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Comment by wtracy | Hacker News Reader

The problems with Upwork and Freelancer, while significant, are regularly blown out of proportion. I don't recommend them for more than finding short gigs when you're in a pinch, but they are useful for that. Do be prepared to lose a lot of jobs to bidders from the third world. Take advantage of anything that you can use to differentiate yourself.

Also, get a stack of business cards and start going to local business networking events. Look up the local Chamber of Commerce, search meetup.com, and see if your county has any small business development classes or lunches you can attend.

That's my short-term advice. I'm still trying to figure out what to do in the medium- and long-term myself.

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> Look up the local Chamber of Commerce, search meetup.com, and see if your county has any small business development classes or lunches you can attend.

I'm curious if anyone has had success with this. I know Brennan Dunn talks about it as one avenue to pursue, so I've been thinking about going to the local business networking thing. I guess I just have trouble conceptualizing going from meeting people who are running local brick-and-mortar type businesses to convincing them that software is a solution to their problems.

They all need websites. The ones that have bad websites need better ones. And to some extent, they are willing to pay rates based on value pricing, rather than a carefully clocked hourly rate. If you make their business work a lot better, you can share in the benefits.

Bear in mind that these projects are 60% about getting people to understand their choices, build a strategy, etc. ... and 40% about coding the site. Except for the ones who are utterly confused. Then it's 90/10.

I have found the tiny, local Chamber of Commerce to be a very significant driver of business in multiple ways.

But I believe you are thinking in a way that will not help. The point is not to convince them of anything. It is to make what you do irresistible to them.

For example, you could show how a coordinated effort getting a Google places profile, a Twitter handle, a Facebook page, and an Instagram profile all with the same name can help their search engine needs. Or you can to demonstrate to them how quickly they can update their own wordpress site and have it reflected in social media with the right plug-ins.

Sure – most of them won't need you, but the ones who do would much rather pay you to do it for them than do what you show them how to do yourself.

> I'm curious if anyone has had success with this.

I've found full-time non-remote work through meetup.com meetups. It wasn't very hard. I'm sure mileage will vary though, especially if the "must be remote" requirement implies significant distance from an urban area.

I'm a mobile app developer and I have got most of my work from meetups and local business events. Just remember that going to the geeky meetups will only get you so far. You need to think who would buy your services and go to meetups made for them. I've had the most success with product management and other business related meetups.

Obvious in retrospect but a very good suggestion. I mostly go to geeky meetups and usually lament how everyone is the same. When I go to the odd business meetup, I find a very diverse crowd. Finding the right business meetups can be hard though. Any thoughts on how to find them?

I second this.

We used to hire on Upwork regular for bigger projects and it usually was close to a gamble (for both parties). You get > 30 applicants easily if you pay decent wages and the cv's are usually quite non saying.

We gave people small, test projects to see if they could deliver and communicate effectively (they didn't know it was a test .. we paid them of course). Been having a decent experience on Upwork so far from the hiring side (we started this year). If you found resources on how to use Upwork more effectively, would appreciate pointers :)

> The problems with Upwork and Freelancer, while significant, are regularly blown out of proportion. I don't recommend them for more than finding short gigs when you're in a pinch, but they are useful for that. Do be prepared to lose a lot of jobs to bidders from the third world. Take advantage of anything that you can use to differentiate yourself.

I would second this. It's not great pay, but OP already expressed they'd take less than market. If you learn which types of jobs to quickly ignore, I think a person could easily stay fully engaged in the $25-50/hr range. There's quite a few clients there that are sick of what they get at the lower end of the spectrum.

Most of this sounds like reasonable advice. I will warn however, that if you go to the Chamber of Commerce, be prepared to have a lot of people misunderstand what you do (no matter how you frame it) and to get a lot of time-wasting inquiries wanting you to fix their Windows problems for peanuts, even if what you do is, say, graphic design. Likewise, my experience with things on meetup.com has been terrible. It felt like mostly desperate people all trying to connect with anyone at all, and nobody who actually needed a service.

That's just the cost of doing business.

There are good groups on Meetup, at least in my area, but you do have to sift through a lot of chaff to find the wheat.

EDIT: "a lot of time-wasting inquiries wanting you to fix their Windows problems for peanuts"

If OP is as desperate for short-term cash as he says he is, Windows problems are another opportunity. Also, when dealing with people who see all these unrelated issues as "computer problems", establishing trust is more important than demonstrating skill. As a result, you'd be surprised how often fixing Windows problems can lead to actual development work, either as your client grows, or through referrals.

Honest question. Are business cards still useful?, do people actually hold to them?. If I'm interested in a person I trade emails, done. I don't know anyone who holds business cards from other people.

If you're only doing business with techies, that's probably the best way to do it.

When dealing with small business owners, you will meet people who don't have a smartphone handy to fire off an email from. Shoot, you will meet people who do not have an email address.

Yup that makes sense. I'm always working with tech people thats probably why. Well then I should probably do some networking outside my circle, could be beneficial.

How do you trade emails? You would have to write it down somewhere. Togheter with your name and the reason why he should contact you...

That's basically a business card. Just a crappy handwritten one. :)

With my cellphone, "Hey send me an email to bla bla...", no paper involved. I guess this is a scene I don't know about, someone even mentioned that some people don't have email?...crazy.

I find business cards hugely useful as the client. If you don't give me one, I'll forget how to contact you in a few hours.

I have a few inch tall stack of business cards I've collected over the years, mostly from people who wanted to sell me or the company I worked for at the time something. When I or my company want to buy something, I go to that stack and can quickly find contact info to reach out to one of the people and get quotes or info.

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