
Show HN: LanceList – A directory of ways for freelancers to find work - wodow
http://www.lancelist.com/
======
Mc_Big_G
A note to starting freelancers: Stop using these sites as soon as possible.
Build your portfolio and figure out how to get your own clients. Giving
someone else 20% for finding work is not in your best interests, especially
for repeat clients. If billing is too difficult for you to handle yourself,
you might want to reconsider freelancing.

~~~
sergiotapia
People echo this every single time. Let me give a counterpoint. I use
oDesk.com for freelancing and I don't have to worry about billing at all. I
just log my hours and go on about my day - at the end of the week oDesk
automatically pays me, no fuss.

Sure if you live in a first world country find your own clients, but for the
rest of the world finding your own clients is not only hard but really dumb.
Why work for someone locally for peanuts when a client online will pay you 20
times more?

~~~
Iftheshoefits
Anybody who lives in an area where the typical oDesk client will pay "20 times
more" than local deserves some respect for merely eking out a living,
considering the typical oDesk client pays peanuts for a "first world country."

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kephra
You might want to add IRC channels also, e.g.:

#freelance #css-lance and ##php-lance on irc.freenode.net where people hang
around for chat, if they are for hire.

I often hire for small problems by IRC chat. Just join the right channel to
ask some challenging question. Thank those who helped, and pm them, if they
are for hire. They already showed that they can do the job, so I only need to
convince them to solve my little problem for good money. Instant hire to solve
my problem, instead of an official advertisement that I'm hiring, and being
flooded by hundreds of application mails.

~~~
wodow
An interesting point - something I never do myself. Thanks, will consider
including after checking them out.

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hugorodgerbrown
Co-founder of YunoJuno here. I thought I'd chip in on a general point (I won't
attempt to answer specifics here as I think that's probably inviting trouble
for someone like me, with skin in the game.)

What I would say is that we at YJ feel very strongly that the future of work
_is_ freelance. We've (literally) put our money where our mouth is on this
belief (not to mention our careers), and so we, and I'm guessing the others in
this space, really want to work with the freelancer community to make this
happen.

I've been a freelancer (developer), and a hirer (as CTO at various companies),
so feel reasonably in touch with both sides of the market, and frankly,
neither side functions properly. You (as freelancers) shouldn't be paying 20%,
and employers shouldn't be wading through the cr^p that traditional freelancer
recruiters put them through[1]. We're all working on making this better.

Whilst we're doing our thing, there are some great competitors in this market,
and hopefully they would agree with me when I say please don't give up on us
\- the world of work is changing, and we're all trying to push it along in the
right direction.

Oh, and one minor rebuff - the very best employers in London, certainly, are
using online services, whether that be YunoJuno or any of the other sites
listed - and whilst the names on the list may change, the migration to online
services is inevitable. This is your future, get involved.

[1]There are exceptions to this - some recruiters are good guys - but they
take a lot of finding.

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quaffapint
Any suggestions what a dev portfolio should look like?

Most of my work is corporate enterprise. I have a side project, so that code I
can share, but I don't have an open github or anything.

~~~
Iftheshoefits
I decided to answer the question, "What kinds of projects do I want to work
on?" I am slowly building a small suite of applications around the answer. In
my case, I prefer backend, systems and "thick client" application development
using C++ and/or python. I have an interest in moving into finance, so I'm
focusing on two projects related to that. I have no idea if/whether it will
work.

Regardless, it's pretty clear to me from the numerous times this sort of topic
comes up around here and my own experience that the real important question
isn't "what kind of portfolio do I need?" so much as "who do I know?". Short
of being far less introverted/shy than I am and thus attending meetups, cold
calling, or the like, I'm not sure how to overcome that.

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wodow
Creator here. This is something I wish had existed a couple of years ago when
I was starting to get in to freelancing more seriously. I spent a lot of time
googling around for sites looking for work.

What should we add? Who have we missed?

~~~
fasouto
Bookmarked to come back once I finish my current projects. A couple of Django
sites for Django developers:

    
    
      - http://www.djangohire.com
      - http://www.djangojobs.net
      - http://www.djangodevelopers.net
      - http://djangojobbers.com

~~~
mrfusion
Just curious if you've had good results from the Django sites? So far I've
contacted 3 of the ads over the past few weeks and never heard a peep back.

(Or maybe there's something about my approach I need to improve?)

~~~
fasouto
Can't tell you :( I take a look from time to time but I never applied for a
job. Most of my jobs come from referrals from past clients.

~~~
mkaziz
Out of curiosity, how did you get your first clients?

~~~
fasouto
The first three clients:

    
    
      - I contacted the first trough oDesk and we work together for 1+ year
      - A client saw my personal website when searching for Django developers in my region
      - Another client via LinkedIn

~~~
mrfusion
How did the LinkedIn one work? Someone was just searching for a consultant?

~~~
fasouto
Exactly, this guy was searching for a django developer in my city (not too
many there)

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callmeed
I know the signal-to-noise ratio is REALLY high, but I have some great, repeat
freelance clients I found through Craigslist. Some are local and some are
remote and they pay market rates.

I'd suggest (especially if you're just starting building a freelance
portfolio), create some IFTTT alerts for the type of gigs your looking for in
the dozen or so CL cities near you. Obviously, avoid the equity/profit trades
and min. wage gigs.

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aantix
The people that sign quarter/half/million dollar checks aren't posting to
YunoJuno.

Get out a meet the people that matter in the companies you want to work for.

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mrfusion
Can anyone vouch for any of these sites? Do the curated sites have a lot of
hoops to jump through?

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tomasien
Check out "working not working" \- feel like that should be included. It's a
little different market but they're very good at getting people work.

~~~
wodow
Thanks - noted it down.

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desireco42
It is decent list, what is interesting for me is discovery of OnSite, I really
like this idea. I think it helps that it doesn't charge a percentage.

~~~
mrfusion
Is it only for the UK?

~~~
skt
We are open to the world, but being based in London, that is where most of the
work has been to date.

Remote is an option for companies posting jobs, and we do see them, but not
nearly as often as on-site work.

More info here:

[http://onsite.io/how-it-works](http://onsite.io/how-it-works)
[http://onsite.io/faq](http://onsite.io/faq)

Cheers.

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latortuga
You should either take Toptal off that list or mention that their contract is
outrageously one-sided with no negotiation.

~~~
23andwalnut
What's wrong with the toptal contract?

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kennyledet
Thanks for this. I got accepted into Gun.io, looks pretty neat! The clients
there have some good budgets. Looks like it's time for me to start getting
paid properly for my freelance work vs. what you get on the tragedy that is
Freelancer.com

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lazyant
is there a site (or market) for Linux sysadmin freelance work?

~~~
hijinks
there is nothing that serves devops/sys admin space.. It would be interesting
to see if companies would buy into a market for it.

We are a riskier bunch to hand over root access to random contractors on the
Internet.

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djyaz1200
"fight me IRL or make a pull request" = LOL :)

~~~
bdirgo
You're looking for these comments,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8063358](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8063358)

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piratebroadcast
Once a month one of these sites gets posted to HN.

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bluefin
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