IMO, build something for you and sell it vs building something for other people.
You know that trope all startup people say "raise your prices and get rid of the low value high cost customers"
Same thing.
> how you find clients
Word of mouth & referrals from existing clients
> what software stacks you work with
Next.js
React-Query
Prisma
Tailwind CSS
Kubernetes
PostgreSQL
Caddy
In contrast, I've quoted hundreds of dollars an hour while explaining that I didn't think I would offer enough value to actually justify that price in context and encouraged alternatives- and got the job immediately. And the project went very smoothly. In another recent case, I requested tens of thousands of dollars for some project-relevant expenditures, and received a deposit without a single question.
Organizations that are willing to spend money tend to be the ones that understand what they're buying and how to value it.
Big Cos pay high rates often with less aggressive demands, however, the quote above is 'build a business from start to finish' which is something else entirely.
That said contracts like that in my case were short term and tightly scoped, usually 6 months long and with very specific objectives. Areas of expertise I've hired people for were security/cryptography, custom database development/optimizations and network optimization (ie. Infiniband).