting that forum regularly) by way of a
recommendation from one of those old forum members with whom I'd worked years
ago.

I would say the majority of the success I've found in my career stemmed from
those relationships. A lot of whom are still friends and colleagues to this
day.

I'm not necessarily recommending you start lurking around design forums. But
the fact is, there are many industries that are in need of some outside
knowledge. I'm also not recommending you start spamming forums. What I mean to
say is that it may be possible to find potential clients as a member of a non-
programming community, provided you're a reliable and friendly member of said
community.

This is a very fortunate time to be a programmer. A solid majority of people
in the world still have no idea how their phones and computers do what they
do, and a good many of those people would benefit greatly by knowing someone
who does. And some of them may have some work that needs to be done, or know
someone who needs work done.

------
rietta
Most of my consulting work comes through word of mouth and referrals from
people who I've met at various meetup groups, hack nights, etc. Some leads
come through the website from people searching from Ruby developers, but still
the best lead is someone who knows someone who knows you!

Two podcasts I can highly recommend listening to are the Ruby Freelancers
podcast (<http://rubyfreelancers.com/>) and the Business of Freelancing
(<http://businessoffreelancing.com/>).

Another podcast that I have found deeply helpful is the EntreLeadership
podcast by Chris Locurto, which is a follow-on to the business book written by
Dave Ramsey. It's more focused on general business and leadership. So it takes
a little more work to apply the principles to your freelance business, but
it's very helpful as one thinks through the future when freelancing evolves
into a business with a team and so forth.

I hope this helps!

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joshmlewis
I remember hearing that after you get a year or so of work and networking
under your belt, it mostly just flows. And I didn't really believe it a year
ago, but now I see it. All the people I've met from hackathons to the
accelerator program to random events, it all adds up later and I get
approached for work a good bit now.

~~~
luke_s
When you say 'work' is this freelancing work, or work as an employee at a
company? If its freelancing work, how do you find enough to keep you busy
during the 1st year?

~~~
joshmlewis
My usual setup is a monthly stipend from a somewhat early stage startup, or
one that I'm cofounding and then I do freelance/other stuff on the side. At
the moment I'm doing full time work for a startup out of Harvard, freelancing
with a dev on an iPad app, and doing some work for a YC startup.

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mekarpeles
My co-founder (sabalaba) and I have been working on Hackerlist
(<http://hackerlist.net>) - a selective network of great freelance engineers.

This seems like something many of you have been looking for as there are a
shocking number of "freelance" posts (from both clients and programmers) on HN
each month -- HN ids: 4596379, 4463692, 4323612, 4214767, 4184757, 4053078,
3914001 3783658, 2539892, etc.

We admit, at this stage Hackerlist is an experiment. We're only asking for
your time and patience -- we'll help you land contracts with top companies,
handle the logistics, and you'll keep 100% of your earnings. No catch. We'll
handle the vetting process, source contracts, and continuously work one-on-one
with you to improve our tech until it serves your needs. Unfortunately, to
preserve high quality, we're unable to accept more than 32 candidates and 6 of
these spots are already filled.

If you'd like to be considered for Hackerlist, email me at
michael.karpeles@gmail.com or submit your github username on
<http://hackerlist.net>

Our long-term vision is to create a realtime system (think the intersection of
mechanical turk, stackoverflow, oDesk) where trusted freelance engineers can
immediately clone a git repo, start hacking on a technical problem, and upon
completion, get paid what they're worth.

P.S. Suggestions and feedback are appreciated -- we don't want to build
something you don't need.

------
WebDevigner
Just curious, does anyone use sites like odesk / elance etc to find well
paying contracts? They seem to be mostly full of asian contracting teams
bidding bottom dollar on most projects.

~~~
krapp
_well paying_ , no. Enough to put gas in the car... sometimes.

------
syalam
start small by working on projects in your local community, hacker spaces,
networking with people who might need your skill. take on anything that is
reasonable enough for you to pay the bills.

do a good job, and you will get referred.

your referrals referrals will refer you.

your referrals referrals referrals will refer you.

and then you can hire more staff and grow

------
stopachka
Web Design gigs were easy for me to find on Craiglist/Kijiji, but Rails app
development doesn't cut it there.

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technotarek
I spent several years holding down a regular job and doing the freelance work
at night. Eventually, as I successfully completed those jobs/tasks, the word
spread and I had enough coming in from the night work that I was able to shed
the full time job and go on my own. Yes, it means spending a few years of
working two jobs, which isn't a luxury everyone has or even wants to exercise.
It's definitely paid off for me though, as I've now been 100% freelance for
about 5 years.

My other suggestion is to see if you can convert a portion your existing full
time job to freelance (i.e., convert from an employee to a contractor for your
existing job). I did that as well, which helped fill in my client gap for a
bit.

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timjahn
When I first started (in college), it was Craigslist and MySpace. From then
till I stopped freelancing, I tried recruiters, friends, family, etc.

Networking (which leads to word of mouth) is so key. The bigger your network
and the stronger your relationships, the more chance for great work. Ideally,
you want work that steadily flows your way with little outreach on your part.

That's what I'm creating matchist (<http://matchist.com/talent>) for. We want
to be a trusted resource in your top circle that sends you quality work.

------
cageface
So far work has just come to me. I got some iOS contracts from comments I've
posted here and now that I'm also doing Android I've had friends approach me
for Android ports of iOS apps they're already doing for clients. Just about
everybody wants iOS and Android now so somebody that can do both is in demand.

All this kind of happened passively over the last year or so though. I'm not
sure what I'd do if I had to bootstrap this more quickly.

------
gillygize
I have been running the Tokyo iOS Meetup for the past two years or so. People
often stop in looking for iOS developers, so I can get a lot of projects
through that.

------
haven
If you are in a reasonable sized city, showing competence at hack nights and
meetups. No matter where you are, a presence on Github and helping folks on
IRC.

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jacques_chester
I'm doing contract work for my former employer.

~~~
mercurial
Same here, with two of my former employers. It's a pretty nice arrangement,
especially since I just moved abroad and don't have a network in my new abode.

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shrikrishna
if you are a student, <http://stalkninja.com/> is a good place to start

~~~
ParadisoShlee
Comic sans huh....

This looks like a horrible service. The design doesn't really convey trust.

~~~
shrikrishna
That doesn't really matter. Their task is to hook you up with freelance gigs
and they do that just fine.

~~~
ParadisoShlee
Has anybody used this service? I've got something I can throw down tonight if
I can get a recommendation...

~~~
shrikrishna
Well, I haven't been able to try out any of the projects myself; but I know
the creator of this service. You can contact him at pocha AT stalkninja DOT
com or @pocha on twitter for stats. As for people who have actually taken up
projects posted there, I'm sorry, but I'm not in contact with any of them.

------
lefnire
see this answer: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4731232>

