| Here's some actionable advice (hope it helps): - Join Toptal (https://toptal.com) or similar sites. I've found their criteria of getting developers on board to be quite hard. Brush up your skills. You'll end up getting good projects overall. The upside is huge. People generally don't bid too low. - Start by cold emailing executives at small-medium tier startups. You can find those companies on Crunchbase (https://www.crunchbase.com/) and AngelList(https://angel.co). Find engineering manager or a C-team executive (CTO, CEO) on Linkedin and message them (or cold email). Tell them how you can add value to their engineering team instead of just asking if you can get a project. All depends on your ability to write a well-crafted email. - Build relationships. I've freelanced before and can vouch that finding good clients is HARD. Keep a healthy relationship with the ones who hired you before, ask them for referral, etc. - Write a useful blog and convert clients from there. Assume it to be your sales funnel if you will.
- Tweet, connect with people virtually. Be genuinely nice. Many people I know got their "big break" in freelancing via Twitter. - If you have Wordpress skills, you can go so far with managing instances for people who don't know a thing. I know people earning $3K a month pretty easily by invoicing a handful of bloggers. Again, cold email is your friend. My parting advice would be to not look for freelance projects. They're a waste of time. Instead, just look for high paying remote PHP jobs. You'll work much less and earn a lot more. I was skeptical at first but YES remote companies pay well too. Go to DailyRemote (https://dailyremote.com) and filter jobs by $70k+. Start applying to those positions. Also, remote companies that are not actively hiring would be interested in a good candidate if you just tell them that you're looking out. Tell them why they need to have you on the team. Most of them would be happy to accommodate. Hope it helps. Good luck! |