

Ask HN: How did you get your first freelance project? - ajaxguy

Trying to find different options in the freelance area on how to get the very first project to work on. Fellow HN&#x27;ers, please post your experiences.
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dirktheman
Networking is the most important. I built my first website for the small
company I was employed. At one point a customer contacted my boss about who
built the website, and he referred to me. (Which I'm still grateful for!). The
next client: also within my network. Once you've done a few gigs, people will
find you for work if you're good at it. Which brings me to the next point:

Underpromise and overdeliver. Always.

Just doing a good job isn't enough for people to reference for you. You have
to be better than they expect. Client asks for two designs to choose from
within two weeks? You give him three designs in one week, and tell them which
one you like the best and why. That kind of stuff. Once you've secured the
project, be communicative about progress and (especially) delays. This all may
sound simplistic, but it would surprise you how many big shot agencies don't
do these things.

Odesk/Elance? It's not working for me. I'd rather make a website for free for
someone I know personally, with the intent of building a network and a
portfolio, than building a website for a couple of tenners for someone on the
other side of the planet.

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bliti
Its all networking. I would setup a good looking portfolio and start emailing
other HN members. That will get you a fair amount of initial work. Then its
just a matter of more networking. I also had good luck doing cold emails to
people on LinkedIn.Just make sure to have a portfolio. People want to see what
you have _done_ , not hear about what you can do.

I will warn you: in order to maintain a good volume of work you have to become
good at marketing. If you do not look forward sales, and or negotiations, you
might be better off working with an agency. Less money, but less hassle.

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dsschnau
As a full-timer looking to start freelancing on the side, I'm interested in
this as well. I've heard too many horror stories about oDesk and friends. A
popular approach I've heard is doing pro-bono work and getting a referral, but
I feel like that would fall into the trap of "well you did that guy's stuff
for free, what about me?"

~~~
ajaxguy
same boat here. Haven't heard any such personally, but got to know these sort
of stories now and then. That's the reason I posed this on HN and looking for
some valuable suggestions.

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rnernento
Networking. A friend of a friend needed a website. When you're freelancing
everyone is a potential customer. Early freelancing projects are not that hard
to get, it's much more difficult to turn a small portfolio into a reliable
revenue stream.

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ioddly
elance, odesk, etc are fine, it's just that the signal to noise ratio is very
bad. Filter through the projects until you find reasonable projects with
reasonable budgets.

Post on the seeking freelancer thread. I posted on there for the first time
this month and have received a few contacts but unfortunately took on a large
job right after doing so, so I haven't been able to take advantage.

Put together a portfolio if you don't have one already.

Network. Go to local events if you can, developer meetups but also things like
chamber of commerce meetings. Keep in touch with your clients. Eventually, the
bulk of your work should come from your network.

~~~
ajaxguy
+1 for things elance, odesk and pointing about the noise in them. HN
Freelancer thread is great for this stuff, but I guess that works only when
you have an established portfolio and handful of stuff done outside of your
regular job. I did get some contacts from this thread, ultimately to zero
leads. The possible way is to have good portfolio so these contacts can be
turned to some leads.

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terrykohla
I'm currently working on my first freelance project.

I got it through this guy I worked with at a company. He was my desk neighbor,
he liked my work, I told him I was looking for freelance work and he told me
he could use some help.

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147
I just started freelancing this week. I got lucky and was able to get work
from my network which I thought was terrible. And I went on elance and may get
a job there. But the rates on elance and similar websites are really low.

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krisneuharth
I have a IFTTT script that crawls Craigslist for specific keywords and then it
emails me the hits. Craigslist generally has a low signal to noise ratio, but
I have landed a few things from there.

