
Do You Need to Be a Really Good Programmer to Make a Living Freelancing? - JoshDoody
http://www.christopherhawkins.com/2016/04/need-really-good-programmer-make-a-living-freelancing/
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coreymaass
In the SaaS world, there's the problem your app solves, how good your solution
to the problem is, and marketing. The more real the problem, and the better
your solution, the less you have to rely on marketing. I think the same
applies in freelancing. The more desperate the client, and the deeper your
domain knowledge, the less you might have to work to get clients.

~~~
revorad
I don't think it helps to think of marketing as something you _rely_ upon.
Marketing is a multiplier. Even if there's huge demand for your amazing
solution to a painful problem, marketing can still get you more customers.
It's just multiplying a bigger base number.

This simple concept of thinking of everything in business - product, design,
demand, marketing, sales, customer support - as multipliers has been very
useful to me.

~~~
chris_hawk
"Marketing is a multiplier" is an interesting perspective.

The idea of "force multipliers" is one that occurs to me quite a bit - in
fact, I even use that term in the linked article.

A problem for many freelancers, I think, is when the base number you are
multiplying is "zero". This is, regrettably, something I have a great deal of
experience with. :)

