On Sep 12, 2006, at 6:27 PM, Nick Zadrozny wrote:
My question to the list is how exactly does one go about getting started in finding freelance work. I'm sure the strategies are as diverse as the people on this list, but please feel free to humor me with some sage advice. I think it'd make good reading, too.
I got started as a freelancer by first working at a design/ad agency type place as their only web guy, then quitting to go on my own. When I quit, they didn't have anywhere else to go and figured out that it would actually be cheaper for them to just hire me as a freelancer to do all their stuff than it did to have me on staff. It was cool because I could do all their work and still have plenty of time to take on other projects, which was a good way to get started. So, they kept me very busy for the first couple years I was on my own which allowed me to start off with a pretty steady income while I built up my client base. They did a good job of taking advantage of my situation and didn't pay me anywhere near what the work was worth, but it allowed me to finally get to the point I'm at now where I don't have any work from them at all, nor do I really care to have any. I suppose we both served each others' purposes well during that time, and I now have enough work and they finally hired a web guy to be in-house. During the last couple years I transitioned from doing mostly design and pretty basic PHP stuff to the point where I'm almost working exclusively on Rails projects now, and things seem to be going pretty well.
I know that's a pretty unique situation, but it worked out all right for me.
For you freelancers: how much of your work is created word of mouth?
Nearly 100% - either repeat work for clients or referrals from people I've worked with or who've seen my work. Never done any sort of "advertising" aside from putting my name and a project on the Rails wiki. Which leads to...
Do you ever get random emails from being listed on the Rails wiki?
Yeah.
Do they ever lead anywhere?
Hmm...I don't think I've actually worked on any projects where the leads originated from the Rails wiki, although some came quite close. A couple leads are still out there and may lead to something, but who knows...
How about leads from someone who has seen your existing work?
Yes, actually working on a project now from this.
Leads from people who read your blog?
Don't have a blog...I suppose I should and always come close to getting one going, but I'm not sure if I could sustain one. I guess I don't really feel like I'd have much to contribute as far as new and exciting Rails techniques and the like (I usually learn a lot from other peoples' blogs) but who knows, I might figure out some stuff to write about...I really want to get one going as a project blog for my stafftool.com project, I think that could be kind of interesting.
hope this helps! - toby _______________________________________________ Sdruby mailing list [email protected] http://lists.sdruby.com/mailman/listinfo/sdruby
