
Ask HN: What can I do to acquire more freelancing projects/clients? - BacioiuC
Hi HN,<p>I&#x27;m a game designer and programmer who recently started his own business. I was off to a rocky start but thanks to a blog post on gamasutra that ended up on HN I managed to reach my sales goal and I&#x27;m in the clear for the next 6 months. The problem is, I don&#x27;t want to repeat the previous mistake and, although I have another game in the works and 2 more updates ready to ship for the first game, I&#x27;m looking to extend my savings and not have to bank on the next projects having the same luck.<p>I&#x27;ve setup an account on Upwork and have applied to more than 40 projects over the course of 1.5 months. I finally scored a quick 5$ job on translating a couple hundred phrases to another language. I have listed all the projects I worked on, quite a few of them being big titles (like The Dark Knight Rises, N.O.V.A 3, Frozen). I also listed the ones I developed myself as an indie and I have my credentials and LinkedIn listed as well.<p>I targeted projects related to my skills and experience with solid referrals and examples but I never seem to get the job. I lowered my hourly rate to 15$ &#x2F; h and I still can&#x27;t win any projects.<p>Any chance I can get some tips from people with more experience than me on freelancing? Or do you know any better place where I can find gigs related to programming (Lua, C#) or Game Development? Heck, I&#x27;d even take article writing since I like doing that and it would surely help me keep the lights on for longer.<p>Thanks!<p>Edit: I have been making games professionally since 2010 and even worked in fields related to Home Automation to save money for my own business.
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startupdiscuss
Here are my main tips:

Pick a niche. This is key. You may be the best programmer in the world, but
people won't know whom to pick. You might be the best game programmer, but
there are many others. However, if you pitch yourself as the expert in getting
html games to perform smoothly with poor connectivity, then people with that
problem know exactly whom to pick.

For this to be effective: Don't pick too broad a niche.

You can pick the niche based on data -- which if your skills is most in
demand, pays the most, has the most wanted posts and so on.

Make sure your whole profile is geared to promoting your prowess in the niche.

Did I mention, pick a niche?

Once you have a niche, you can expand to adjacent niches.

Oh, and don't underprice yourself. The price is a signal of quality so only go
as low (if you must) as the market average but no lower for your niche.

~~~
pan69
Any tips on how to find your market average?

~~~
muzani
Global rates for software developers are roughly about $25-$100 an hour.
$100/hour is more for people with specialist experience in the US time zone.
There are people willing to go cheaper than $25/hour, but you'll be a blur
among people who are willing to work fo $4/hour.

But usually there are local rates as well based on your country. These are
somewhat pegged to the international rates past a certain level of quality.
These can be lower than international rates.

Sometimes you can squeeze an even higher price out of a local contract because
you'd add the benefit of more strongly understanding the problem, better
communication in terms of time zone, language, and face to face interaction.
Plus there's some security in meeting a person face to face.

~~~
odonnellryan
It is not uncommon to charge $125-150/hr for high-end work on something as
basic as configuring Wordpress sites.

However, high-end means the focus gets drastically shifted from programming to
figuring out what the client wants.

That said, you can charge 250-500 as a freelancer for a few hours of
consultation. Your rates should largely depend on:

1) How many hours the client intends on spending with you 2) Urgency of work
(and thus how much bandwidth you need to give to it) 3) Client's ROI

If you save your client 1000 hrs of reporting work a year by developing them a
custom solution, that is easily worth well over 100,000k for that client: even
if they are only paying people $50/hr to create these reports.

You can't charge 100,000k, otherwise the client will not have a great ROI.
However, such a solution should take you somewhere around 100-400 hours to
complete.

That works out to $125/hr in the worst-case, giving the client a good ROI
after the first six months, and should give you a solid 4-6 months of work. If
they need it sooner you need to charge them more, because you'll spend less
time on business development.

This is a perfect world hypothetical of course ... in reality many other
things come into play that will only work to drive your rates down.

~~~
djellybeans
How do you maintain good conversion rates for charging as much as how you
stated (such as your Wordpress example)? You run the risk of getting no
offers. I think the difficult part about charging $125-150/hr, if you have
never charged that much, is finding the clients that are used to paying those
kinds of prices. You'll have to figure out how to convert talks into sales
better before you can charge those prices.

For instance, the person who would want a site for $50/hr is probably not
going to pay $125/hr. You could try with that person, but that would be
pushing your luck. In this case they're not the right client for you.

~~~
odonnellryan
It comes down to not wanting to do WP work, so I charge a lot when someone
wants it.

Sometimes I give it away ... for a client that is giving me a lot of business.

However, you can charge what is 150/hr for WP work if you have a good
reputation and do good work. Literally EVERYONE who has any kind of money runs
a charity, or is involved in a business or seven that needs a new homepage ...

This won't work if you're trying to cold call and get clients, you're right.

I started out at 50-70/hr programming. Some of my contracts now are only
~90/hr.

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chrisabrams
When starting from scratch: post on Freelancer Seeking Freelance every month.

You'll reach a groove once 120% of your referrals are word of mouth. The
pendulum flips quickly between looking for clients and then getting a good
rep. for doing good work and the clients flowing to you. Good work is hard to
find.

With that said, don't negotiate for the highest rate possible at the start.
Getting a good rep. will get you better paying clients a lot faster.

~~~
ricksharp
Does Freelancer seeking Freelancer actually work to find high paying
contracts?

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jf22
Yes.

~~~
ricksharp
Did they come to you after you posted there, or did you go to them seeing
their "Seeking Freelancer" listing?

~~~
ioddly
I recommend doing both. It also pays (literally) to check the normal "who's
hiring" thread as companies sometimes post contract opportunities there
instead of in the freelancer thread.

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anon1094
I've been freelancing remotely as a front-end web developer for over 3 years
now. Here's my advice:

1\. Get off of Upwork, now. You're only getting into a bidding war with low-
priced overseas developers.

2\. Instead, search remote job boards, Twitter, Facebook Groups, and LinkedIn
for freelance remote contracts related to your field.

3\. Find the client's email and send them your portfolio directly.

Following this strategy is what has landed me the most freelance gigs these
past years.

There's also aggregation newsletters like RemoteLeads that send you remote
freelance gigs a few times a week directly to your email.

[https://remoteleads.io/](https://remoteleads.io/)

Shameless Plug: I started RemoteLeads to make finding remote front-end
freelance leads easier for myself.

~~~
ricksharp
Does this actually work?

Where do you find Remote jobs on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn?

~~~
anon1094
Yes, the next email is going out in a few hours. The next one after that on
Thursday morning eastern time.

Various sources are scraped to find remote jobs and freelance gigs specific to
front-end web development. I go through them manually after I've found them
and only send the best 5 max.

~~~
ricksharp
Well naturally you have to keep the good leads for yourself ;)

Anyway, I'm a full stack developer so what about the back end stuff or mobile
app development?

I'm interested in knowing where you source your leads so I might be able to
find contracts in those areas.

Right now, I've only been able to find stuff through UW, so I'm curious that
you've been able to find direct clients.

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bshimmin
_I was off to a rocky start but thanks to a blog post on gamasutra that ended
up on HN I managed to reach my sales goal and I 'm in the clear for the next 6
months._

I guess the shrewd commenters who said this piece
[https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ConstantinBacioiu/20171121/3...](https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ConstantinBacioiu/20171121/310012/Post_Mortem_I_thought_I_could_ship_at_least_700_units_to_stay_in_business.php)
was actually something of a subtle sales technique were pretty much spot on!

~~~
BacioiuC
It wasn't really, but I'm not gonna lie and say I'm not happy it turned out
the way it did.

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benAO90
Looks like you've gotten some helpful tips so far. Here's a few things I can
add.

As far as marketing yourself as niche vs. a generalist developer, it really
depends on the types of clients and projects you are looking to work on. Being
a generalist means you will qualify for more projects, and probably can create
extra work for yourself since you can help clients with a broader range of
development tasks. This will be useful if you want to help clients build and
scale a product. Niche skills on the other hand means more niche marketability
and searchability for clients looking for those specific skills.

When it comes to marketing yourself....keep blogging! Even if its only for 15
mins a day, write something. Share what you've been doing, answer questions
for potential clients and other developers. You've already seen the pay off.
Netowrk, online and off. Go to events and conferences, share your work and
interests. Personal connections still count for a lot, and have a stronger
tendency to lead to referrals.

Lastly, don't forget, as freelancer you are your own business. Some freelance
platforms will take care of a lot of business aspects for you, but you still
should be prepared/ knowledgeable about the following: -Terms of Service
Contract -Your own (favorable) NDA -Time Tracking/Invoicing Software \-
Regular Review of Your Rate

Here's an article I wrote on landing clients as a freelance dev:
[https://www.codementor.io/blog/land-clients-freelance-
develo...](https://www.codementor.io/blog/land-clients-freelance-
developer-39w3i166wy)

------
hungerstrike
Get on Shapr. I just started using it and I've made quite a few connections.

~~~
ricksharp
How do you make clients on Shapr? It sounds like it's more about peer
networking.

~~~
hungerstrike
I connected with a few guys who run consulting shops, who outsource skills
that they don't have in-house. Also, some recruiters who can get me contracts
with big city corps. I've also gotten in touch with 2 startup founders who are
looking for a CTO.

~~~
ricksharp
Nice. I'm giving it a go now. I met a few guys who could be friends but no
clients yet, but I see the potential there.

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JSeymourATL
What does an ideal target project/client look like?

If you can answer this-- you can direct your own proactive business
development campaign. On this subject, Mike Weinberg is brilliant >
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15863998-new-sales-
simpl...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15863998-new-sales-simplified)

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potta_coffee
Upwork is terrible. All of my work comes through personal contacts and
relationships. IMO you've got to find a way to grow your network, be that
meetups, events, etc. Get creative. It sounds like you have a lot of skill in
your domain, maybe you could do a lecture somewhere and meet people that way.
Relationships have a tendency of naturally generating work.

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saluki
y, you're going to have problems getting viable projects on Upwork.

The best projects with reasonable pay will come from your own network, people
you know. So focus on networking following up with old contacts/making new
ones.

Reach out to the game dev community, get in contact with podcasts, write
articles, get involved with the community.

------
VirgilShelton
You worked on The Dark Knight Risers, and Frozen? Details please?

~~~
BacioiuC
TDKR back when I was with Gameloft, Frozen Free Fall at Mobility-Games as a
designer and programmer.

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thatsheelpatel
As already said, pick a niche, and make sure you're known for it. Generate
content in that area, you're a game designer, so blog about the issues you've
faced, how you've overcome hurdles. If blogging isn't for you, create a
podcast, just create content in whatever medium you're most passionate about
and do something that makes you a thought leader in that space.

When someone is searching for a solution to an existing problem they face and
you can demonstrate how you've solved it, and many more in that domain you're
immediately valuable.

