
Ask HN: How do you find clients when you have no network and can only do remote? - _ncxu
I have no network, no ability to relocate, can&#x27;t get a full time job right now, and urgently need to make some bucks real quick, even if it&#x27;s less than I would otherwise qualify for.<p>But several articles and comments here suggested that upwork.com and similar freelance websites do some really shady things and that it&#x27;s not good to use them for any kind of work, even temporary.<p>And having worked remotely for the past 5 years has really limited my ability to build a network. I don&#x27;t have LinkedIn and even if I did, it&#x27;s more meant for building a network than for finding a quick gig.<p>I&#x27;ve got plenty of frontend&#x2F;backend&#x2F;mobile&#x2F;desktop skills, having made several websites and iOS apps, and 5 years experience working remotely, so I&#x27;m definitely confident that I&#x27;m qualified to do some freelancing and get a good pay, but I can&#x27;t for the life of me figure out how to get a job using these skills but without a network.<p>Any advice would be deeply appreciated. Thanks HN.
======
gk1
I wrote about how I learned to get consulting leads:
[http://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to-get-consulting-
le...](http://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to-get-consulting-leads/)

TL;DR - Decide who is your ideal client. Identify their 1) common pain points
and 2) which online communities they participate in (may or may not be HN).
Write advice that will help them with their pain points, and share it in those
communities. This will in effect advertise that you know how to solve their
problems. Don't be too modest to say you're available for consulting projects,
and make it easy for people to contact you.

PS - As someone else suggested, you may want to add your contact info here.
There's a big overlap between people who browse HN and people who need and
have the budget/authority to hire contractors.

~~~
xcubic
How long did it take to go from 0 to clients?

~~~
gk1
Around 2-3 months. Lived off savings and a credit card. First client came from
a referral, but that didn't turn out to be a consistent source. First long-
term client came from seeing me on HN.

If I had started with the strategy I explained above, I'd probably get the
first client much sooner.

------
Brajeshwar
There are pretty good Remote Job sources these days, try them. There are quite
a bit of contract works too, which you can start off with. Also, do not forget
to walk into your area's agencies, they usually work with
freelancers/contractors.

\- [https://www.workingnomads.co/jobs](https://www.workingnomads.co/jobs)

\- [https://remoteworkhub.com/remote-jobs/](https://remoteworkhub.com/remote-
jobs/)

\- [https://www.crossover.com/](https://www.crossover.com/)

\- [https://remote.com/](https://remote.com/)

\- [https://weworkremotely.com/](https://weworkremotely.com/)

\- [https://getbetterluck.com/](https://getbetterluck.com/) (one of our own
internal tool)

~~~
mirap
Ad [https://getbetterluck.com/](https://getbetterluck.com/) \- usual struggle
- when I search for "UX", it also shows job offers containting word "linux".

~~~
Brajeshwar
We're working on and will keep improving the app. Try being a bit more
specific with your search keywords, permute-combine keywords, use the
"Setting" for a more granular control of what shows up.

Anyway, that same "linux" posts also has "UX" and that might be the reason for
your result.

Do you remember which post was the one that you got the wrong one?

------
aresant
I would immediately update your posting with a CV, website, git, whatever.

You are on the front page of arguably the PREMIER network of people with
access / need for technologists.

~~~
penpapersw
Good idea, thanks.

Updated my profile with an email. Don't have resume in order yet. But have
done plenty of Clojure, front-end and back-end work, made several iOS/tvOS
apps that ship on the App Store.

If anything comes from this, great, but I'm not betting on it, so I'm going to
focus most my efforts on the suggestions to give try toptal, upwork, and
freelancer.com a serious try for the short term, and to build a network for
the long-term.

~~~
myrandomcomment
Sounds like a person problem. You are at the top of HN. Get off your ass and
take the few hours it takes to get a resume done. Maybe that's your issue in
finding work. You ask for help but are not willing to do the most basic thing
required to get a job?

~~~
penpapersw
I have a resume, sorry for the miswording. But my wife values privacy and so
isn't comfortable with me just posting it up here on HN willy nilly. And
although I am comfortable with it, I feel obligated to respect her wishes.

~~~
smithsmith
You may have a good reason to not disclose your identity, but how do you plan
to get paid. Do you want to get paid anonymously in bitcoins or you just want
to provide your identity to the future employer only which does not make sense
to disclose privacy only to your future employer. I am confused here.

------
wtracy
The problems with Upwork and Freelancer, while significant, are regularly
blown out of proportion. I don't recommend them for more than finding short
gigs when you're in a pinch, but they are useful for that. Do be prepared to
lose a lot of jobs to bidders from the third world. Take advantage of anything
that you can use to differentiate yourself.

Also, get a stack of business cards and start going to local business
networking events. Look up the local Chamber of Commerce, search meetup.com,
and see if your county has any small business development classes or lunches
you can attend.

That's my short-term advice. I'm still trying to figure out what to do in the
medium- and long-term myself.

~~~
ioddly
> Look up the local Chamber of Commerce, search meetup.com, and see if your
> county has any small business development classes or lunches you can attend.

I'm curious if anyone has had success with this. I know Brennan Dunn talks
about it as one avenue to pursue, so I've been thinking about going to the
local business networking thing. I guess I just have trouble conceptualizing
going from meeting people who are running local brick-and-mortar type
businesses to convincing them that software is a solution to their problems.

~~~
oakesm9
I'm a mobile app developer and I have got most of my work from meetups and
local business events. Just remember that going to the geeky meetups will only
get you so far. You need to think who would buy your services and go to
meetups made for them. I've had the most success with product management and
other business related meetups.

~~~
throwawaybbq1
Obvious in retrospect but a very good suggestion. I mostly go to geeky meetups
and usually lament how everyone is the same. When I go to the odd business
meetup, I find a very diverse crowd. Finding the right business meetups can be
hard though. Any thoughts on how to find them?

------
Y7ZCQtNo39
I think the biggest thing you can do is establishing credibility with
potential clients. The easiest way to do that would to be an existing set of
clients, which you don't have. That's fine, everyone has to start from
somewhere.

Your clients could or could not know much about the software development life
cycle, and how to evaluate if you have the skills to meet whatever needs they
may have. Perhaps you could network with existing freelancers who are too busy
to take on new clients.

Spitballing here, but maybe working on or creating an OSS project could give
you credibility to those freelancers. Or maybe you could work under a
successful freelancer to establish yourself in the space. Maybe the site you
built will lend you credibility to others.

Alternatively, if you have business ideas you'd like to try out, you could try
working for yourself and creating your own income. Also, it doesn't hurt to
sign up for LinkedIn. It might not be immediately beneficial, but once you
find your first client, maybe they'll write you a glowing review.

> having worked remotely for the past 5 years has really limited my ability to
> build a network. I don't have LinkedIn and even if I did, it's more meant
> for building a network than for finding a quick gig.

Yeah, it's hard to build a network. Time to start putting in the effort. I
sense a tinge of can't-do attitude here (but obviously, the tone interpreted
in written communication is subjective) -- I don't know if it's the case or
not, but a can't-do attitude is not what you want to have for freelancing
work. Your lack of a network, or having an expansive one, is ultimately the
result of your personal decisions. You have to be willing to give it a shot.
If networking sounds not fun, or like a chore and otherwise unpleasant, you're
probably better off just working for a big tech company. Personal skills are
far more important in freelancing and entrepreneurship when compared to
standard full-time employment.

Best of luck. Now go out there and kick some ass.

------
goodroot
While it may not fill an urgent need, have you considered finding a
comfortable and stable remote job? Hackernews 'who is hiring' is a great spot;
weworkremotely.com, remoteok.io.

You seem to have experiences, which is excellent. In the short term, if you're
in the throes of an emergency, perhaps get some help from love ones while you
get your feet back on the ground.

Looking for a project under stressful circumstances feels like it might create
an uncomfortable environment to do good work and sustainably remedying what
you're going through.

Good luck, whatever route you choose!

~~~
penpapersw
Yep, and I've applied for pretty much every remote job from the last HN "who's
hiring" post. None of them went past the initial interview. What I took from
that is that there's not a lot of remote work available right now in general.
I'll look into the two websites you recommended, thanks.

~~~
hluska
You know, don't take this wrong, but I worry about the conclusion 'that
there's not a lot of remote work available'. Rather, you seemingly got some
initial interviews, so there must be jobs available. Instead, it just seems
like you weren't a good fit for them.

Seriously, keep applying for work. You'll eventually get a break, particularly
if you're getting initial interviews just off the strength of an application.

~~~
penpapersw
In the past month I only found less than 10 remote jobs, and I had the skills
to apply for about 8 or 9. To me that feels like a very small pool in the
first place. And yes the 8 or 9 didn't hire me but that was probably because
like someone else mentioned here, there's just tons of applicants, maybe I was
severely undercut by someone who doesn't have a wife and 5 children to provide
for.

~~~
hluska
Okay, I'm not going to leave this one be. Have you ever considered that the
way you communicate may be a bigger issue? Consider this line, from your HN
profile:

 _Email me at admin@affluentconfidante.com if you have a job to get done and
money to pay for it._

At best, that is extremely unprofessional.

Or, even consider these phrases from this very comment:

 _In the past month I only found less than 10 remote jobs_

 _To me that feels like a very small pool in the first place._

 _maybe I was severely undercut by someone who doesn 't have a wife and 5
children to provide for._

In other comments, you've talked about how you don't have a 'public' resume
ready, and how you only have two public projects, that you built in an hour or
two over the last few weeks.

I'm looking for a job myself, so I understand that it is a hard slog, but
seriously, you need to tone down the negativity.

~~~
penpapersw
Sorry that came off as negative. It's more or less a very limited amount of
time. That's one of the reasons I can't get a "regular job". My wife has an
illness we haven't gotten a stable diagnosis for yet, which makes her
exhausted all the time, leaving me to watch our 5 children (from teen to
baby), which is a full time job in and of itself. The few times I do anything
during the day have to be done in tiny windows in which the kids aren't trying
to burn down the house and terrorize each other. And I've been consistently
getting less sleep than I need because I try to get little amounts of job
searching or entrepreneurial work done during late hours. So any time I have
to dedicate to doing any of these things, including commenting on HN, is
sleep-deprived and rushed.

~~~
MrQuincle
I just don't understand why your CV is considered too personal, but you are
telling all these things.

Although that might be hard, I would recommend to reorganize your life such
that you can separate your professional life from your personal/emotional
life. Don't get a remote job. Move to wherever you can commute to work. Even
if babysitting would take a considerable part of the paycheck, pay for it.

Probable not the comment you wanted to read, but I just wanted to address the
elephant in the room. This is not about not finding online gigs. This is
deeper than that.

------
thibaut_barrere
This will not help the OP immediately, but for anyone to avoid this situation
in the first place, there are a number of techniques (some quite easy) that
can help, described in this article I wrote:

[https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/how-to-have-clients-find-
you...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/how-to-have-clients-find-you-rather-
than-you-chasing-them)

More short term, I would definitely try to find a single gig, maybe via some
subcontracting or via sites like toptal, just to build some runway and to make
sure the techniques described above have enough time to bear fruit.

------
ShirsenduK
I was a freelancer with no network 10 years back. I used to get cheap projects
and some crappy clients. Some 5 years back, I got to work at a startup (luck
and my relentless application to jobs did the trick). I had to move away from
my hometown. Remote was _not_ an option. We got bought by LinkedIn and I was
an engineer at LinkedIn. That blew my network up! I get remote work offers in
my hometown.

In my experience, face time matters if you are from place no one knows about.
There is a reason most engineering talent is in and around Silicon Valley.

I am not sure about github or other technical profiles as the people who make
the decision of hiring you never visit github or understand code. I am taking
about the CEO of a small company who will hire you and not the cool SF startup
that we read more often.

Companies want to reduce risk, remote increases it because of the unknowns. If
I were you, I would again start with upwork and similar freelancing sites. The
shady things you hear are distractions and everyone has a different
experience. There is a reason the upworks of today still exist and are doing
business.

I wish you the best! :)

------
Overtonwindow
I am in the same boat, albeit a completely different field, still it might
help. Have you considered becoming a news and information resource for
nonprofits, trade associations, and small businesses? I am a lobbyist and
grassroots advocacy manager. I work from home, have no network, and limited
ability to do so. I stumbled on to some schools that were interested in public
policy, and laws. I rang one of them up and offered to monitor the law and
legislation for them, and let them know when things came up that they might
find interesting. Very low price, about a grand a month. That one school told
someone else, and now I've got four schools. Just enough to pay the bills and
eek by. I focused on keeping the price way down to entice people, make it up
in volume.

------
elektor
[https://www.reddit.com/r/slavelabour/](https://www.reddit.com/r/slavelabour/)

I've had a few coding tasks completed by Redditors on this subreddit.

~~~
penpapersw
This is pretty neat, thanks! Unfortunately all the [TASK] listings are like
super tiny amounts of money. To clarify, I'm talking in the hundreds/low-
thousands per project.

For example, $200 to make a website that I can probably whip up in a few hours
and put on AWS for them. Or maybe $2000 for a more complicated website that
takes 2 weeks. That kind of stuff is what I'm looking for.

~~~
samstave
Where is your portfolio and resume and links I can look at... may have some
work for you...

~~~
penpapersw
Email me in my profile and I'll send you some links. Thanks.

------
tomcam
You know how to develop iOS apps. Can you think of any company that has an iOS
app you could do better? How about contacting them with suggestions and a
gallery showing the apps that you have already written

------
eldavido
I work with hotels. They face the same problem (how to get customers). There
are basically two approaches: either pay someone a commission, or build a
brand.

Building a brand is hard, it takes a long time, but it's worth a lot and is
monetized over time.

Paying someone means accepting you're going to pay 10-15% or whatever price to
someone like 10x consulting or some other sort of agency to find you work.
This can be the right option if you aren't in it long-term or just plain don't
want the hassle of brand-building.

------
gameproducer
I would recommend joining Gigster or TopTal if you can. Both services are in a
completely different league to Upwork in all regards — great clients and
projects, high-quality work opportunities, money. I freelance for Gigster, so
I know more much more about them than I do about TopTal. The business models
the two companies operate are different. From what I understand, TopTal
connects the workforce with customers on a long-term basis, and the pay is per
hour, while Gigster allows freelancers to take several gigs at any given
moment and the pay is typically set according to the scope of work and the
dev’s reputation. With some very rare exceptions, all work is remote. So far,
my personal experience with Gigster has been amazing. I have worked on a
variety of projects that have really helped my resume shine to shine, I've met
lots of cool and friendly people (many of whom are among the best in their
field), and I've earned quite decent money in the process. Many Gigsters have
a stable six-figure income. While this may only scratch the surface of what
people are paid in the Valley, when you think about combining it with the
freedom to live/travel wherever you want — be it in Thailand, Costa Rica or
Greece — you get a true perspective of the potential of joining Gigster.

------
forgottenacc57
You need RFC1149 networking
[https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt](https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt)

------
csomar
In a short time? Forget about it. No one who doesn't know you first hand will
engage you in a $10-20k contract. Let alone the fact that there is such a
position available on short notice.

So your options are really limited: Credit card debt? Family debt? Low paying
jobs?

In the longer run, there is no way around building a network. If you want high
quality work, you have to build a network. It's like some guy coming to a big
city and want to hit the high-end clubs, meet with high-quality people and get
back home with a 9/10 girl to sleep with. Not gonna happen.

He's probably going to fail at entering the clubs (first step) and then blame
it on the clubs having bad policies and stuff. If you want high paid work, you
have to establish yourself first.

Establishing yourself in a certain market/niche take _years_ of hard work on
establishing yourself. It can happen on different dimensions and will depend
on your style (blogging? Forums? Conferences? How about writing a book?
Contributing to a popular open source project? How about becoming a main
contributor of a popular open source project?).

Good luck. Tough times but I'm pretty sure you'll come out of it and it'll
shape your perception down the road.

~~~
thisiswilson
I've landed several jobs in that range without meeting someone in person. But
it requires a certain amount of salesmanship and establishing proper scope.

------
Uptrenda
I don't know how helpful this will be OP: but thinking about problems in your
domain and writing about your solutions is a good way to establish competence.
It's the difference between organic leads vs active advertising. The former
has the client coming to you and the latter has you chasing the client.

Which of these do you think works the best? In my experience its the former by
far (all of the people who have sought me out had the most reasonable and
interesting project.) But I do understand that in the beginning you're going
to have to grind to get anywhere (share your work where ever you can) which
means putting in A LOT of unpaid hours doing research and development for new
stuff. It's worth it though.

If you keep working on your portfolio and learning new skills then you will
never have to look for work again. Just think of the security that would
bring: To know that if anything happened to the company you're working for (or
you get fired) you can sign a new contract the very same day. Would be amazing
for most devs... But in my experience this can only happen if you specialise.

The problem is, there is too much competition for the skills you listed. As an
example, if you were to learn some skills in say - big data or AI then you
would be much more competitive. I know that's a big ask but one thing I think
is true about the tech industry is that anyone can succeed if they put in the
effort. In the end its a meritocracy, so the good developers quickly go to the
top and the bad ones are weeded out... Remember companies ARE looking for good
developers all the time, you just have to make yourself heard and do something
worth showing (this doesn't necessarily mean applying to a company. Get
creative. There are a lot of ways to stand out)

Good luck OP

------
throwawaybbq1
If you need to make money right away, I strongly suggest you reconsider upwork
(don't know the other sites you mentioned). I know a friend who worked on it
as a dev. I use it as a client. The money from initial contracts might be bad,
but it has the potential to turn into a more lucrative deal with a particular
client (if you prove your value). This is a great way to build up experience
as a consultant .. you can then say you worked as a consultant for X, Y, Z big
name brand. Here is the thing .. pick your customer carefully. You want to
make sure you are working with a customer who is as tech savvy as you. I work
in deep tech so was able to communicate very effectively with my upworker, we
were able to estimate things similarly, etc. I have seen postings on other
free lance sites where someone wants you to build a highly scalable version of
twitter for 50 bucks. You want to be able to avoid those people.

------
tixocloud
For quick jobs, you can look for contract opportunities. Especially in
software development, there should be plenty. Sometimes it might be worth to
think about lowering your rate in order to secure something and build some
trust/goodwill first before then raising your rate. Note that I'm not saying
lowering your rate to the point that it's dirt cheap - just low enough to get
something going to build trust with a client.

Look at all the job postings for contractors and freelancers and start with
those. Build up your portfolio and share your skills online.

What I've also done is track relationships, make notes and pay attention to
details using a self-made app. It helps keep me organized. I started off with
a spreadsheet but it became too cumbersome and I needed to make sure I
maintained relationships with my previous clients while still on contract so I
can minimize the time where I have no work.

------
lukaszkups
I had similar problem while ago. I've decided to leave my previous workplace
and search for a new one full-time.

I was applying to both remote and office-based offers, but only in my location
(which suffers from lack of good job offers currently-most of them are
dedicated for students with low payment).

It took me 2months to finally land in a new workplace)and it is remote which
was my very dream form of working-I've done some remote freelance in the past
and loved it)

I've applied to dozen job offers, most from LinkedIn, some from remote portals
mentioned by other users in this thread.

In the end I've got a job from a job offer that was on stackoverflow, so maybe
check there because I don't see anyone mentioned this as a source of job
offers.

Keep on trying, as You can see it won't magically come to You without any
action. Good luck!

------
ssijak
Try getting into Toptal [https://www.toptal.com/#connect-unmatched-coders-
now](https://www.toptal.com/#connect-unmatched-coders-now) It is good for both
clients and freelancers because Toptal screens both for quality. I am there as
a freelancer for half a year and am satisfied. It feels like they are looking
after you, and you can pick and choose what you want to work on and how much.
They will try to match you with the clients, or you can pick jobs, but they
will never force you to do anything. And there is nothing like screen
recording and tracking like in Crossover. Also, I would never work on Upwork
or similar network where everybody can say about them what they want and bid
on whatever they want (with low prices).

~~~
edem
Toptal is paying you based on your geographic location so it is rubbish and
makes no sense.

~~~
ssijak
You can set whatever rate you want. You can set 1000$/h, but of course, no one
will hire you. Anyhow, my rate on Toptal is much higher than what I could get
as a senior dev in my country, so it is good for us and as I can tell from
reviews much of the world. Devs from the USA complain but from what I can see
there are still many devs on Toptal from the USA and many Toptal events in the
USA. So to each, it`s own. Another good thing is that you can be part of
Toptal and have it be a backup source of work. You can choose your
availability without any penalties. As for the companies/clients of Toptal.
They get tested devs, guidance (for inexperienced clients) and they have
mediators (Toptal) who would guarantee the quality of the devs and intervene
in the case of a problem. It is best rated freelance platform, for a reason.

------
Mz
Potential alternative to Upwork that sounds better:
[http://gigworks.blogspot.com/2017/04/moonlight-work-for-
soft...](http://gigworks.blogspot.com/2017/04/moonlight-work-for-software-
engineers.html)

~~~
throwaway847261
The problem with Moonlight is lack of companies on it. The large amount of
developers on there compared to the number of projects and the lack of a real
site (the app is just Google forms and emails) make this site feel like a
waste of time.

I really wanted to like Moonlight, but I think it has some issue right now.

~~~
juice_bus
I can personally vouch for Moonlight - I am working on a contract with them
right now and didn't have to race to the bottom on pricing. While I certainly
couldn't _live_ off this single contract it does not hurt to have your name in
the hat for the companies that are looking.

~~~
ccdev
It's been over a month since I've applied and nobody at Moonlight has
contacted me or even follow up to give me an update. The competition might be
too steep there.

------
rrherr
You could be a mentor in an online bootcamp. For example:
[https://www.thinkful.com/apply/](https://www.thinkful.com/apply/)

It's flexible part-time remote work, and you don't have to find clients
yourself.

------
notfried
Many years ago I did just that on Elance (now Upwork) and RentACoder (now
Freelancer.com). I started with a couple of jobs in below the $100, then some
below the $1,000, and then some in the low thousands. Striving for excellent
ratings is key.

~~~
badpenny
If you don't mind me asking, what do you do now? Are you still freelancing?

------
noufalibrahim
There are several suggestions on how you can get an immediate gig here.

I have something else to add. Once you do get a gig and start on it, budget
some time and money to grow your network. There's no real substitute for a
real circle of influential and well connected contacts in my experience.
Perhaps attend conferences related to technologies that you're interested in,
participate on online fora (mailing lists, stack overflow etc.) to help people
with their problems in exchange for visibility, get a linkedIN profile, go to
local user group meetups (or atleast attend nearby ones less frequently if
you're in a city that doesn't have many such groups).

Good luck!

------
navya1089
Hi,

I would suggest you to have a LinkedIn profile and update it regularly and
start building the network now.. It is never too late. Meanwhile, for the job
which you cannot wait for, there are many remote job portals like remoteok ,
weworkremotely , remote.co ,remotive, workingnomads, WFH.IO ,dribble etc which
you can try .. But I would suggest you check angellist (angel.co) which offers
jobs from mainly startups all over the world.

Another tip : Apply to local companies which are offering full time jobs ,
attend the interview and try to convince them to offer you a work from home
based role ( It might work out, you never know).

Hope you find a suitabLe job real soon.

All the best ! :)

------
jfmandroid
Try [https://toptal.com](https://toptal.com)

Once you pass their screening process, you will get jobs in one or two weeks

~~~
VLM
Something I find rather intimidating about toptal is their top 3% advertising,
when I think of top 3% work I think of, say, writing an RFC of a widely used
internet protocol, inventing a language and writing its optimizing compiler,
automated air traffic control, debugging live code on nuclear reactor SCADA
systems, that kind of stuff. I'd be interested in work at a calmer more laid
back environment like only top 5% or top 10% job responsibilities. Its
possible everyone there is massively underemployed, but probably not.

What I'm getting at is there's nothing wrong with a site that matches brain
surgeons to brain surgeon jobs, unless you'd be chill getting an ophthalmic
surgeon gig, where do I go? upwork is famous for posting gigs that would pay
$125K in SV but the dreaded "average pay rate" is reported as $9.81 or
whatever.

Possibly "top 3%" is meaningless in the sense of "ninja rock star" is
meaningless and anyone who can fizzbuzz is by definition in the top 3% of
human species programming talent.

~~~
jaymzcampbell
A fellow HN user, gil_vegliach[2], wrote up a very good summary[1] of the
Toptal 3% filtering process - it seems fairly rigorous, consisting of multiple
rounds with a week long project (doesn't mention if this is paid or not).
Basically, it sounds like a "full" tech interview.

[1] [http://gilvegliach.it/?id=14](http://gilvegliach.it/?id=14)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gil_vegliach](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gil_vegliach)

~~~
cjalmeida
I'm on Toptal. I can confirm the blog post is quite accurate on the screening
process. They likely receive applicants across the world and they must have a
quick filter in process. Remember a lot of so-called "software engineers"
can't even solve FizzBuzz. Allegedly, only 5% pass the initial algorithmic
step, and the other half fails the other steps leaving only about 3% of the
applicants.

You set the rates, though they'll direct your on what might be competitive. In
practice, rates might not be that interesting for SV/NYC developers, but I
find plenty of people from other parts of the developed world in the network -
and is definitely good for South America.

And at least in my experience, staff is polite and professional. They'll help
you build an attractive profile and deal with most of the usual
client/freelancer nuisance, including rates and payments. As they handle most
negotiation on your behalf, the relationship "smoothness" with clients is
above average.

~~~
tluyben2
Not sure if that changed but I wanted to hire people there as I knew the
screening process was rigorous; then I saw what they would charge me and the
difference with what the coder gets. They made extortionist markup; I thought
Upwork was bad in that respect but his was far worse. Then I read threads like
this
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10107448](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10107448)
. Maybe they changed since but I do not think so...

What rates do you get? Seems we are still talking $30/hr with them getting
$100/hr. In a 'normal' company this makes sense: all kinds of benefits,
office, computer, car, whatever, but for them, for freelancers, it is not all
too great for the coders. But again, might have changed. Just think if you are
in that top 3%, why do you need Toptal... Every company is looking for you.

~~~
user5994461
>>> Every company is looking for you.

... only if you live in NYC or SF.

------
atemerev
One advice: you promised to make messages on affluentconfidante public at July
17th, but you didn't. I understand that there are still no messages there ;)
But you need to do something about it. Maybe postpone the date. [I know the
hunger and trying the get-rich-quick ideas; used to do it myself all the
time].

Meanwhile -- can you do canvas/d3/realtime charting type of stuff?

~~~
penpapersw
Oops, fixed. Page is now public. I've done some d3 for my last job (custom
internal reports) but it was painful. I've done real-time stuff through
websockets recently ([http://editfight.com/](http://editfight.com/)). And a
little canvas to teach my oldest son that he can make Mario in the browser.
But that's it.

------
kqr
Not sure what you mean by "network", but have you tried reaching out to
businesses you truly believe you could help? Remember that work is a two-way
deal. There are millions of small businesses with crappy technology. If you
explain to them specifically how their business will improve from employing
you to improve their technology, they'll listen.

------
mitchellbryson
I used to search for freelance gigs amongst the remote/full-time job boards. I
wrote about it here with some of the list: [https://medium.com/webuildevery-
com/find-5-freelance-design-...](https://medium.com/webuildevery-
com/find-5-freelance-design-development-leads-every-day-985f59aa0cac)

------
imnotlost
How about contacting a consulting agency such as
[http://www.tripleco.com/find-tech-jobs/](http://www.tripleco.com/find-tech-
jobs/) or similar agencies?

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kevinburke
I write a lot and post the results to places with lots of visitors, and I
watch the job board in a few different Slack channels and reach out to people
seeking help.

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edem
Maybe you want to try [teamed.io]([http://teamed.io](http://teamed.io)).

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MarkMc
What shady things does UpWork do?

~~~
borplk
Really doesn't fit in a quick comment. Just search around for Upwork horror
stories. Not to mention that it's a giant race to the bottom anyways.

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artur_makly
Try Toptal. They say they hire the "Top 3%"..

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bdcravens
Codementor/HackHands seem to be good options.

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forgottenacc57
Where the heck in the world has NO networking?

~~~
badpenny
I think they probably mean the social kind.

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throwawayxyz709
The internet?

~~~
penpapersw
Thanks will check it out.

