

Ask HN: Where do you freelancers find your clients/work? - shahed

I know a lot of freelancers find their clients in different ways. I want to see what advice you have for someone looking to land their first few clients (ex. referral, specific websites, etc.)<p>I'm a UI/UX Designer, mobile designer, front-end developer, I can also do some backend in Rails, etc.<p>Thanks! =)
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bdunn
I had a lot of luck frequenting events where small business owners are (i.e.
people with problems and money.) Networking events, mixers, business lectures,
and so on.

I also spent a LOT of time cultivating my past clients list and encouraging a
steady stream of referrals.

When I was running my consultancy (before jumping ship to products), I had to
maintain $100k+ revenue a month in client projects. Let's just say I got
pretty good at the whole "getting work" thing :-)

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icey
To drill down a bit: How did you find these events?

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bdunn
Chamber of Commerce, any technology partnership groups, meetup.com, there are
a _million_ of these sort of events in any decently sized area.

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t_j_m
One thing that can be a bit silly but really works to a degree. Is to dress
and act a little bit geeky, do not be shy to walk around with a t-shirt or a
hoodie with the python,ruby or some linux logo on it. Talk about software and
computing with people you meet. Market your self as a guy that know a lot
about software and the word will come around.

I have met several people for example in the gym that have offered me a job or
some consulting work because they have seen me with a linux t-shirt on. Of
course they did not threw me a job because of the t-shirt but it led to a
small chit-chat and then it escalated from there.

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timjahn
While you're specifically asking about finding your first few clients, this
previous thread has some great overall advice for finding clients in general
as a freelancer: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4585435>

Also, we recently launched the beta of matchist (<http://matchist.com>) to
help freelance developers like yourself find quality clients and get paid on
time, every time.

