tagabek

I'm not sure if can see established businesses buying a "swag" subscription service. The best way to find out is to ask them for money directly. Say you're starting up a service that [Insert Elevator Pitch Here] and subscriptions are $20/month. Ask them if they would like to preorder.

What came next for you when money started to be less appealing as you earned more of it?

It's better to full-ass one thing than to half-ass many things.

I had the same kind of revelation about high school. Programming and the internet allowed me to build a life outside of school that eventually became the source of my livelihood and lifestyle.

You have a fantastic problem on your hands. The demand is exceeding the supply.

I would suggest raising your prices for all new clients. You might also consider bringing on subcontractors to handle the smaller jobs for you.

HN is the one place that I like to read entire comment strings. If I find a comment to be junk, I will generally pass it up immediately.

I think they found a nice balance between honoring her life and creating something that is pleasing to look at.

In addition to this, there are plenty of people on HN that could throw you opportunities. You may want to reconsider posting your experience.

What do you want to do?

Do you want to freelance, get a full time job, and/or go to school? Think about why you would be doing each one. Do you just like to code? Are you interested in making a lot of money? Do you just want to learn more?

I think your next step should be identifying a passion that you have. Do you want to develop/design mobile applications? Do you want to get your hands dirty with backend development? Etc.

Once you have an idea, start building a portfolio of projects using the technologies you are passionate about. That is the easiest way to start finding work (freelance or full-time).

Think about what you want for your future. Do you want to work 9am-5pm every day? Do you want total control over your hours? Do you want to be in class every day? What appeals to you the most? Figure out what lifestyle you want to live right now and think about how a full-time job, freelancing, and/or school might affect your ability to get to that point.

Also, here's a tip for freelancing. Stop thinking about yourself as a C developer or a [Insert Language Here] programmer. Instead, focus on specific problems that combinations of your skills can solve. You are probably doing this now as you describe "coding for websites". If you're making websites now, that might be a good place to draw an example from. Businesses need nice websites. I would find plenty of businesses that either don't have or have bad websites. Contact them. Instead of offering yourself as a PHP programmer, offer to build and design them a nice website. Show them examples of your work.

Let's say you get pulled over and the cop asks you how fast you were going. Do you just not say anything?

SEEKING WORK - Remote, San Diego

Hi, I'm Taylor! I develop & design iOS Applications.

I can update your app to look great on iOS 7!

Learn more about me at http://taylorbeck.me/

Honestly, Xcode for iOS Development in Objective-C.

In addition to that, Parse for backend development. I'm just getting started learning backend development for iOS, and Parse is the best way to do it in my opinion.

I'm not sure if this is considered a "tool," but TeamTreehouse.com for learning. Their platform is growing everyday, looks and feels beautiful to use, has a fantastic community, and the quality of the tutorials and other content is unlike any other service.

I'm really enjoying the beta. I would really appreciate being able to edit the title of the Unsorted category, as I am trying to mimic the default Gmail categories.

I would drop the name to just SquareMail.

The sorting contacts feature is amazing.

In my professional opinion, the UI/UX is way better than any mobile email (or at least Gmail) client that exists today. The Mailbox app was definitely not as well done as this, but there marketing effort was fantastic. If you can market this effectively and build up a ton of hype for your launch, this will be huge.

I'm going to repost my comment here from a previous thread.

I am an iOS Freelance Developer, and this path is what got me my first client.

It seems like you are very aware of what you are capable of. It's great to be realistic, but also realize that you are now in the professional market like everyone else. Like the other posts say here, NETWORK.

Go to local meetups and present yourself as a real professional. Create business cards (BONUS: Make yours stand out from the rest). You will receive many business cards by going to these meetups. You can probably gauge what would make yours flashier.

Update your LinkedIn, Twitter, HackerNews, Blog, etc immediately with solid and presentable information. If you're unsure of how to do this professionally, check out other professionals' pages and emulate success.

Now, BUILD THAT PORTFOLIO. Even one side project is generally enough to show someone that you can do the work. Do you want to show off your skills, but you're not sure what to build? Take a popular site and build a small client for it. This is one of the most exciting experiences you will ever go through. We hear about people building businesses all of the time, and it seems amazing. There is so much more passion - in my experience - when you are building yourself. Congratulations on taking this huge step!

Please feel free to contact me if you have any basic questions about the whole freelancing process. I'm happy to help in any way! (Email in profile)

What are the best ways to find a house to rent like this in Bangalore?

First step: Get an app in the App Store.

Next, start talking with local business owners by calling them and asking for 15 minutes of their time. Explain how an app can make them money. This can easily lead to starting at $100/hr or $4,000/week. It worked for me.

SEEKING WORK - Remote, San Diego

Hi, I'm Taylor! I develop & design iOS Applications.

I can update your app to look great on iOS 7!

Learn more about me at http://taylorbeck.me/

Could this price be the estimated value for all of the pieces put together?

You can also use these first few projects as pieces for your portfolio. On top of that, building up buffer income and a client pipeline are good ideas.

I used the subreddit that was related to my app. I gained about 10,000 downloads from being on the Front Page there, and now I average about 150 downloads a day.

I would say that free marketing techniques (basically embracing the online communities) are the best way to share your product - especially apps.

Save that money and market for 'free'.

Embrace online communities that might like your app. Market to them.

Use Twitter to spread the word. Tumblr is also a great place to help something go viral.

SEEKING WORK - Remote / San Diego, CA

Hi, I'm Taylor! I develop and design iOS Applications.

You can find me at: http://taylorbeck.me

These ideas are all right, but they don't necessarily address growing useful talents. Sure, managing your time effectively by grocery shopping every day helps you with your time management skills, but so does everything else.

I also do not agree with the idea that only college students can do these five things. A student is like any other person, and they are capable of learning any "useful" skill that they are interested in, to a certain extent.

If you really make it your goal, passively earning $1,000/month becomes easy. Then $2,000; $5,000; and $10,000 are just simple milestones.

If you're looking for a way to make that much, find someone who is making an equal amount by doing something you're interested in. Copy success, and adapt to your situation.

I second Freshbooks.com . At $19.99/month, it's a great deal.

I have noticed changes on various sites, so my general rule is to disable while shopping around.

It is true that getting the client can be the "hardest" part, but I believe that is only in the beginning. What you really need to do is make local business owners believe that they A. Need an X SOFTWARE for their business immediately and B. You are the one that can and should provide it for them.

If you're the one that convinces them that they need this software for their business, and you provide this service, they're going to immediately come to you.

Don't think about it as getting gigs. This generally implies scanning through existing listings. Try to reach out to your community and hold that free (1-2)hour-long workshop on how (INSERT YOUR LINE OF WORK HERE) is increasing businesses revenue streams.

I am in nearly the same boat as you. I am a college student, who makes iPhone Apps, and I've just recently become a freelancer/consultant.

Here's a tip. $10,000 might seem like A LOT now, but it is really just ($1,000 x 10 projects), ($2,000 x 5 projects), ($4,000 x 2.5 projects/weeks), etc. What I'm saying is that if you break it down, it isn't that much, and it becomes quite easily attainable in 2~3 months time.

First off, look at patio11's comment in this thread, memorize it, and make it your new business mindset from now on. His blog woke me up to the reality of doing business (If you haven't, check it out:http://www.kalzumeus.com/blog/).

Ok, now onto what what you really want to know - how specifically do you make $10,000 in a few months?

1st, have a specific goal and a desire. Check!

2nd, set up a business to do your freelancing through. I set up a sole proprietorship for $52. Now make a website. I used SquareSpace to set up an already-designed website that I modified just a bit, and they provide the whole website-in-a-box package for $10/month. Now set up personal Twitter & LinkedIn accounts if you haven't already. This whole process took me 30 minutes online.

3rd, find clients that are willing to pay you for your services. AHHHH! This is impossible! No one is going to pay for MY skills, right? VERY, VERY, VERY WRONG. You say that you've already made apps. You can already prove that you can make an app and put it in the App Store. You're way ahead of a lot of people. Make a list of 20 local businesses that might like to have an app. I'm talking about locally-owned restaurants, dental offices, ice cream stores, etc. Now, make an overall script of what you would say to them, and modify it slightly to fit the business. Call them up in the morning when you expect them to be less busy, and sell them on the idea that they want an app for their business. I know what you're thinking - UGH... COLD CALLS? REALLY? Well, they work, and they're a great way to get started! They are just the first step! Soon enough, you will never have to do it again! Oh and, things will go wrong. Don't let that stop you, because you'll be the one that is laughing when you have reached $15,000 instead of your originally planned $10k.

Read patio11's example of an ideal pitch, as posted above.

How would you convince e.g. a financial adviser that he urgently wants to have an iOS app written? That might start with "How much do you make on your average customer account every year?" "A few thousand dollars." "How often do you get to talk to them?" "Mostly commonly, once or twice a year." "Do they ever cancel saying 'I don't understand what I'm paying you for." "That's my #1 cause of losing clients." "Wouldn't it be better if you were on their home screen every day?" "YES."

I think their plan is to emphasize their new iPhones as much as possible. In addition to not sharing this event with other devices, they are not accepting preorders for the iPhone 5S, which implies that they want to build as much hype as possible, and to get people waiting in lines again.

They'll release new devices when it makes sense to their marketing team.

That, and the color black now being "Space Grey".

I've been using Freshbooks for about a month now, and will be happy to be paying the monthly fee starting next month.