[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How do I get into consulting / freelancing?
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: How do I get into consulting / freelancing?
I quit my software engineering job about 4 months ago, went to
travel, and building my side project into a business. However,
things don't work as fast as I expected. My least preferred option
is going back to being an employee, therefor I'm considering
switching to freelance or consulting. I believe that I have a very
vast experience, and can be of good use. I, however, have no idea
how to get into becoming a freelancer/consultant. I don't want to
complete with people on Upwork, and similar, and I tried to reach
out to my old connections. Are there any other tips, or
recommendations that you can share? Thanks in advance!
Author : skwee357
Score : 25 points
Date : 2023-09-14 17:36 UTC (5 hours ago)
| ushercakes wrote:
| I think Upwork is a terrible experience, but also, it's a pretty
| safe starting point.
|
| It's where most potential clients are. You just need to
| undervalue your services a bit, bid low, get some good reviews.
| You do this for a month or two: over delivering, under charging.
|
| Eventually, you get to a point where you have a very solid job
| history, and your profile stands out because of it.
|
| At this point, you can charge a bit more.
|
| Shameless plug: I made https://contractrates.fyi to help
| consultants/freelancers figure out how much too charge. It's like
| levels.fyi, but for freelancers. Also free - I tried monetizing
| it in the past and failed miserably. Now I just maintain it as a
| free resource.
|
| There is also the route of Catalant, which is significantly more
| lucrative than say Upwork, but maybe has a little higher barrier
| to entry. I know several people though that make insane money on
| Catalant, because they are billing rates as if they are working
| for a big 4 consulting firm (~$800+ an hour). Expectations are
| higher though, and it's much less casual than Upwork. Clients
| overall are less annoying, in my experience, though.
| pjlegato wrote:
| By far the best way to operate is via in-network connections you
| already have. This could be former employers who were happy with
| your work as an employee, former colleagues at those jobs, people
| you know from your local university or tech community, even niche
| Discords / Slacks / forums, and so on: places where you are a
| known quantity and not a commodity, places where you are not
| competing with a million anonymous consultants on the Internet.
|
| If you are on Upwork or some similar site, you are in a brutal
| Hunger Games deathmatch with many, many highly experienced people
| around the world, all racing to the bottom to be commodity
| service providers at the lowest possible cost. Avoid that if at
| all possible.
|
| Devote specific time towards keeping your old connections alive,
| revitalize that network periodically in accordance with your
| local business customs and norms (the exact things you have to do
| to do this vary significantly by region.) That network is highly
| valuable to you as a consultant. That is the one place in the
| world where you are not merely a commodity.
|
| Take time too to expand your network: attend conferences and
| technical meetups. Participate in them as a presenter as much as
| you can. Ask people in your network for introductions to others.
|
| You will find the networking aspect takes up a tremendous amount
| of time if done properly. Many don't like this, which is fine;
| these people tend to go back to being an employee.
|
| Finally, make sure you don't spend all of your income as you get
| it -- that is, save a significant amount of money to cover the
| low points in your sales cycle. Your income as a consultant is
| highly "lumpy," meaning you will receive a lot of money at some
| points, then no money at all for a long time. Make sure you've
| budgeted appropriately, and you have enough money in reserve to
| pay for the "no income" parts of the cycle.
|
| Hope this helps.
| leet_thow wrote:
| If you have to ask, it's not going to work out for you. The
| market is saturated with unemployed tech workers. Unless you have
| exceptional skills at rock bottom prices, there will be nothing
| anyone will pay you to do. Harsh reality of the current economic
| situation.
| mfalcon wrote:
| The most "organic" way would be to get into
| consulting/freelancing after you start getting several proposals.
| You can get into it with no network, but you'll have to work your
| way until getting one: blogging, showing your work, cold
| emailing...
| bjord wrote:
| I'm surprised no one has mentioned Linkedin yet. It's been an
| essential tool for maintaining and expanding my professional
| network. I've also found that the occasional life update post
| gets me in front of a lot of potential clients. It gets shown to
| those in my network, and if they interact with it, those in their
| networks as well. To be fair, though, my life has been more
| "exciting" than most, recently, so your mileage may vary.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| You do a lot of networking with people you want to work with.
| Then you talk about working together and figure it out. Lots of
| small companies or people with smaller budgets will say "oh crap,
| I wish I could hire you as an employee, but I can only afford a
| freelancer".
| mr_o47 wrote:
| To begin, you might want to check out UPWORK, as it's where most
| clients are, and you'll probably find your initial clients there.
|
| Secondly, building a brand or online presence would go a long
| way. This is a slightly more challenging route, but it's also
| rewarding. For instance, if you have an open-source project, you
| could secure consulting projects based on your project. Blogging
| can also be beneficial.
|
| Lastly, if you're just starting out, definitely start with UPWORK
| and gradually build your brand/online presence.
| matt3210 wrote:
| It sucks. Get ready to do lots of non technical stuff for running
| a business
| pasterofmuppets wrote:
| The description fits me perfectly except I am ahead of you. I
| quit almost a year ago and started consulting for a former
| employer just now.
|
| I don't have much advice to give though. It's hard to get started
| and even when you do find a client it can take months before the
| paper work has been sorted if the client is a large (and slow)
| corporation.
|
| Now I am making money again though after living on savings for
| almost a year, and I have a much better (more flexible) deal than
| when I was an employee there.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Previous thread that might provide value:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21189801 ("Ask HN: How do I
| make the move to consultant?" (2019))
| snappyc wrote:
| [dead]
| peterbozso wrote:
| Not much. Work as an employee until you build out a network big
| enough to rely on to get contracting jobs. It's faster if you
| work in professional services or technical sales roles as an
| employee already.
| chunkyguy wrote:
| The best freelancing jobs I got were from my network. Mostly
| people who were contacted by someone for a gig and they referred
| my name.
| markjonsona989 wrote:
| I plan to do the exact same thing next year. I don't have all the
| answers for you, but I would start by asking my LinkedIn network
| about any contracting jobs <6months and build a CV website. I
| assume you come from the Tech industry, but a lot can depend on
| what branch of IT. Developers can get their name out a lot easier
| than (DevSec)Ops people by contributing to OSS, so give that a
| try. But either way even a basic Udemy course on the subject can
| be helpful if you have no idea where to begin.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-09-14 23:02 UTC)