Ask HN: How does an experienced freelancer get work?

Work your real life connections, you'll start by taking some pretty crappy work (it'll possibly feel like a career downgrade for a bit) but word will spread and opportunities will present themselves. You just need to produce great work, and stick to it.

Only key advice i would suggest is simply not to lock yourself into one contract for too long, unless its a great one. Nothing worse than some great work coming up, and not being able to take it because you're already too busy.

Work on a product in your spare time. Get involved with the open source tech that your product uses.

Get involved with your local community. Word of mouth is the best referral system when you're getting started.

Try using your personal network to find a local business / organization that is struggling with some piece of software / website. Or donate some work to a non-profit and ask them to spread your name around. Every successful project should bring you at least two more to work on.

I wouldn't dismiss these freelancing websites altogether though, it takes a bit to identify potential good clients, a lot of people got burnt by the outsourcing companies and are actually ready to pay sensible rates. I got my current job through one of these sites, first taking on a node.js job and then moving to basically full-time freelancing. I don't make that much as for jobs I got through personal and industry contacts, but the client is pretty much the best I ever got. That kind of freedom and respect (and quickly paid invoice, like 10 minutes after I sent them) is worth its money too.

But else, industry and personal contacts, building up contacts through giving speeches and being a part of the development community (user groups, etc...) works best for me.

Not sure where you are located, but most big cities have regular tech networking events, seminars, skillshare classes, etc. The VAST majority of rewarding, quality work I have done freelancing was for real-life people (businesses, many startups, etc) that I met at network events. Get a decent personal business card and make sure you tell people what you are capable of doing, and that you are available for work when you meet them. You will be surprised how many opportunities come out of the woodwork.

If you're doing web or mobile development or anything that is contracted out regularly, I highly recommend you make relationships with the creative/development agencies in your area. My experience is that the decent ones always have more leads than they can execute on at any given time, which leads to two scenarios:

1) They want to grow, lack full development strength, and will subcontract you to work under their name. The rates aren't as high as you could get on your own, but it's still good pay and you didn't have to go selling. Attend a few meetings, live with a project manager, but work from home and build the relationship.

2) Projects that are too small for them to consider are immediately passed to you (and their other staff). "Sorry, we can't help you with this one, but we can recommend this guy who's done lots of good work for us."

Volunteering to do some programming for charities and doing some open source work is a great way to make connections that can often lead to freelance work. That's how my freelance business got going. Two of my biggest clients came via the connections I made volunteering for a green energy micro lending charity.

And client relationships that come via connections are often far better and more lucrative than those that come through freelancing websites.

1: Only bid on projects that ask for "good English skills". That's the code that means they're not interested in bids from traditional off-shoring destinations.

2: Once you win a few contracts on the freelancing websites, your customers should start coming to you directly and recommending you to others. You can then you can start raising your rates to something reasonable.

3: Send an email to the leaders of all the open source projects you have contributed to. It's quite possible they have more contracting work than they can handle and are willing to send work your way since they already know and trust you.

Are you simply freelancing (one-man body shop) or consulting? The former is a short-term employee, the other involves "paying for a solution to a problem". Both are done for cost savings, but with a bit more up-front work to get in the door, the second tends to get you paid better.

I've actually taken this route as of a few months ago, and the best advice is to share your new plans with people you've worked with in the past who have appreciated your work. Former managers, CIO/CTOs, even contingency recruiters who have placed you in the past (worst case, you work something out on a corp-to-corp basis and they'll have plenty of work and leads for you).

I mostly do data warehouse ETL recovery/refactoring, database performance tuning, and some data architect work. The way I sell it is to distill my previous work down to some easily digestible details: "Automated recovery of existing processes, eliminating manual hand-held recovery. Improved performance of evening batch processes by 1500%. Reduced replication time to DR site by 70%". Then, when asked about details, feel free to explain it in excruciating detail over lunch. If they have a specific need, odds are you can get them the results their looking for -- explain your approach, common issues, and get in the door. Even for something like, "I need X built", you have to look past "I can do it" and try to figure out what the customer is looking to get out of it (increased sales, conversion, etc.) and explain not only how can deliver on those metrics, but ideally back it up with previous history.

I've had lunches with former bosses, and talked to former co-workers. I'm not the guy who networks at all (< 20 LinkedIn connections, ~20 friends on Facebook), but I was almost immediately inundated. I have more work than I can take on at the moment, which means I'm simply raising my rate by 60% for the next client -- and they think that new rate is just ducky.

Patio also covered this topic rather well: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/09/17/ramit-sethi-and-patrick-...

My guess is that you are an experienced developer that worked for a company and never saw the outside clients -- meaning you have no reputation in the field outside your resume.

I'd partner with a web-contracting agency in your area to start doing work through them -- something where you work directly with clients on a day to day basis.

After you've worked for a dozen or so clients, you'll start to have a reputation, and from what I've found with friends, once you quit your contracting job you'll find clients wanting to still give you work based on what you've done. From there word of mouth does a good deal of work, and going to networking events and forming relationships does the rest.

I'd recommend you put your email in your profile. I have some work for a competent web developer ...

As a designer I found this is the magic work equation:

1) Find a project 2) Finish project on time and budget exceeding expectations 3) Wait for client to send you referrals

Repeat steps 1-3.

Go to meetups and other tech events. Make friends with people and talk about their ideas. Give out your card. You'll get propositions to help people constantly. Some of those people will be willing to pay. The more you get asking you, the higher you can raise your price.

Don't be adverse to meeting people. Some of the best work that's come through my studio has been the result of meeting with someone six months prior and them remembering my name/work.

Reach out to people you feel you can help. Don't be arrogant, but offer an honest and articulate reasoning for offering up your services.

As a developer, have (at least) two things online: a list of recent projects (could be as simple as a Github account) and a blog/notebook with some of your work. I know a lot of the developers that I follow just from coming across an article or tutorial they wrote.

Try putting up a personal site that says who you are (a profile, photo, etc.), what you can do (services), and a rough cost estimate of working together (i.e. my projects start at $X,XXX and average $X,XXX).

Sell yourself on HN. Make sure your profile says what you can do and has contact info. Also, checkout the monthly "Seeking Freelancers" thread. It's a great jumpstart when you're looking for work.

Have conversations with people that need problems solved.

What's your main area of expertise? Go to online communities where that expertise is discussed and join the conversation. When somebody enters the conversation that needs a problem solved, you'll be headed towards a new client.

Social networking is your friend. A month ago, I got a new client using Quora - through a question I asked about how to find new clients.

The more companies you talk to, the closer you'll get to finding somebody that needs you. Remember, they want you to consult for them as much as you want to consult for them, so go out there and find them. From my perception, the environment is very pro-consultant right now.

I don't know how I get work, but I always seem to be busy (for the past four years of freelancing at least).

Main thing is to put the word out. Have projects of your own. Offer advice freely. Be helpful. I normally have more work than I want and can be fairly choosy.

But I've got to admit, if it all dried up, I'm not sure how I'd go about 'looking' for work. (that said, I'm not sure I'd want to)

Don't use the freelancing sites. They're a race to the bottom.

We're building matchist (matchist.com) to solve this exact problem.

Don't compete with low-cost overseas developers and spend all day bidding for projects.

Instead, sign up for the matchist beta (http://matchist.com/talent). We believe in matching you with projects you want to work on and have the skills for.

Referrals.

If you say "I don't know anyone" then start networking. Sure, it's easier said than done. But if you have the chops, and do just a few good projects, word will get around.

To take it to the next level, try to find a company that is run by or that employs a master sales person. Take that person to lunch and get a crash course in sales. Because once you have the referral, you're warm; when you know how to close, you'll be hot.

I've been freelancing for just over four months now and there are only two ways I've found clients ( who will pay the rates I charge ) so far.

1. Emailed the larger web design and creative agencies in the local area. ( Maximum around 1 1/2 hour drive is acceptable to me )

2. Created a personal website, and did some very basic ( and always improving ) keyword optimisation, for my areas of expertise.

I've been busy for the last four months solid. Right now is the first time I'm actively looking for work again, and it's mainly because I stopped emailing companies. Big mistake.

It's worth noting that the clients who have found me via my website/blog ( I try to post at least once a week) are happy to pay considerably more than the web design agencies. From my experience most web design agencies don't know how much a good developer can be worth in terms of code maintainability and time saved delivering the project.

On another note I always recommend getting face to face with potential clients. My confidence in my ability shines through when I'm in stood/sat in front of them, and really helps to build that trust factor.

As repeated in many other replies here, and something I'm only just learning myself. Find a problem that people want solving and sell yourself as the solution to that problem.

I'm still not sure what problem I'm solving or can help someone solving, but I'm hoping to figure it out sooner rather than later. :)

Hope this helps.

My experience says that you need to be good at at least one of these. Ideally, you should do all IMO:

1. Network especially with people you have already worked with/for in industry that you are now freelancing in. Most ppl underestimate this. For example, I have a list of contacts whom I email at least once a year just saying hi. I usually do it during christmas/new year eve. Never burn bridges with anyone and always try and stay in touch.

2. Get found by people/clients/recruiters/employers by building a strong online presence. I constantly get good offers through linkedin. To do this however, you need to focus on a more specialist profile vs. a generalist profile. Focus on your niche, add the right keywords and experience, get recommendations online in that domain and frequently update your profile.

Freelancing is all about relationships. If a possible client is looking for a freelancer to complete a project, the only difference between Developers A and Developer B is their price (because, the client isn't going to understand the skill/talent of the two developers - they're not developers themselves). But, if you're able to form a relationship with them, then you're not Developer A anymore, you're James. And there's a HUGE difference between James and Developer B. The client knows James, the client trusts James. The client knows James wont' screw them over.

So, I'd say make your approach a very personal one. Try to get them invested in you as a person. This will be difficult to do with those "one-off" jobs, but will work great for clients that have multiple projects that need to be completed. It also works well if you work as a contractor for local agencies (as suggested by @iantrerell).

Also, a decent source of information is Freelance Switch (http://freelanceswitch.com/).

As a web developer php type guy..

Things i have done to get work-

Network- attend tech conferences and talk to people

Blog about your area of interest

I ran google adwords on specific key terms, this helped to get a decent bulk of work with a 20x ROI

Over time your network will build up.

Talk to business owners that have problems. Then solve them.

Freelancer marketplaces are a race-to-the-bottom commodity market.

I'm thinking of doing some freelancing styling Bootstrap sites for people who don't like doing front-end work. Anybody have tips for doing that? I poked around on odesk and elance a bit but it seems the going rate there is roughly minimum wage.