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Ask HN: Where do you freelancers find your clients/work?

14 points by shahed ↗ HN
I know a lot of freelancers find their clients in different ways. I want to see what advice you have for someone looking to land their first few clients (ex. referral, specific websites, etc.)

I'm a UI/UX Designer, mobile designer, front-end developer, I can also do some backend in Rails, etc.

Thanks! =)

5 comments

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bdunn
I had a lot of luck frequenting events where small business owners are (i.e. people with problems and money.) Networking events, mixers, business lectures, and so on.

I also spent a LOT of time cultivating my past clients list and encouraging a steady stream of referrals.

When I was running my consultancy (before jumping ship to products), I had to maintain $100k+ revenue a month in client projects. Let's just say I got pretty good at the whole "getting work" thing :-)

icey
To drill down a bit: How did you find these events?
bdunn
Chamber of Commerce, any technology partnership groups, meetup.com, there are a million of these sort of events in any decently sized area.
timjahn
While you're specifically asking about finding your first few clients, this previous thread has some great overall advice for finding clients in general as a freelancer: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4585435

Also, we recently launched the beta of matchist (http://matchist.com) to help freelance developers like yourself find quality clients and get paid on time, every time.

t_j_m
One thing that can be a bit silly but really works to a degree. Is to dress and act a little bit geeky, do not be shy to walk around with a t-shirt or a hoodie with the python,ruby or some linux logo on it. Talk about software and computing with people you meet. Market your self as a guy that know a lot about software and the word will come around.

I have met several people for example in the gym that have offered me a job or some consulting work because they have seen me with a linux t-shirt on. Of course they did not threw me a job because of the t-shirt but it led to a small chit-chat and then it escalated from there.