Finding Freelance Work as a New Developer
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I had someone reach out recently about advice for new programmers who want to freelance, given that finding clients is even harder right now than it would otherwise be. Specifically how does a new freelancer find opportunities for contract work? My response got long enough that I figured I’d post it, so here it is.
Finding contract work as a brand-new freelancer is tough. My first year or so of doing freelance web development, I reached out to small local businesses, friends and family, and organizations, looking for the lack of a website to guide me to paying customers. I found a decent number of people who wanted websites, but not very many (read: none) who wanted to pay me to build them. Given that I didn’t need to support myself at the time, that was ok. But, if you’re a new freelancer and you want to make money, you’ll need a better approach.
After a few years of stumbling down several fruitless avenues in search of freelance clients, I ended up finding the most success by doing two things: I charged more than I thought I was worth, and I reached out to people in smaller, professional communities.
