
Ask HN: How do you find clients? - leejw00t354
Hi, I'm thinking about doing some freelance web design and marketing for a bit of extra cash.<p>Aside from cold calls what are some good ways to obtain clients?
======
pud
A hack that worked for me when I was freelancing, was to put my resume on
various job boards as if I were looking for full-time employment.

When companies called me to set up interviews, I said (on the phone) "Turns
out I decided I'm going to freelance. What was the project you wanted to
interview me for? Perhaps I can help with that, as a freelancer."

I got a lot of business that way and it pretty much started my career.

~~~
canadiancreed
Tried that for a while when attempting to do the same thing, and it would
effectively kill their interest. Perhaps it's market or location dependant?

------
consultutah
Word of mouth is the absolute best way to get clients bar none. That's how we
get 90% of our work for <http://consultutah.com>

Of the rest, 9% is from ads places in local newspapers and 1% from random web
traffic.

Getting started is the hardest part to getting good word of mouth referrals.
You need to talk to everyone about your business. Tell your friends about your
freelance work. Go to job fairs and talk with prospective employers (look for
the smaller places where the owner rather than an hr rep is there). Find where
business people congregate and talk to them.

I had to learn the hard way that the only way to get work was to step
completely out of my comfort zone and start talking to people.

Good luck!

~~~
pud
This is good advice. Make sure all of your friends and parents' friends and
everyone else in your life knows what you do. Chances are, one of them knows
someone who needs you.

------
Schwolop
The best way I've found to get freelance jobs is to tell people that yes you
are unemployed but you're not interested in the kind of work they want done,
even though you could do it in your sleep. Then when they push back, quote
them an absolutely ridiculously high rate that they wouldn't possibly accept.

Then, for some reason I haven't quite fathomed yet, they often say "yeah,
that's fine. See you this afternoon."

This is why, yesterday, I was paid $1000 to get someone's new laptop talking
to their printer and copy some files off the hard drive of a dead PC (which in
reality just had one dead stick of RAM and a family of cockroaches to whom I
served an eviction notice.)

Ultimately, this is just the time value of money + "I can't be bothered
learning how to do this trivial task because hopefully I'll never have to do
it again." + "If I just pay this guy what he wants it'll be done today, and I
can quickly forget about what it cost."

This probably only works on rich people, and because I'm not one myself it
seems pretty weird. If I was rich enough, paying $1000 to not be annoyed any
more probably would make sense.

~~~
mgkimsal
It's not necessarily just 'rich' people/clients, but the effect is more easily
seen there. What you're really talking about is 'value' pricing. Figure out
what value something has to someone, price based on that value, not on the
value or cost of your time, and see what happens.

I did a job for someone that took 20 minutes (including time to invoice) and I
sent an invoice for $200. My understanding was that they'd had a couple people
trying to fix the issue for an entire day before that, and they had a TV
deadline (ads going out that night with a link to a broken website). $200 was
nothing compared to the time cost of adding more people who couldn't find the
problem, or having their client paying to send people to a broken site. The
fact that it took me 20 minutes didn't factor in to their thinking when paying
the invoice.

~~~
Schwolop
Yeah, it is 'value' pricing, but I think key to its success is both parties
having some understanding of the concept. If the vendor prices by value, and
the payee doesn't grok the concept, they'll likely think it too high. In my
experience, rich people tend to have a better appreciation of this.

------
matznerd
Build a portfolio site that houses your work. If you don't have a portfolio,
make some sites for your friends for free or cheap to get started. Then go to
networking events, or find businesses that do not have websites, or who have
really shitty websites. Unfortunately, knowing the person makes it a lot
easier than going cold, but cold also works. If you want to do something for a
local business, find one with a Flash website or no website and approach them
in person if possible. This works a lot better than cold calling or cold
emailing, but not to say that those don't work. I send 500+ emails some days
and if you hit that volume you are guaranteed at least some responses...

------
adelevie
Give away some kind of free software that is useful and production-quality.
That something should also be related to a larger, growing trend. You'll
generally get higher quality clients, a non-low rate, and a more fun project
(since it's centered on using a tool that you built). And you also don't have
to make cold calls--the software should stand on its own and send the leads to
you.

I've learned this from my own experience writing/maintaining various open
source libraries centered on using Parse with Ruby. The rapid growth of Parse
has caused at least a handful of their thousands of developers to want to use
it with Ruby (either for a Rails app, or a native iOS app with RubyMotion). Of
those people, at least a handful have contacted me looking for a freelancer.
Of those people, some have become paying clients.

~~~
IceCreamYou
I can confirm this. I wrote quite a bit of open-source software that has
attracted thousands of users over the years and now my clients find me instead
of the other way around.

You need to do more than just write the software though -- you need to be
active in discussions where people are looking for software like yours,
because that's often how people end up arriving at your software. Ideally the
software you're building also supports some other software with a decent user
base rather than trying to do something completely independent; that way you
have a pre-established target user base who may already be looking for your
solution.

Additionally, I started out doing contracted development work, and now I
mostly do consulting. It's less stress and easier to predict how long it will
take. And I get to spend my development time on my own projects.

A final note: if you contribute to other open-source projects, sometimes you
can get in touch with the primary maintainer and have that person forward you
work they don't have time to do.

~~~
sherm8n
What do you do for consulting and how did you transition into it?

~~~
IceCreamYou
There are a lot of different situations. Some common ones:

1) When people come to me and say "I need someone to build X for me," I
usually say "I can help you make sure X gets done right." If the person
contacting me isn't especially technical, that means I remove the weight from
their shoulders of verifying that they actually got what they paid for when
they hire another freelancer/contractor to do the job.

2) Sometimes people already have devs either hired internally or managed
externally, and they're having trouble and just need someone to come in and
tell them how to get back on track. This might involve some code but it
wouldn't actually be my job to write the code, just more of a training thing /
someone to call.

3) Sometimes startups with non-technical founders in particular just need
guidance on what they should actually be doing with technology. They don't
know how it could improve their business, but they do know that they like what
my software says it can do, and they're not sure what to do next. Usually
these people are trying to compensate for a lack of a technical co-founder.

4) A lot of the time the initial email to me isn't looking for a consultant,
and the business may not even have considered the idea; but sometimes
especially larger institutions know that they want a consultant with intimate
knowledge of the software they're working with. You can't get that by hiring a
consulting firm.

Transitioning was easy -- I just started telling people I would do consulting
instead of development work when they contacted me. I had intentionally not
take development work that involved maintenance agreements for some time (I
rarely built complete sites; I just built components or additions to my own
open-source software). It also helped that I had spent a lot of time meeting
with entrepreneurs and hearing about the businesses of people who had
previously hired me. But there is a lot to know about consulting just like
there is a lot to know about development and it takes some research and
experimenting to deliver good experiences.

------
SimonSayz
I was surfing on StumbleUpon the other day and I ended up on FreelanceSwitch.
They posted an article that might be of interest to you. "The Secret to
Landing Clients Nearly 100% of the Time" and its really good. You should give
it a try. I personalize the method to fit me and it worked great so far.
Didn't work 100% of the time but pretty close. Its where the "Nearly in the
title comes in" it depend on your selling skill but I am sure you will be fine
;-)

Here the link to it:
[http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/95nDR8/:IPAD5_eU:aOVZRh4+/free...](http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/95nDR8/:IPAD5_eU:aOVZRh4+/freelanceswitch.com/finding/the-
secret-to-landing-clients-nearly-100-of-the-time/)

Hope it helps

------
boopsie
Cold calls rarely work -- unless you are as good at selling (yourself) as you
are as a web designer. That's a rare combination.

Word of mouth is the most powerful way to get business, of course. So the
first step is to let the people you know know that you're available. Tell the
people who might need your skills that you have them; if they don't need you,
they might know someone who does. (This is a good use for LinkedIn.)

Have an elevator pitch ready that summarizes your tech specialties (e.g.
HTML5, Dojo), business expertise ("have created several websites for
realtors"), and a sense of the best match that hints at your rate ("affordable
for small businesses"). Have a web portfolio ready. Update your LinkedIn page.

Depending on how much "a bit of extra cash" you can get started with sites
like elance.com but my sense is that the money isn't all that great. (That
perception might be inaccurate.) If all you're looking for is "a little extra"
and an opportunity to expand your skills, it might still be a good idea.

~~~
ivyirwin
I am a huge believer in the word of mouth method. I've been doing web design
and programming for over 10 years and have not once cold called or advertised
my services.

I think there are two important aspects of "word of mouth" however. First, is
you have to get the word out. Don't be shy about telling family, friends,
colleagues, people you meet in a bar, etc. about what you do. Depending on
your audience, be prepared to "present" your skills in an appropriate way. For
people who may not be your direct client but will be acting as the courrier of
your message, keep it simple – you probably won't get the business because of
what you say to them but because of how they know you out of context from
business.

The second important part is to give your clients a great service experience.
You don't have to be the best at what you do as long as you find a way to make
your clients happy. Clients can then speak to both your product and your
service. Client referrals are over 80% of my new business.

~~~
matznerd
Word of mouth is definitely the best way to go about it. I have also had
success by going through friends who work at smaller digital agencies and PR
firms. Places like that sometimes lack technical people, but they have a
portfolio of clients who may be in need of web work. They basically refer the
job to you or you work as a contractor under them.

------
ilaksh
If you are willing to work for less than stellar rates, I have found work
through oDesk and Rent-A-Coder (now vWorker). If you live in the US and have
kids or want to be comfortable, its going to be really hard to make enough
money on those sites. But if you are like me and are just trying to get by,
you can find work that pays enough to live on on those sites. If you live in a
place with a significantly lower cost of living, I would definitely take
advantage of sites like that without hesitating.

What I do is I find the rare project post that contains an actual
specification of some sort which doesn't seem completely ludicrous and is
something that I can make a fair start on within 1-3 days of work. I build out
a prototype hitting on a few of the major technical aspects of that spec. A
significant portion of the time I win the bid after sending them a link to the
prototype or a video of it in action.

Another place I found a client was on reddit. Someone posted a job as an ad at
the top of the page. It didn't have a real spec but it did hint at some
specific technical aspect of the project, so I built a quick prototype based
on a related open source system. Then I told them that I wasn't interested in
a regular job but rather wanted to work in a freelance capacity (because that
is what I wanted).

------
akshayagarwal
So once you have got a good portfolio, make sure that you do build your
personal website. It took me a weekend to develop my own (
<http://akshayagarwal.in> ) and the rewards have been excellent because any
potential client would want to have a look at what you have done already and
when he sees that you have a proven record of awesomeness, the deal is yours!
Also, make sure to maintain a decent and updated LinkedIn profile because
thats where I get a good amount of leads. You should also have some cool
sideprojects open sourced on Github, they dont need to be big, they can be
just some minor hack that you did over a weekend but it helps you demonstrate
your love for programming and technology. Lastly, network, network, network,
its the biggest investment you will ever make in your business.

------
bpatrianakos
Don't avoid cold calls. I started doing web development for myself almost 3
years ago and I was able to support myself and then was picked up by a much
larger tech company in Chicago. I work at both now and this is how I made it:

Did one free job for a local small business. I sought them out. I just called,
told them honestly that I needed to start a portfolio and offered them a free
site. I did it quick, on Wordpress and used the experience to gauge how much
time and effort a typical site would take and I based my first fees off this.

I wrote down names of businesses around town that I came across then looked to
see if they had a website. Amy time I saw an awful website I'd contact the
place and sell myself. At this point my rates were so low they might as well
have been free and I bagged a few clients.

After I got about 4 sites under my belt and on my portfolio I raised prices,
offered web app development and marketing and then joined a local group of
business owners that met for lunch weekly. I made connections there and at
various networking events held by local chambers around the Chicago suburbs.

Through these connections I got a few more clients. Once I got to job six or
seven I tripled my rates and the strangest thing happened. I got less leads
but the majority of the leads that came to me we're eager to close and easier
to close. I was working less to close deals and those deals were worth three
times as much as before.

I then slowed way down on reaching out to prospective clients as I had a
steady stream of them contacting me first. The last group I contacted was a
new non-profit in town whose cause was something I related to. They paid for
my services and asked me to join their board of directors after I finished
their (now "our") site.

Through that I made connections in the non-profit sector, state and local
government, and with lots of people in the medical field.

I bumped up prices a bit more and saw an opportunity. Until then my market was
anyone who wanted a website. Even though I weeded out a lot of the crappy
clients by increasing my price I still got a lot of awful people to deal with.
So I then focused in on non-profits, government, and social services (which
was close to what all the connections I made in the medical field were into).

I'm three years in, work for an awesome and growing company, and my own
freelance work is booming. I make a minimum of $2k for a run of the mill
business website.

Things to note: throughout that time I used AdWords (about $400 worth of
Google's free gift cards in total), I had a website from day 1, and I forced
myself into lots and lots of social situations that were awkward for me. I
also made sure I was on Yelp, Google Places/Maps, and every business and/or
web design directory I could find.

It's important to know your market too. Where I am, even a halfway decent
designer can look like a genius because all the local design firms create
sites that look like they came straight out of 1997 GeoCities. I've had
multiple clients turn to me after being pitched by them. I'm not a great
designer either. I'm so-so. You can see for yourself how truly unimpressive I
am at <https://chooseclever.com>. I'm not awful but I'm not above average by
any means. Is your competition great? If so then do you compete on price or
quality?

One thing I've learned along the way is that most everything you read about
clients in different web design blogs is true. Same with pricing. I didn't
listen and had to learn the hard way.

~~~
dmak
Just giving my honest opinion, but those "so-so" websites look like websites
from the mid to late 90s.

~~~
bpatrianakos
Thanks for trolling by.

~~~
dmak
Your portfolio website itself is nice, but not so much for some of the
clients. I don't see how this is trolling. I guess, maybe because it doesn't
align with your opinion? Honestly, this looks really amateur to me:
<http://billpatrianakos.me/img/portfolio/full/ydt.png>

But nevertheless, you are making money with your business so that's awesome.

------
sidmitra
Here's what i did to build <http://www.cloudshuffle.com> from a single dev(me)
to a team of over 6 devs(+ a designer) in various countries. Also, from
building social network clones(for $200) to building proper webapps for well
known startups and companies like Compete, Hubspot.

* Sign up for all freelancer Marketplaces: Elance, Odesk, Guru, Freelancer, RentACoder.

* Sign up for RSS feeds for jobs(full time/freelance) in your domain.

* Start bidding, sending out emails to all of the above that apply.

* You're bidding against devs from 3rd world countries(so you will have to price somewhere in the median atleast until you get your first decent folio piece done)

* Also it doesn't matter if your request doesn't exactly apply. Don't be self-selective. Also even if you don't expect to get that job, apply still. Get your name out.

* Be very communicative, friendly and more open than a simple 'Here's my folio' etc. You're trying to sell yourself, so figure out what the client want, customize your pitch. This part will take a bit of hit and trial on your end to figure out how to get the first client reply. If your post looks like others, then you won't get one.

* Work on the side on your own project, something that's production worthy and you can showcase if the above steps haven't worked till then.

* Reply to posts on HN, Ask HN like Who's hiring + Who's hiring a freelancer. Even add yourself to HN contractor list and anything similar you see elswhere.

* Market, Market, Market every chance you get. I used to spend atleast 3-4 hrs initially just sifting through job posts, replying, emailing everyday.

* Remember to raise your prices sooner than you think.

* Recently i've been trying out Google adwords, which haven't really led to a lot of hits. But i've been getting like 1 really good query for like 100 clicks. For the average amount i make per invoice, that ad costs are very minor even at the ridiculous CPCs to hit the front page.

* A lot of people mention word-of-mouth here. This is really the best way. For every satisfied client you're essentially expanding your network exponentially and getting in touch with people you would never have come across. But initially since you might not have a portfolio, it will be difficult to get work this way. Also until you're able to price your work higher than average, you won't get the right kind of clients. And without the right clients you won't get paid higher. So it's a vicious cycle you need to get out of by piling up showcase work as soon as possible.

* With lower rates it will be difficult to sustain work, since you would have to take on more work before the current one is over. Hence your focus suffers and work quality too. So you're hampering your prices, word-of-mouth network further if you take on work and underdeliver. I've been guilty of doing this(probably still am).

* So as soon as you get too much work to handle, double your rates.

PS: I'm one of the third world dev that people on HN are very fond of :-)

PS2: Since i posted the link to my site <http://www.cloudshuffle.com> at the
top of this post. So far i've gotten 51 visitors in 20 minutes. Cheeky i know!
but it was on-purpose to prove my point about marketing yourself when you get
a chance.

PS3: Also a weird point i noticed. Almost 95% of the traffic so far is
European, and not American. That's completely different from Who's
hiring/freelancer thread trend i've been seeing for the past 6+ months.

~~~
tzaman
When bidding, you don't need to go below everyone else - I go above every
single time, and also explain to potential clients why I'm the best choice
(top quality, deliver on time). Of course you need some kind of portfolio to
back up your statements. And deliver the promised quality.

This approach also has a beneficial side-effect. Cheap clients deny the bid.
Usually these clients turn out to be the most demanding ones with little
understanding of scope or appreciation of your work.

~~~
marquis
Does anyone ever game the system by posting with 2 accounts: one with a really
high bid and a lower one, to help the customer 'pick you'? I'm not freelancing
nor have ever used these sites, but I'm curious how above-board they are.

~~~
sidmitra
Don't think that'll help much or is the right kind of strategy. Firstly you
have a better chance trying to showcase your portfolio. If you don't have that
yet, then it doesn't warrant the higher rate and you might anyways get
rejected on the lower end. If you have a large enough folio to split into two,
then why not put them into one compelling bid.

IMHO one's better off spending time building a few simple apps and
communicating your worth to the client than go blackhat from the start.

------
mgkimsal
networking and word of mouth - both take longer, but will have longer term
results. I made a couple connections in 2006/2007 that I can directly
attribute $200k in income to, because of their word of mouth referrals. That
came just from local meetups and such.

There's plenty of people I've met which _haven't_ directly contributed to my
bottom line, but to try to look at everyone as a potential $ is a wrong
approach. I enjoy trying to find referrals for other people I meet, and I
think that's come back to me a few times (unexpectedly, but not that
surprising, perhaps).

Couple other random thoughts:

"Selling the Invisible" (beckwith?) - useful to read. Not specifically tech-
oriented, but will get you in the right frame of mind.

"Million Dollar Consulting" (weiss?) - may give you a different perspective on
freelance consulting.

Contact local design shops to see if they need an extra pair of hands on call.

Put up a portfolio website with a phone number. Then answer the phone if
someone calls.

gentle yet shameless plug: <http://indieconf.com> is being held again this
year to cover precisely these sorts of topics - how to get clients, how to not
get ripped off, etc - we'll have 18-21 sessions total - I'm confirming them
with speakers this week, so the site doesn't yet reflect the full schedule.

~~~
boopsie
I'd add Jerry Weinberg's _Secrets of Consulting_ to the reading list. It had a
major impact on my ability to turn my tech skills into a business. For
example, it helped me understand that the right answer to a client request is,
"Yes, I can do that. And this is what it will cost."

~~~
mgkimsal
I was in a meeting last week and person A said "can we do X?" and person B
said "Anything's possible, it's just a matter of time and money, right Mike?
That's what you always say, right?" and she laughed as she said it. I've
trained them well. :)

I don't quite have that as a standard reaction to all client requests all the
time, as I'll often ask more questions and try to engage them a bit first
before the 'this is what it will cost' bit, but that's generally the direction
I go in.

I think tech people have a hard time with this response because they're often
unsure of their own skills. At least, I know that's the case with a few
friends of mine who rarely think about "the business side" of things. I've
done this long enough now where i know that anything someone asks me for _can_
be done, it's just a matter of figuring out how.

However, the flip side of this is that I've seen the result of people (and
possibly even _been_ this person) just saying "yes" to everything, building
it, and it not really working. I do think some customers have been burned by
that - a dev who claims to be able to do anything, then delivers them crap,
charges a fortune, then leaves a mess for someone else to clean up. After
they've gone through that a couple of times, they're wary of anyone who claims
to be able to do anything.

I've learned to try to be more cautious how I phrase my abilities, because I
know how it can appear. In general, anything someone wants done, I can make
happen. It doesn't mean _I_ will be the one doing the work, but I can bring in
the appropriate skilled people when needed. That's a function of age, in that
my network is more useful than it was 10 years ago, and possibly wisdom. 10-15
years ago I'd always try to build everything myself, and sometimes ended up
with subpar stuff.

------
bdunn
One thing I really emphasized in my book on pricing freelancing services
(ships today, btw: <http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com>) is to build a
sales-driven website. Look at your favorite SaaS product's marketing site:
captivating headline, bulleted copy of benefits, a _clear call to action_.

Way too many freelancers/consultancies botch this up and don't build their
websites with conversion rates in mind, and worst of all, don't ask for
visitors to contact them (the call to action).

Also, use wording that resonates with businesspeople (who hire you) instead of
just technology. i.e. Are you a Wordpress developer, or do you help brick and
mortar businesses get more sales (and happen to use Wordpress to get there?)

Instead of just listing out some screenshots of sites you've worked on, talk
about how you helped your past clients. Continually emphasize your abilities
to deliver _business_ value.

------
CowboyRobot
My most reliable clients have been through contacts I made when I had crap
cubicle jobs. I don't know your situation but it may be worth snagging a cube
job long enough to meet people. And it may be totally counter-intuitive and
potentially mind-crushing, but the people in sales meet all the clients who
have money to spend on development. If you could find your way into the social
events that sales people go to you'll be halfway there. It's cynical, but
getting gigs depends on people seeing you as "a good guy" more than whatever
skills you have.

That said, one trick I learned was to always scan the local news looking for
local businesses who recently got grants or some other windfall of funding. I
assumed (usually correctly) that they would spend some of that windfall on
building or revamping their website. I got some good long-term work that way.
It was a cold call, but one with research behind it

------
elimisteve
1\. Meetup Groups; 2. Startup Weekend; 3. Hackerspaces

Any Meetups related to the web -- events for developers, UI/UX, and biz
meetups -- are great for networking. I'm a developer who gets emails from
designers who want to talk on a big job that requires custom dev. You should
be able to do similar -- find people who want to take on a job that requires
more design or marketing than they can (or want to) personally do. (This may
be a good way to meet people directly who need your services, not just people
who will give you referrals.)

Attending a Startup Weekend hosted in your town is a _fantastic_ way to meet
people, especially if you can talk shop with them like many HNers can.

It's quite the commitment, but co-founding a hackerspace has worked wonders
for me. I meet a lot of smart people -- many of whom aren't web developers --
who then refer people they know to me.

If you're a designer or biz person, wander into a hackerspace near you.

------
corkill
Most business owners are not looking online for a website/marketing guy, they
typically chose based on recommendations and people they already know. This
means there are much easier ways to get clients than seo or adwords.

Focus on people already spending money on marketing. You can find this out by
looking at local publications, look at their google adwords spend, look at
their website etc.

I'd also add check you are selling the result people want not the service.
Selling a wordpress site...so is the offshore freelancer for $5 an hour.

Selling a 10% increase in profits through effective online marketing, bingo
(of course you need to be able to actually deliver). When you do this you need
a lot less customers and they appreciate you a lot more.

Cold email to a niche with your offer and educational content works a treat.
Also networking events, partner up with non competing services etc.

------
thibaut_barrere
I rely on word of mouth only.

All my latest gigs came from Twitter or from people contacting me directly
after seeing a presentation in conferences (like [1] [2]) or sites I made like
hackerbooks [4].

I also get very specialized leads via the open-source project I maintain and
which match one of my skills (ETL, activewarehouse [3]).

Make sure you learn skills in demand and create small "marketing/learning"
projects while you are not billing!

[1] <http://lanyrd.com/2012/rulu/swxtt/>

[2] [http://lacantine.ubicast.eu/videos/8-mongodb-etl-et-
indexati...](http://lacantine.ubicast.eu/videos/8-mongodb-etl-et-indexation-
solr/)

[3] <http://www.activewarehouse.info/>

[4] <http://www.hackerbooks.com>

------
jwblackwell
I've found Linkedin to be pretty good at getting the odd job. Just connect
with any one who looks like they might have occasional freelance gigs (e.g.
agency directors, recruiters etc).

Once you get a couple of clients that have regular work your pretty much set

------
binarysolo
Hrm, surprised nobody suggested Craigslist. I bootstrapped myself into a data
scientist/consultant with gigs from Craigslist. (Well, grad school helps too,
but the initial contract leads were pretty much all from CL.)

~~~
marcamillion
What was the response rate for you?

Because I tried this, and it turned out to be pretty low - like 1 - 2% (which
was on the high-end).

So just to get a response, I had to send 50 - 100 emails. Maybe I am
misremembering, but it is something like that.

~~~
binarysolo
Weird. For me it was literally like 10 out of 10 replies. Though I pretty much
had it set to search for "data scraping", "data mining", "data science", "big
data", "machine learning", and "data analytics", then have it forward
gigs/jobs/etc. to me via RSS.

~~~
marcamillion
Interesting...oh right...I can see why you would get more replies. That's a
good idea.

Looking for smaller niches where the respondents won't get 200 replies - is
probably a better use case.

That's interesting.

------
betaout
Twitter Lists can be very powerful.

\- Create list of potential clients you want to work with. \- Get their
twitter accounts, and create a list containing their twitter handles. Name the
list something cool (Wedding Businesses to watch)

\- You will have a list of tweets from people you might get work in near
future.

\- Engage with them on Twitter.

\- After 3-4 INTELLIGENT replies - all of sudden you are in the online friends
category with them

\- You dont need to pitch now, if anyone of them is interested they will find
about your website from your Twitter Bio and will call/email/message you.

It really had worked for me. I was spending 20-30 mins on that list daily.

------
volandovengo
I have polled many freelance devs and designers about how they find their
clients. They almost always reply that they are found via word of mouth. Many
that have tons of work, don't even have a portfolio.

------
yahelc
Adwords worked best for me by crafting ads targeting specific niche
specializations that would grab long tail traffic. In my case, it was
converting websites to WordPress. I didn't need every single person looking
for WordPress work; 50 clicks per day worked out just fine for my capactiy.

By some optimizing, keeping my bids low, and disabling Content Network, I was
able to get CPA to ~$10; as long as I was converting more than 10% of my leads
(which I was), I came out significantly ahead.

~~~
aantix
Did you rely on any particular tools for optimization? How did you decide
which initial words to target? Was it solely based on pricing?

~~~
yahelc
Just Adwords and Google Analytics.

Web Development keywords tend to be expensive, so it was cheaper to focus on
many long tail terms rather than compete for "wordpress", "web development",
etc.

I started out with hundreds of terms related to building and converting sites
to WordPress , and used Adwords and Google Analytics data to kill off any term
that was costing me significantly without bringing in any leads.

Incidentally, I started out with Content Network enabled, but found that it
brought no leads and cost more than search clicks. Not sure if that was click
fraud or what, but killing Content Network was the best optimization decision
I made.

------
handzhiev
I've had best success by releasing free or paid stuff and then getting
customization inquiries. (I've elaborated on [http://pimteam.net/freelancers-
here-is-the-best-way-to-find-...](http://pimteam.net/freelancers-here-is-the-
best-way-to-find-work/)). It's not hard to get to the point where you'll start
turning down work unquiries from customers (unless you can grow to a team
which isn't my cup of brandy)

------
timjahn
I started back in the day with MySpace, then Craigslist. Over time, I built up
word of mouth referrals and also did freelance work for a bunch of
agencies/companies for a period of time, sometimes finding them through
(crappy) recruiters.

If I were starting today, I'd use matchist (matchist.com, the new startup I'm
building). Our goal is to become a trusted referral source in your inner
circle.

------
ayyhwang
As a designer, Dribbble (<http://dribbble.com/ahwng>) has become a great way
to get consistent leads. Once every 2 or 3 days, another startup will contact
me about a freelance opportunity, saying they found me through Dribbble.

Aside from that, just network as much as you can. All of my other leads come
from friends and acquaintances.

------
amitdugar
1\. The Unbeatable Word of Mouth (this is and probably will always be the No.1
way to get more business.)

2\. Serendipity (I know sounds odd and I will probably get down-voted for
this.) Don't leave a chance to get your work shown or known. Sometimes, small
and seemingly useless leads can lead to huge opportunities.

Try to leverage Social Media, local PR firms, Freelance websites etc.

------
hopeless
Although I've just started out, my client came to me because I started a Ruby
user group in our area. My name is still attached to "Ruby Cork" even though
the group fizzled out 2years ago. Now I'm working with Rails full-time again,
I'll be restarting the group this month.

In short: start or get involved with local tech groups

~~~
bdcravens
+1 on this.

I manage a user group for the primary language I use, and in over 3 years of
full-time freelancing, I've never been without work.

~~~
jnbiche
Out of curiosity, which language?

~~~
hackernews
It's ColdFusion.

At a former employer we hired him on as a contractor and in the ~3 months he
was on contract not a single line of code was ever produced even though there
were promises made every week. Would not use again.

That said, as a past CF developer there is TON of ColdFusion work out there.
Sure it is not glamorous but there are a lot worse things you could be doing
for $$ :)

~~~
bdcravens
I have certainly had a few failed projects, as I've taken on too much work
before. As some of the commenters to the OP pointed out, this is a challenge
that many freelancers face. Indeed, as with any mistake, we learn and grow.

That said, I feel you are calling me out in a public forum is a bit
inappropriate. To say I didn't produce a single line of code is a bold
statement. As you called me out in a public forum, I'd be interested in
discussing publicly. As your statement has the potential to cost me hundreds
of thousands of dollars over my career, I realize personal litigation is an
option, but I'm a civil person who would prefer healthy discourse, even when
my character is attacked. However, that doesn't seem possible, as I have no
clue who you are. I have chosen not to hide behind a made-up identity. You,
however have the username "hackernews": I assume you are an employee of
YCombinator? I doubt it, and to that extent, your username has the potential
to be a libelous misrepresentation of Paul Graham's brand.

If you do not have the professional integrity to identify yourself, feel free
to let me know who you are at a ColdFusion conference; I am a speaker at many
of them.

------
josefresco
Networking. Once you get a few projects under your belt, your hopefully happy
clients will start referring you to their contacts. Connecting with the local
business community is the single most effective way of getting new leads and
establishing yourself as an expert and trusted service provider.

------
startupstella
This discussion is the reason why I'm starting a site to send freelancers
better projects. Check out matchist.com...we're going to start the developer
beta next week. The idea is to be Hollywood agents for freelance devs. Any
feedback is appreciated!

------
orangethirty
Here is a little post I wrote regarding freelance marketing.
[http://orangethirty.blogspot.com/2012/08/freelance-
marketing...](http://orangethirty.blogspot.com/2012/08/freelance-marketing-
that-has-worked-for.html)

------
j45
Another option is a site like elance. Some pay higher than others and I've
been told elance and odesk pay higher than most sites.

This will help you find your initial contacts, and then hopefully find some
ongoing/long term work.

------
leejw00t354
How effective are ads in local papers or even online search results?

------
negrit
In general I would like to hear what company/website/.. you started and how
you got your clients/users.

------
abhishekdesai
I wrote a post on this long time back in 2009. Built a company from 4 people
to more than 60 developers based on some of the fundamentals mentioned in the
post. Pasting it here.

\--------------------------------------------

With my three friends I am running an IT service company for more than 5 years
now. We have learned things the long and hard way during all these years.
There was actually no single person to guide us regarding any aspect of the IT
business though we have had many well wishers so far.

So to help entrepreneurs who are also planning to start their own company or
who have just started the company I am planning to write series of articles
which can help them in this journey. So here is the first one for you guys.

During these 5 years we have faced many challenges technically as well as in
managing projects, clients and people. But one of the most challenging part of
our business right now is scaling. We plan to double the revenue and increase
the profitability without increasing head count considerably. We have around
70 people team right now and we plan to maintain the same. So now one of the
challenges is to get quality projects from which you can earn more.

Following are few ways using which you can fetch software development projects
from the market:

1) Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. Exhaust all your contacts for fetching the
first project for your company. Do it for free if needed. You have to have
experience to fetch some serious work. In your initial stage, contacts are the
best thing you can have. This is perhaps the best time to use your family
contacts and relatives.

2) If you are couple of years old company, make a list of all old clients and
send them personalized mail saying if we can be of any other help.

3) Join the bidding site such as oDesk and Elance and start building a great
profile. oDesk is my favorite site for getting new work as it has a unique
model which makes a win-win situation for both buyers and providers. The other
best thing about it is that you mostly get hourly projects over there and
weekly payments. Payment for your work is guaranteed. Elance is good for
bigger size fixed projects. There are many other bidding sites such as Guru,
Rent-A-Coder etc but these two are my favorites.

4) Become a Microsoft Partner and access their database of companies. Email
them, call them for building relationship.

5) Get your company or yourself registered on Facebook and Twitter. Use their
search functionality to find out what people are looking for.

6) If you have little extra money try Google Adwords for keywords like "hire a
programmer", "companies in india", "outsourcing" etc

7) Get it from most popular classified site craigslist.org

8) Tie up with local partners who can outsource you projects.

9) If you are a new company start developing on the latest technologies. For
e.g. Developing iPhone Applications will get you far more projects than
developing in PHP or .NET right now.

These are just the few ways and there can be many other ways to fetch software
development projects. Please leave me a comment if you have other ways of
fetching the projects. We all will be happy to know.

\--------------------------------------------

Original post: [http://abhishekdesai.com/how-to-fetch-software-
development-o...](http://abhishekdesai.com/how-to-fetch-software-development-
outsourcing)

------
franze
google

