

Any advice for a new freelancer? - tommaxwell

What should I look out for? How much lower should my pricing be than average? Is it okay or recommended to offer a few hours upfront (depending on project size) so the client can decide if they should go with me? I only have two portfolio projects that I coded in my free-time for fun so I assumed this would be a good idea.<p>Also any other things I should know?
======
yourapostasy
You need to give more details about _what_ services you are freelancing. When
you say "portfolio", it can imply design, coding, architecture, the gamut of
potential services that can be presented in a portfolio is huge.

You also need to give more details about your goal(s). What advice you receive
should differ based upon whether you need to make money now to pay rent by the
end of the month, or sacrifice a little money now to build up your sales
pipeline (in either quantity and/or quality) because you have some cushion
cash built up for the next 6-18 months.

In extremely general terms, you want to move away from differentiating on
price as soon as possible, and get as close as possible to directly helping
people make/save money with your services. By "directly", I mean find the
person with check-signing authority, _and_ find a pain point you can clearly
solve for that person.

Plan on spending about half or more of your time marketing and selling
yourself. If you think that equals 20 hours a week, then expand your notion of
"your time" to approximately 60-80 hours a week, likely in bursts separated by
more sane 40 hour weeks. Take good care of your body and soul, you're going to
need the literal physical stamina and the emotional fortitude to push through
the really dark, hard periods.

Never, never, never, _EVER_ , disrespect or show discourtesy to someone, no
matter how menial their role, no matter how unrelated they are to your current
assignment. Always. Be. Selling. This doesn't mean you are a doormat, however.

------
stevejalim
[Note: I've uhmed and ahed about whether to promote my own stuff here, but
given how quiet this question has been...]

Yep, plenty. Enough, in fact, that I took the time to wrire them up in a book,
which I'll also be extending as time goes on, based on feedback/requests from
readers:

<https://leanpub.com/freelancedeveloperbook>

Use the coupon SHAMELESSPLUG before Jan 4 to get it for $9.99

~~~
stevejalim
(Note: This thread probably isn't getting much traffic because its title
doesn't include the "Ask HN:" prefix)

------
sharemywin
I would offer to spec out their project for free. if you want to give out free
time. This gives you the inside tracking getting the project and also gives
you the most important part of the project which is usually skipped or glossed
over.

------
timothybone
In answer to your first question, there's a fair bit of advice found on Hacker
News:
[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=freelance](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=freelance)

