

Ask HN: Consulting Projects - jdavid

Right now I have a good consulting project that pays the bills and lets me work on my own projects for the other part of a week.  While I am working on that, I am also working on selling my cars and slimming down on my monthly expenses so that I can be really lean with a potential startup while I shop for a co-founder.<p>I was wondering what advice all of you can provide for finding part time consulting projects.  Site's like Zendesk seem to be better for hiring cheep developers, but I need to find ~$100/hr gigs.<p>Right now I go to plenty of tech events, and search craigslist.  I am also planing on redoing my blog/ website to be more project driven and less blog centric.  I basically plan on making more clear of what my last and current projects are.<p>Any other ideas?
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mgkimsal
Personally, networking in the local area and a bit of craigslist has been
what's worked for me the past 3 years.

First year (second round of being indie) was rough, but connections made then
have blossomed in to new opps over the past two years. Not sure I can stress
that enough - work came to me 2 months ago from someone I met 9 months ago
during a meeting with someone else I did work 16 months ago met via
Craigslist. I met someone at a conference and 8 months later he called asking
if I wanted some ongoing part time work. My own experience is that these
things take time, but are eventually worth it.

Not sure if there's a way to go grab the 3 figure hourly rate gigs without
personal referrals (I'm sure it's _possible_ , but not been something I've
found much). You may want to aggressively let your immediate circle know
you're looking for some extra short term / part-time gigs.

Craigslist connections made about 40% of my income in 2008 - it's gone down
some since then, but connections made via Craigslist still bring in revenue
now and then.

Personal advice - do what you're doing - trim living expenses, shed some
excess baggage (unnecessary cars, etc), build up a runway of savings (X
months, whatever you're comfortable with) for when you go fulltime on the
startup idea. Like many out there, I've got a few of my own 'startup' ideas I
may pursue, but want to have a comfortable runway to allow me to focus on the
idea rather than cave and start having to do project work midway through the
project. Also, just to give myself a bit of breathing space - something I
haven't had in many years (though do now, a bit).

<http://indieconf.com> was set up to bring people together to network and help
address these sorts of questions. Virtuality of HN is great, but some face to
face to address the realities of freelancing is good too :)

Good luck - ping me at mgkimsal@gmail.com if you care to chat directly.

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tocomment
How did you meet clients on Craigslist? Just looking at the "Gigs" section, or
did you do something else?

~~~
mgkimsal
In my area, looking at <http://raleigh.craigslist.org/sof/> and
<http://raleigh.craigslist.org/web/> and <http://raleigh.craigslist.org/eng/>

It wasn't all that hot for me to start with. I probably replied to 80 postings
in a month, and only had a couple things pan out, but they panned out all the
same.

~~~
tocomment
But in the jobs section aren't those people looking to hire regular full time
employees? What did you say when you contacted them?

~~~
mgkimsal
Good point. Some people are definitely looking for full time, others are just
looking to get work done. Some are explicitly looking for contract/parttime
and they indicate that too. F/T is what many want, but not everyone. It rarely
hurts to ask - offer part time hours and see if they're open to that.

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kingofspain
It is possible to build up to a fairly decent level on sites like that but you
need to be willing to do ridiculous things for practically nothing at the
beginning.

I started on vWorker of all places in June and did about 7 or 8 soul
destroying projects (one was basically a full custom CMS for $15, that I
_know_ the agency charged > £3000 for). However, I got my 10/10's and since #8
onwards I haven't had less than $500 per job (each prob 4-5 hours work). I
actually totted up my earnings yesterday and it's around $1000/m (I just don't
dont have time atm to do many). YMMV, obv.

Craigslist sounds good for the US but it's a no-starter where I live so I
can't offer anything there.

Other than that, hit up people you know, who you've worked with before. You
might get lucky. My biggest earnings right now come from somewhere I worked
with years ago. I IM'd him out of the blue when I was broke asking if he had
spare work. Turns out he'd fired his developer that day and so i had my start!
That's obviously not likely to happen often, but it's worth a shot. At the
least these people might remember you if something did come up.

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turtle4
It is risky to pay an unknown person $100 an hour, regardless of job. So
employers either give the job to someone they know, or contract from a large
firm with the expectation that the firm deals with whatever might come up
frequently enough that it reduces their risk. The exceptions to this tend to
be when the project is doomed, and the employer is just desperate to get
anyone to work on it, which you don't want.

So looking at those two cases, your best plans of action are to either
subcontract for a larger firm in order to get fed more jobs, or do more
networking to lead to those jobs. Sometimes the networking is in the form of
doing odd jobs and low value jobs until something larger comes up, and
sometimes just a matter of letting friends know you are looking for work.

It would be nice if there were an easier method to go about it, but the bottom
line is that $100/hr is a fairly valuable wage, and you need to earn trust
before someone is going to fork it over.

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Rickasaurus
If you become well known for something people will beg you to consult for
them.

