Help Pay My Bills: A HN Experiment | Hacker News Reader

Help Pay My Bills: A HN Experiment

bendauphinee.com

74 pointsbendauphinee72 comments

Have you tried odesk.com, elance.com, rent-a-coder.com?

You might find some good competition from East European, Russian and Asian Coders on these sites- some of them are terrific coders/developers, but you also have some inherent advantages.

From experience of working with contractors/programmers on odesk.com, in my opinion these would be your inherent advantages that you can use to market yourself:

1) working and being avalable to work with, during sane hours (for North Am.) - working with somebody from half way across the world, even if they are very good, can be tiring in the long run

2) Cultural acquaintance - Many programmers from the developing world have not been exposed to the day to day life here in the more developed western world. when websites are dealing with making the day to day life easier, dealing with those whose awareness of it is next to nothing could be a big challenge sometimes. (There are some who really good at understanding, though)

Other problem here is, from experience, even if they could speak english, not eveybody can catch the nuances and subtleties of langauge which does have a bearing in good comprehension/communication. (to be honest, even my english is not upto the mark of an equally educated American, though I have lived in the US for almost 1/3rd of my life)

3) The understanding of confidentiality is next to nothing in many countries. Even if the understanding is there, the enforceability of related laws is very poor or next to nothing. So, thats a big biz risk you can market yourself on to North American customers on these sites, especially when dealing with unique ideas.

Good luck.

Thanks for the suggestions. I've been through both rent-a-coder and odesk, and the big problem I found with bidding on projects is that most of them are scut work, and I can't compete with twenty other people from East Europe, Russia and Asia.

The big problem I found with bidding on projects is that most of them are scut work, and I can't compete with twenty other people from East Europe, Russia and Asia.

I used to think this when I first started using RentACoder. Then I thought sod this, and started giving quotes at my full-whack rate, and you know what? It worked, and it's continuing to work :)

One bit of advice I'd like to add: don't be put off if the price listed for a project is a bit below (or even way) below what you'd like to charge; I find a simple email with questions, a rough timeline and then basic explanation of why your quote costs so much (you need to work for a while at a good rate) works well. Good luck!

I will have to start trying this approach. Thanks for the tip. That was one of the problems I had, was that it was so cheap.

You're welcome :)

There is one downside with RentACoder though, and that's that you won't win any jobs without having first complete a couple successfully. It's not the end of the world - find quick and easy tasks, explain that you're looking to build up your rating, and offer to do them for $3. It does mean that you'll lose a day or two of income though. Once you have a couple of ratings though, the only way is up! :)

I agree with both the excellent points made by motothemax:

Don't back off from bidding higher than the disered "quotes" mentioned by customers. Once I went for a designer who was quoting more than twice my initial upper limit for that job. when I looked at his profile, he had a very, very long portfolio of his freelanching designs as well as designs he worked on for customers. He had a lot of very high ratings from his past customers and he justified/explained in a similar way that motothemax mentioned about why his rates were higher. Another thing was, he was very professional and upbeat throughout his communications.

So if you did be interested in some feedback on deciding priorites of a customer:

1) Portfolio 2) ratings from past customers (here the readiness to work initially for lower rates, may be usable sometimes) 3) scores on Odesk tests and the distribution of those scores across different tests - its not perfect system, but its better than no scores

Maybe you need a more structural employment to balance the need to pay your bills?

After all you can't post this sort of thing every day, and if the first day is successful you will still have the same problem on the next.

I agree, though what you wrote works really well in terms of selling yourself - could keep it in mind for some kind of landing page to use with the services suggested above.

This is true. I was considering that might be an issue, to get recurring traffic. I have hope though that enough people bookmark the page to come back to that I can continue selling my time. Even a few hours a day is better than nothing.

I have actually started applying for jobs again, which stinks because I love the freedom that freelance affords. Unfortunately for me, freedom does not pay the bills :)

I need a copywriter to fluff up some text for SEO on a website.. but it's not in the list of things on offer, and I'd happily $12 an hour for that kind of work.

Wondering if $12 for copywriting work is expensive. An article with relevant content & tuned for SEO within an hour is fairly demanding. A good 500 word article will cost $15 in the market.

I run SEO services & have been using this new startup mediapiston.com as the content provider. I have had good experience so far. They have excellent review process where each article goes through 3 reviewers before it is submitted back to the requester. You can possibly try such a service.

As far as the author, programming & design work would get best rewards and in single chunk.

I don't think his intention is to find and match perfect market prices, he's just throwing this out there to see what happens. Note also that given his skill set, if one was marketing to a technical audience, $12/hour might be cheap...

This is correct. I'm seeing what happens, and if I can get my bills off my back. My standard rate for work is $25/hr so I'm currently quite discounted, just to get some work quickly.

I pay my copywriter $200 per hour. What you're calling "copywriting" is actually "article writing," and what you're calling "good" is actually "not horrendously terrible". They are demonstratively not the same thing. My copywriter can prove that she increases conversion rate, and thus money, not just search engine uptake.

Jor from MediaPiston here. We recently AB tested with a daily deals provider to compare email open rate and click rate of deal descriptions, and beat the internal team to win their business. Not all online services that involve copy writing have to be crud quality just because the writers happen to be working from home.

I never said anything about working from home. I said $12 per hour isn't real copywriting.

Have you tried selling stock photography on iStockPhoto? Collis from Envato said he made something like $6k a year without even touching it. Why not upload all your photos there?

He also has a site called CodeDen or something, where you can sell PHP scripts. Why not do some work and upload your stuff there?

There are lots of large communities specialising in the stuff you list there!

I had to look that up because I thought $6k/year was laughably low and you must have forgotten a zero. Turns out he made $6k in THREE years:

http://freelanceswitch.com/money/how-i-make-2000-every-year-...

With the AdSense non-sense, pennies from the appstore and what have you, I am starting to wonder: are people really that averse to going outside and getting a non-laptop job? I used to make $500/day washing windows, man. It was me, a bucket of sprays and a bunch of rags. Should I have blogged about it and tweeted around?

Where was that $500/day washing windows job? If i don't get funding, I might need something like that when I would quit my job and start working on my start up full time

Would hate to drain up my resources by not having any cash flow.

Northern Virginia, D.C. area. It's a seasonal job but you will do just fine if you do everything yourself.

I started doing individual private homes, then moved on to working with realtors and community organizations. Best bang for the buck is just going to few apartment buildings and dropping 200 pamphlets saying "Window cleaning on Saturday: Call 1-800-xxx-xxxx to schedule. $100 Cash/Check". If you're doing move outs, take cash up front. Don't ever ever have credit card on file; they will give you the card, then go shopping online. Don't be lazy and hire someone off the street: some homeowners are social parasites praying on these types of businesses, if they sense you're an amateur they will claim theft or broken property to get a free service, or worse, hustle you for money! The worst ones are middle-aged single men. If you see a lawyer don't bother serving them; scum of the earth, $0.10 is the price of their letterhead, and it's how much it costs them to ruin you. If you suspect someone is fussy, walk away, not worth the trouble. Be firm and do good job.

Don't use a squeegee by itself, squeegee then wipe. Thin roll paper is best, the kind that don't feel spongy like a toilet paper (but more like newspaper.) If you use cloth rags get the thinest hardest ones you can get; the padded ones with sponge or cotton inside wear and tear after wash and the cotton comes out, sticking to staticy glass.

No poles or extensions. Period. If you use a ladder watch where you lean it against, and watch where it stands (I had it sink into soft ground slowly throwing me 12 feet down.)

Try not to break anything. Repair will ruin you.

Lock all the doors and windows when you're done and instruct the homeowner to do a check around. Tell them it's their responsibility.

Ask me if you need further help.

Good luck!

[Edit:

I must add this. No intellectual conversations with clients. People don't like "well read, well traveled" types, and if you appear upwardly mobile at all, people will feel uneasy; they get self-conscious and they don't want to be seen by someone who might be critical of them intellectually or professionally. When you see a shelf of Dan Browns, the ever pretentious Hegel for Dummies, or those "Prague for Bachelors" books, keep a straight face.]

Thanks for the great advice - gives me one more very good option to consider (used to drive taxis, before and after getting jobs).

Without implying that the advice before the edit was any less useful - because that was definitely very good advice - the one you addded in the edit is a gem of a practical advice, especially for me.

I think I was susceptable to getting distracted by "interesting" stuff and it might have helped me get tagged (albeit, unwillingly) as an asshole in the past.

Yeah, don't do that.

I am probably generalizing when I say this, but to some extent, you will find in that business that a good chunk of your clients will be using your services for the sense of luxury it gives them. It's often decided on a whim, as an indulgence. So chatting up clients as "class peers" often ruins this fantasy for them. For many of them it's their chance to get spoiled and catered to, so "yes sir, yes ma'am" is all you should say to them.

Another thing is that people, specially the well off and people in sensitive positions are weary of having someone with a clue in their house. It's not unusual to overhear sensitive conversations. So, try to be dumb and folksy.

Cheers!

So chatting up clients as "class peers" often ruins this fantasy for them.

I hadn't thought of it that way till now, but now when I think back, it does make a chunk of sense. I might even have unwilling intimidated some, by talking about stuff they didn't know (they, as in customers)

The point about "sensitive positions are weary..." thats another good one.

Who knows, may be HN (and the contributors on it) would be the perfect educators for me to get out my social awkwardness!!

How on earth is washing windows worth $500 / day ?! Or am I misunderstanding and does it involve rope work?

Not difficult at all - I remember paying £25 for someone to clean the 4 windows of a flat I was living in, which was on the 1st floor of a house.

How long do you think it takes to do 4 windows, exterior only, with a mop on an extended handle? (the answer is: not very long at all)

He was cleaning next door's windows, so I spoke to him as I walked past, and he dropped an invoice through the letterbox. And then 4 weeks later, he cleaned the windows again, as if I'd signed up to a subscription... So I paid £25 again, for not much.

If you can schedule a route of cleaning, you can do 12 houses in just a couple of hours.

12 x £25 = £300 (which isn't far off $500; $475 at today's exchange rate).

You'd need to deduct your van costs and cleaning equipment out of that though.

We pay £3 a fortnight to have about 6m^2 of window (ground floor) cleaned to retail spec including wiping down the paintwork afterwards and a free internal clean every 6 months or so.

It takes probably as long for them to take the money as it does to actually clean (about 5mins I reckon).

I think you are misunderstanding. It didn't cost his customers $500/day, it cost 5 of them $100 how ever often they needed it (probably once when they moved out of their apartment). Would you seriously spend so much of your own time doing such boring work if you could just pay a profession a measly $100 to do it for you (probably faster and better than you would do).

>Would you seriously spend so much of your own time doing such boring work if you could just pay a profession a measly $100 to do it for you (probably faster and better than you would do).

Working off $100 as near enough £60 then it would have to take at least half a day for it to be worth doing IMO. Sure if you're on £60 an hour then it's probably worth paying someone that for the 15mins they take to clean all your windows.

Seems a bit steep to me though - I could buy the ladder, squeegee and sponge and do the windows and still not be down and of course next time I'd have the ladder, etc., already.

If you had to buy the Ladder etc then it ends up not being $100 saved right? Besides, the setup time plus actual window cleaning would take considerably longer than 15 minutes.

You will not hesitate to charge that much, and more, when you find your wet finger tips freezing in the cold, or the first time a 30 pound glass panel falls shut on your wrist.

I got just as much business from cleaning companies as direct clients.

You can spend half your time unhinging ancient sliding glass windows, melting 50 year old pain that has sealed them shut, removing storm-windows and screens, tip-toeing on white new carpet while carrying a desk-sized piece of dust and cobweb infested panel. And oh, the fun you will have scrapping plant matter, dead insects and scum off of garden-facing windows. How about the demented old lady who forgets who you are and dials 9/11 at your "sight", right after she calls you a nigger several times and sicks a dog on you?

It's not all get in and get out, but it taught me how to run a business, and my subsequent ventures after that were all a breeze compared. However, it is the most lucrative business with little upfront investment.

Passive income is the holy grail. $6k in 3 years sounds low, but that was without touching it. That's like a $2k/yr raise just being given to you. And the more of those you can get the more of your time can be financed to do what you want.

A guy I know was making $100-150/day from passive stock sales. Not too bad for some shots he took on holiday.

Tried iStockPhoto. Applied twice with different images both times, and was rejected both times. The problem with iStockPhoto is that now all but the most obscure niches are filled, so it is difficult to even get in the door with them.

Never heard of CodeDen. Can't even find them in a quick Google search. Have a link?

Here is what I think you should do:

1) Do some research online about legitimate ways to make money. Make a very long list with no fewer than 100 entries. These don't need to be things that you're interested in, but each one needs to result in some form of income. None of these things should cost any money to make money or require you to pimp out your friends and family for referrals. Don't limit yourself online either, remember that people earn money in easy ways offline as well and that something as easy as personal shopping for an elderly person in your neighborhood can bring in $50 a week for something you're doing anyway. Be creative and constantly add to this list.

2) Create profiles, sign up or apply to each one of these money making methods. In some cases, you'll need to create basic websites (storefronts), etc to facilitate income. Do not spend any more than 4 hours of a single day stetting up any single method.

3) Start thinking about a portfolio. It doesn't matter what life goals you have, you need a portfolio - especially if you're going to be earning money this way. Think about what your "perfect" job / gig / startup looks like and carefully collect items for your portfolio that support your expertise in your target area. Opportunistic portfolio work is the only type of work you should ever do cheap or free.

4) I bet you have already started to do these things. You've identified 4 very general things on your website that you can do. However, you've put out a general call for work in common areas. Think about your skills (starting with the 4 you've listed) and look at the looong list of money making opportunities.

5) Once you get a couple of bucks in your pocket and you get the bill collectors (if any) off of your back, a really fun experiment is to have your bills paid by passive income. One-by-one, if you can slowly discard one bill at a time using things like affiliate programs, ad income from your blog, whatever... you'll really start to have fun. The only rule in this "game" is to define a small number of maintenance hours per week to maintain your passive income. The natural progression of passive income using this strategy is to take an item from your looong list of income sources and modularize / mechanize it to reduce the amount of labor it takes to complete the task to the absolute minimum. Sometimes, leveraging the low cost labor of others to preform tasks that are easy to repeat is a great way to move a task completely passive.

6) Above all else, keep your chin up. Remember the setbacks and failures but don't let them put you in a bad mood. Staying upbeat and creative is the key.

I have been working towards creating passive income. One of the projects I am working on is a v1 of my own freelance business management tool, but that is still a few weeks from completion.

And of course, I am keeping my chin up. As disturbing as it is to get calls about overdue bills, I am not letting that paralyze me (as shown by this experiment).

Don't fall into the passive income trap. How many hours have you spent creating this tool that could have been spent freelancing or at a PT job. Or talking to prospective clients BEFORE creating the tool? There are a ton of products already out there.

While this is true, I am building for myself anyway. I'm using this project to test several pieces of new code I have constructed, and I have been using it to manage my own freelance work anyway.

Sorry, but if that site is anything to go by I don't think I would be asking you to help design a web site.

I like my own design for my sites. But here are some other samples of client sites.

http://youthrunningseries.ca http://ginettejewellerydesign.com http://duncanhadleytriathlon.ca

Knowing how to design a website and being able to design a website are two very different things. You just know how to design a website. You are not able to design one though.

At least give the guy some examples or explanation to back up the judgement you just passed on him.

He gave his own examples, all are mediocre.

All of them are better designed than everyDNS.

There are two broad strokes of web designers. Those who are best suited for true frontend projects and those who are best suited for application design.

Frontend projects require artistic skill and a deep understanding of user interface design.

I bet that you're an application designer. This is an excellent thing to be good at - 99.9% of all medium and large design projects require application development and planning.

If I'm right, you should monopolize on this niche. There are a good number of artistic designers who don't know very much about code. If you develop some examples (aka a portfolio) you could be the "go to guy" whenever any number of large artistic shops needs to integrate or develop an app into their frontend design.

If there are a lot of small businesses in your geographic area who require web design (it doesn't sound like there are), I think that you should either rely on web site templates or subcontracting template design from artsy frontend folks. What you're doing now is a disservice to your own body of work.

Thanks for the feedback. I am more of an application designer than an artsy one for sure. I guess I will have to start pursuing that angle a bit more in depth.

Find a good designer to work with. A developer with a good designer makes a good combo since they can produce stuff that looks good.

If you want customers, give them some value. I didn't read your link because paying your bills is nit in my interests. Perhaps you do something else that is, and would make a better headline?

Do you have a suggestion?

How to Win Friends and Influence People. This book. It should be required reading in school.

No, it shouldn't be. I never read any of the books that were required in school.

How accurate you are. =) I should say that everyone should read it while they are still in school.

Though I do have to admit that you can't avoid learning at least some things about the books you are supposed to have read in order to fake.

What a wonderful suggestion! Thank you, I have just read the first chapter and it was an eye opener.

I agree, great book. Especially for somebody who is not the 'people' type or comes if one comes from an introverted family.

Its like learning a new language, you suddenly start getting more information about people and situations.

Another suggestion for the shy types (am/was one - in transition :), so please don't take offense) - Goodbye to Shy by Leil Lowndes. (warning - there is quite some cheesy sounding advise, but if you look past that, you can find good usable stuff)

"not have to move back into my parents place while I job hunt"

In your position, I would strongly consider moving back into my parents' place. I got married right out of college and my wife worked in resident life while she was a grad student so we could live on campus for free. But if I had been single and struggling to make a freelance career work (instead of married and...), I probably would have moved right back home. Saves a bunch of money (don't forget food savings), which gives you time to build the life you want.

FWIW, I did end up 'giving up my freedom' and took a full-time job in retail so we could get decent health insurance and have a baby. I did that for a year and a half, then split work and childcare with my wife for a couple years, and for the last 2.5 years I've been supporting my wife and three kids solely with my freelance work. So even if you have to give up freedom for a while, you can bank the experience and work your way back.

I can relate to this post. I live in the Philippines have a good steady job but still not enough money to live comfortably and save at the same time.

I sell my extra time at night to do websites and design as well. I have been doing it for a few years now (>4years). I sometimes take breaks from it though.

I never tried odesk or similar sites. I tried to look for a small job there but there are too many uncertainties. Over the years I have about 1 or 2 clients that come back regularly so I just stuck with them. Although more would be better because I still have more time left. lol

I don't get it. Your website looks like crap, your writing is poor, and the color scheme you chose looks like it came out of the 90's. This is pretty pathetic. What makes you think that anybody would hire you over someone else with better, more impressive, credentials?

Thank you for your valuable feedback. I believe that there is a market for my skills, and that has been proven repeatedly. I have gotten work, based on my current website and projects I have done, and I'm sure I will continue to be able to find work in the future as well.

Sure, I'll throw in.

I need a nice, clean PDF report done up with good typography that will be offered as a free report on the main MakeLeaps site.

I was planning on hiring a freelance designer for this, but if you're able to do this, please contact me and lets talk.

Emailed you. Thanks

> Rebel XSi, so quality is not a problem

Because the camera is all that matters, right?

Well of course not. Before I got that last year, I was shooting with a Canon PowerShot A640 for over two years. Just the XSi produces cleaner shots, because of the larger sensor.

Seems a bit lackadaisical.

Is that another way of saying 'creative'?

No, another way of saying 'lacking gusto or spirit'.

This guy might be the bee's knees, but his marketing sucks. The title of the page is "Pay the Bills" FFS! I'm not interested in paying his bills or his fancy pricing scheme. I'm not interested in finding out his talents, if explains he "lives near some parks and trees" before listing any real accomplishments. It practically comes over as arrogant, and I'm amazed he's got any work through this at all.

I seem to have caught your attention though. For someone who is not interested in buying my services, you seem rather worked up about my lack of marketing skills.

No I'm not worked up at all. Most things on the front page of HN catch my attention. Good luck, btw.

You can give TaskRabbit.com a try.

I had never heard of them. Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, I do not live in any of the listed cities.

Try to list your services on http://TaskArmy.com (my startup).

send me an email, i will have php work for you

Sent an email. Thanks

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