Ask HN: Breaking into solo software development work

As the title suggests, I’m curious what steps people have taken to get from “I want to work for myself” to actually doing it.

I have read many blog posts explaining the difference between consultant and contract work, even more about “I manage this alone and it’s great” posts, but I am curious to just hear directly “I started doing X, which eventually got me to where I could live off of my solo work”

Just thinking about it with what I know, the hardest part of getting started feels like it’s going to be both finding work (preferably a large enough pool of it to not have to settle for terrible jobs) but also building a reputation (a chicken and egg problem, plus needed to not have to settle for the aforementioned terrible jobs). Networking feels like a huge part of this as well, as people know people with jobs, so widening that network makes complete sense, but curious to hear how heavily you all weight it as well.

Another detail that may matter is I don’t want to limit work to the tech sector. While that’s where I have worked for all of my career as a software developer, it isn’t really where I need to stay. Hell I think breaking out of this industry would do wonders for my mental health lol.

I don’t need people to tell me “you don’t want to do this” as that isn’t what I am asking.