From Freelancer to Founder | Hacker News Reader

From Freelancer to Founder

momenteo.com

80 pointsdomgoulet38 comments

Dom, congratulations on your success. You are really an inspiration to me.

I'm currently employed full-time (also in Canada) and have a lot of down time doing angular/react. I have been taking some steps to get involved in the freelancing world.

After some research I found that WordPress is an easy platform to get started with as a freelancer, so I'm currently learning it.

What would your advice be to me? is going the wordpress route a good idea? How do I get clients?

My unsolicited advice - having done something similar with drupal though, not wordpress - choose something you'll enjoy working with, if it's wordpress, go with it (keep in mind there are a lot of "wordpress" developers and by that i mean, people who just grab a bunch of plugins, put a site together and say they have extensive wordpress experience - don't be that person). That all said, you may have better luck with a framework like rails, django, etc. if you want to make a similar transition into product building...

From there, get involved in the community (e.g., attend meetups, drupal has a good one in toronto). I found success finding clients by learning about drupal and recording video tutorials about what i learned to teach others (drupal has a ridiculous learning curve when you are coming from no where).

Hope that helps.

That's a very good piece of advice too!

Thanks for the kind words!

Wordpress is a good platform, it powers a lot of the websites out there. In fact, our blog and website uses WordPress!

The best way to get your first clients is to talk about your new freelancer career in your network. There is always someone you know who knows someone who needs you. Just speak out loud and you will be heard!

It allowed me to live in France for a couple of years before eventually moving back to Canada, where my wife and I got our first baby. If you were wondering, my wife tagged along with me in Europe. As far as I know, I am the biological father.

Er, that's a strange thing to say.

I have a dark sense of humour, you know! ;-)

That really only suits funny people

I laughed!

I thought it was hilarious

The important question: did his wife find it funny?

Absolutely! I'm also the father of our second child, 100% sure ;-)

Best follow-up lmao

Thanks mate!

me too

In fact I was expecting a few of my friends asking the question to know if she was actually in Europe with me when she got pregnant. Gotcha!

My kids are so beautiful I often suggest their real father was the UPS guy. Domgoulet would get this, parent poster maybe not so much.

Laughed so hard. Joke is one of my friend (a girl I won't name!) answered to a UPS guy wearing only a towel (she quickly got out of shower). When she took that package, her towel fell. 9 months or so later, she got a baby boy. Imagine that! :P

Hey Dominic, that was a great story! As a 21-year old who has done some freelancing I felt identified with your story.

Right now I am at a stage, similar to the one you had, where I am thinking "Ok I've been paid to build stuff, that's cool. I've acquired programming and business skills which are really valuable. But now I want to build a product that's missing in my life".

Any advice for a younger folk with a similar career path as yours?

Yep, one: Do what you love. One day people will realize the value of what you do and everything will flow as you wanted.

A big trigger for my career change was when I read Rework from DHH. I realized that you can start small and build a product fit for a specific market - some users will outgrow your product and that's okay. As for me, I build a product I needed without really thinking if there was a product/market fit, it eventually happened.

Feel free to reach me out on twitter or facebook!

Really cool story. I can also see myself in it. So far I'm just a freelancer with some side projects that help me and my work, but ...

I've always imagined any success not as a "bright idea", but more or less creating a tool by / for my needs.

Exactly what happened for me. I may be considered a turtle in the startup race, but I'm very fine by it!

As someone who is also a seasoned Ruby engineer also looking to get into freelancing (and then a business), I'd really love to learn more about your personal journey - really inspiring!

Thanks, feel free to reach me via Twitter or Facebook if I can help you some more! Have a great day!

Freelancing teaches many fundamental business skills (involving earning money, market, and customers) that transfer great into being a founder. Great story, and Canadian too!

Thanks! I'm from the ever-cold Quebec City ;-)

I'm out west but love Montreal.

Ok cool! Quebec city is smaller than Montreal, but so lovely especially during winter.

I hear it's incredible in QC

Congratulations ! I've met one of your co-worker recently in my hometown and had a quick glimpse of the project itself. Looks really good, keep up the good work !

Will do, thank you!

Cool stuff Dom, this is what I aspire in the future. Hopefully can stand on both feet on my own when I'm ready. Success!

Thanks! Just do things your way and you'll get there for sure ;-)

Good story, kept me entertained.

I'm glad it did! What an entertaining year it was!

Congratulations on your journey! It gives me a lot of inspiration.

Thank you! Making such a post reminded me about all the good moments that balances for the hard ones. As you mentioned, this is a journey. You need to constantly keep going!

I'm going through the same thing myself and was wondering if you have any advice on when would you know is the right moment to transition?

I would be lying if I pretended that I know. In my case, it happened over time. When I think back, I can clearly see the trigger, but did I knew at that time it would change my path? Absolutely not. Would I change a single thing? No.

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