Trying to find different options in the freelance area on how to get the very first project to work on. Fellow HN'ers, please post your experiences.
Networking is the most important. I built my first website for the small company I was employed. At one point a customer contacted my boss about who built the website, and he referred to me. (Which I'm still grateful for!). The next client: also within my network. Once you've done a few gigs, people will find you for work if you're good at it. Which brings me to the next point:<p>Underpromise and overdeliver. Always.<p>Just doing a good job isn't enough for people to reference for you. You have to be better than they expect. Client asks for two designs to choose from within two weeks? You give him three designs in one week, and tell them which one you like the best and why. That kind of stuff. Once you've secured the project, be communicative about progress and (especially) delays. This all may sound simplistic, but it would surprise you how many big shot agencies don't do these things.<p>Odesk/Elance? It's not working for me. I'd rather make a website for free for someone I know personally, with the intent of building a network and a portfolio, than building a website for a couple of tenners for someone on the other side of the planet.
Its all networking. I would setup a good looking portfolio and start emailing other HN members. That will get you a fair amount of initial work. Then its just a matter of more networking. I also had good luck doing cold emails to people on LinkedIn.Just make sure to have a portfolio. People want to see what you have <i>done</i>, not hear about what you can do.<p>I will warn you: in order to maintain a good volume of work you have to become good at marketing. If you do not look forward sales, and or negotiations, you might be better off working with an agency. Less money, but less hassle.
As a full-timer looking to start freelancing on the side, I'm interested in this as well. I've heard too many horror stories about oDesk and friends. A popular approach I've heard is doing pro-bono work and getting a referral, but I feel like that would fall into the trap of "well you did that guy's stuff for free, what about me?"
Networking. A friend of a friend needed a website. When you're freelancing everyone is a potential customer. Early freelancing projects are not that hard to get, it's much more difficult to turn a small portfolio into a reliable revenue stream.
elance, odesk, etc are fine, it's just that the signal to noise ratio is very bad. Filter through the projects until you find reasonable projects with reasonable budgets.<p>Post on the seeking freelancer thread. I posted on there for the first time this month and have received a few contacts but unfortunately took on a large job right after doing so, so I haven't been able to take advantage.<p>Put together a portfolio if you don't have one already.<p>Network. Go to local events if you can, developer meetups but also things like chamber of commerce meetings. Keep in touch with your clients. Eventually, the bulk of your work should come from your network.
I'm currently working on my first freelance project.<p>I got it through this guy I worked with at a company. He was my desk neighbor, he liked my work, I told him I was looking for freelance work and he told me he could use some help.
I just started freelancing this week. I got lucky and was able to get work from my network which I thought was terrible. And I went on elance and may get a job there. But the rates on elance and similar websites are really low.
I have a IFTTT script that crawls Craigslist for specific keywords and then it emails me the hits. Craigslist generally has a low signal to noise ratio, but I have landed a few things from there.