Ask HN: Advice finding clients in the US/Europe (Argentinian SFDC Sr Developer)
Quick background about myself : Graduated University at the age of 25 (BS in Computer Science) at one of the top technical universities in my country (ITBA), worked as an employee for a couple of years during the late stages of my studies and finally in 2009, took the plunge, founded my own company and hired a couple of employees.
Fortunately, its been a great ride. I've been working steadly for 4 years on my own, developing for domestic software development companies building SFDC applications for their US/international clients (since I didn't have any abroad contacts on my own). During that time, I worked (through middle-man companies) for Salesforce.com, ModelMetrics, Mars, OpenEnglish, PropellerDevelopment and several non-profit organizations.
My current contract is ending by late October, and since my client is letting go of all contractors and hiring its own inhouse team, I'm looking for work.
I have over 3 years of SFDC experience alone and over 6 years in development/project management. Asides from SFDC, I am also skilled in Objective-C, Python, Django, jQuery, HTML5, Java, Agile Methodologies (Scrum mainly), and others. I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I speak fluent English and I'm very organized in my work.
What am I looking for in a client ? Software development company, if possible, providing SFDC development for several clients, looking for remote developers/contractors. I enjoy building new products and starting projects from scratch.
Could you give me some advice on how to go about getting my own abroad clients ? I've always been able to land local clients, but never had an US/Europe one. Worked with them all the time, but from a developer/project leader posision. Never had to sell or manage invoices/payments outside the country.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
2 comments
[ 243 ms ] story [ 1174 ms ] threadI think the best chance you have in such a short time (given that your contract ends in just a few weeks and then you'll have your employees doing nothing), is to contact local companies with customers in USA/EU. Focus on the technologies your team has the most experience (Salesforce as you say).
Probably, one of the many consulting companies here have some work that they can outsource. And the communication with other companies could allow you to forge new partnerships with some of them, and allow you to work together in projects that otherwise you couldn't do on your own.
I been doing that for some time, and actually my current work comes from local companies with clients abroad.
Every one of that contracts includes NonCompete agreements so I cannot work directly for the final clients in USA/EU if I worked with them through my clients (they protect their business).
So what I'm trying to figure out is how to approach having my own clients from abroad. Knowing its not easy, I'm looking for some guidelines there.