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Ask HN: How to find clients to start working remotely while you have a job?

9 points by blueterminal ↗ HN
I absolutely loved working remotely during the lock-down. I had way more freedom, had more sleep, sometimes had 12 hrs working days when I was in the zone and then having a Friday (or even Thursday too sometimes) off because I was so efficient during the week. And I was so efficient that I also finished some of my projects, and was learning lots of different things. I was just better.

Therefore, I want to switch to working remotely eventually (my job requires to be in the office).

I have free time in the evenings and weekends, and lots of energy, so I am prepared to work hard. I love what I do, and I am pretty okay at doing what I do. I work with Django, Laravel, and ReactJs. I can basically create the whole site.

Where do I start? I am fine with working for little money at the beginning just to grow the clientele.

Thanks a lot.

9 comments

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tomtompl
It seems like you have enjoyed your current job while working from home, but you just said: > my job requires to be in the office which doesn't seem true (you been able to work remotely during the lockdown)

Maybe the easiest way would be to talk to your manager and negotiate working remotely in your current job?

pelagic_sky
Seems like you have three options. 1. Talk to your manager to make working remote permanent. 2. Find a job that is remote. 3. Start freelancing, which is in my opinion the hardest of the three options since you will end up taking on a lot more than just writing code and have to hustle to get gigs.
blueterminal
Yes, I want to do the 3rd. Where can I start getting gigs?
verdverm
Depending on your skill level, Toptal is a good platform for freelancing
blueterminal
Thanks a lot, will check it out.

I am pretty okayish. 5 years commercial experience, 10 yrs experience in general. I am willing to work hard to build clientele, as I said in the post.

verdverm
This is more of a premium platform, years of experience matter less that what you can produce.

You will have to do less client building, as they have the ops side for both dev/co managed.

brudgers
The best way to develop leads is in person during work hours at their place of business. To put it another way, what advantage would a potential client gain from hiring a stranger who only works nights and weekends? What additional advantage does the client gain from paying so little that it is easy for the stranger to find a better use of their time?

Sometimes first clients just fall into a person's lap and it is easy to bootstrap up a consulting business. Usually that doesn't happen. Good luck.

Jugurtha
If you want to freelance, the option of starting a company to do consulting is not to be dismissed. There's a difference between an individual and a company, even if it's only you. You could have very large organizations, including government entities, as clients which may not be thay easy to do if you are an individual. Repeat business is also interesting. The amounts you could charge are also so far apart. Whatever you imagine, multiply it by ten and go from there. It depends the field, too.

When you speak, it's the company, not the person who likes confinement because they feel so productive and have so much energy. It's the legal entity.

There are projects that practically one individual can do in less than a year for which you can charge a huge company say $300,000 to do. Depending your current salary, this can be a step down, though.

One caveat: not forgetting it's a company helps.