Have you tried odesk.com, elance.com, rent-a-coder.com?
You might find some good competition from East European, Russian and Asian Coders on these sites- some of them are terrific coders/developers, but you also have some inherent advantages.
From experience of working with contractors/programmers on odesk.com, in my opinion these would be your inherent advantages that you can use to market yourself:
1) working and being avalable to work with, during sane hours (for North Am.) - working with somebody from half way across the world, even if they are very good, can be tiring in the long run
2) Cultural acquaintance - Many programmers from the developing world have not been exposed to the day to day life here in the more developed western world. when websites are dealing with making the day to day life easier, dealing with those whose awareness of it is next to nothing could be a big challenge sometimes. (There are some who really good at understanding, though)
Other problem here is, from experience, even if they could speak english, not eveybody can catch the nuances and subtleties of langauge which does have a bearing in good comprehension/communication. (to be honest, even my english is not upto the mark of an equally educated American, though I have lived in the US for almost 1/3rd of my life)
3) The understanding of confidentiality is next to nothing in many countries. Even if the understanding is there, the enforceability of related laws is very poor or next to nothing. So, thats a big biz risk you can market yourself on to North American customers on these sites, especially when dealing with unique ideas.
Thanks for the suggestions. I've been through both rent-a-coder and odesk, and the big problem I found with bidding on projects is that most of them are scut work, and I can't compete with twenty other people from East Europe, Russia and Asia.
The big problem I found with bidding on projects is that most of them are scut work, and I can't compete with twenty other people from East Europe, Russia and Asia.
I used to think this when I first started using RentACoder. Then I thought sod this, and started giving quotes at my full-whack rate, and you know what? It worked, and it's continuing to work :)
One bit of advice I'd like to add: don't be put off if the price listed for a project is a bit below (or even way) below what you'd like to charge; I find a simple email with questions, a rough timeline and then basic explanation of why your quote costs so much (you need to work for a while at a good rate) works well. Good luck!
There is one downside with RentACoder though, and that's that you won't win any jobs without having first complete a couple successfully. It's not the end of the world - find quick and easy tasks, explain that you're looking to build up your rating, and offer to do them for $3. It does mean that you'll lose a day or two of income though. Once you have a couple of ratings though, the only way is up! :)
I agree with both the excellent points made by motothemax:
Don't back off from bidding higher than the disered "quotes" mentioned by customers. Once I went for a designer who was quoting more than twice my initial upper limit for that job. when I looked at his profile, he had a very, very long portfolio of his freelanching designs as well as designs he worked on for customers. He had a lot of very high ratings from his past customers and he justified/explained in a similar way that motothemax mentioned about why his rates were higher. Another thing was, he was very professional and upbeat throughout his communications.
So if you did be interested in some feedback on deciding priorites of a customer:
1) Portfolio
2) ratings from past customers (here the readiness to work initially for lower rates, may be usable sometimes)
3) scores on Odesk tests and the distribution of those scores across different tests - its not perfect system, but its better than no scores
You might find some good competition from East European, Russian and Asian Coders on these sites- some of them are terrific coders/developers, but you also have some inherent advantages.
From experience of working with contractors/programmers on odesk.com, in my opinion these would be your inherent advantages that you can use to market yourself:
1) working and being avalable to work with, during sane hours (for North Am.) - working with somebody from half way across the world, even if they are very good, can be tiring in the long run
2) Cultural acquaintance - Many programmers from the developing world have not been exposed to the day to day life here in the more developed western world. when websites are dealing with making the day to day life easier, dealing with those whose awareness of it is next to nothing could be a big challenge sometimes. (There are some who really good at understanding, though)
Other problem here is, from experience, even if they could speak english, not eveybody can catch the nuances and subtleties of langauge which does have a bearing in good comprehension/communication. (to be honest, even my english is not upto the mark of an equally educated American, though I have lived in the US for almost 1/3rd of my life)
3) The understanding of confidentiality is next to nothing in many countries. Even if the understanding is there, the enforceability of related laws is very poor or next to nothing. So, thats a big biz risk you can market yourself on to North American customers on these sites, especially when dealing with unique ideas.
Good luck.