Most freelance platforms should be happy with ~20 hours/week of consistent work. One freelancer that mainly works with us at that volume had enough stability through Gun.io contracts alone to get a mortgage, which was a pretty big coup for us.
I'd also add a recommendation to spend at least a third of the time you spend doing billable work in building up your own pipeline — regardless of whether you're using a freelance service like us or not.
Hi there - I'm the CEO of Gun.io. Shoot me an email at teja[at]gun.io. Our average rates on platform are 10x higher than that. In fact, that's why we started the business.
I remember I applied and after emailing team@domain ~1 year ago and didn't get back a single response. Hell, I even found a github profile who said he worked there and emailed him too and no response. Still have the emails, you can search your inbox with the email in my profile
Depending on how good you are on the thing you're applying for you can get jobs as much as $60/hour (only tested upwork). You also have to apply some country filtering, don't hope to get paid $30/hour by some Pakistan company. Higher than that is really difficult.
But there is other coin too, once tried to hire some `solr` experts ($100/hour rate) whom after I asked about some extension development went out of touch (1 agency & 2 contractors). So it can suck on client side too.
I don't think this is terrible news for entrepreneurs. It forces more operating discipline in the earlier stages. And, I believe we could do with more discipline as an ecosystem. As long as there's growth capital around once the business _is_ prepared to scale, we're all good.
No doubt, the best freelance gigs are the result of close, pre-existing relationships. Easier said than done tho if you're just getting your start.
Try using the sites mentioned within the thread - pickcrew, gun.io, etc. - these sites generally have higher-priced contracts and more interesting work than the classic variants.
Use these sites at first to discover what work you like and build long-terms relationships with a few key clients.
1. Remember that the comms overhead with freelance work can be really lumpy and unpredictable. Programming is the fun part - the phone calls and emails can get painful really quickly
2. Avoid hourly pricing whenever possible. Do value-based pricing. Just trust me on this one.
My name is Matt Pierce and I work for Hired here in SF. (Check out hired.com) I am leading our efforts in building out our Contract Category. I would love to chat with you if you are available over the next couple of weeks? I specifically have questions about the value based pricing vs. hourly, etc. I know the guys over at gun.io and we actually just chatted about the same topic. Would love to get your perspective. Let me know if/when you are free?
it is really good advices, and do some open-source projects at githup, sourceforge, or other open source sites, it will make you more competitive, especially have a long-term project of your own, sites like gun.io, will look for it.
I tried atleast 10 times via Gun.io but was unable to find any work through it. I might not be a suitable for the job but I never received any update on my submission. I also tried sending emails to Gun.io team but got no response from them
Most freelance platforms should be happy with ~20 hours/week of consistent work. One freelancer that mainly works with us at that volume had enough stability through Gun.io contracts alone to get a mortgage, which was a pretty big coup for us.
Feel free to shoot me a line at teja at gun.io.