Ask HN: Consultants and independent contractors, where do you find clients?

[nomeq]

Pre-pandemic, I was able to network easily at conferences and meetups, but in the time since, I haven't found a good replacement.

I'm a software engineer and former CTO, interested in both custom development and higher level questions of technical strategy and system design. Places like Upwork don't seem geared to this type of work (unless I'm mistaken).

Is this kind of work now mostly handled by large consultancies that provide contractors, unless you have significant connections? How are you all networking and marketing yourselves in these unprecedented times?

[fxtentacle]

Prospective clients find me on LinkedIn and then contact me. Also, there are some staffing agencies that keep lists of freelance consultants so that they can keep their client happy even if they don't find any suitable hire. Sometimes when I'm bored, I actually chat with their recruiters.

Also, pull requests. I once fixed a crash bug in the Unreal Engine 4 and submitted a patch. Afterwards, a game studio called me. Similarly, I got contacted by an AI consultancy after I submitted a patch to TensorFlow.

Plus me and my friends do a lot of online competitions. Last year we briefly "won" Sintel, this year its Bomberland. Nothing says "this guy can do AI" better than ranking in-between FAANG teams in an AI competition.

[teekay]

I get a few leads from the SEEKING FREELANCER monthly thread here on HN. Not enough to fill my dance card yet but it is snowballing.

A few years back, I landed a high-paying gig through Upwork. I think it was mostly luck and I wouldn't use the site to find clients anymore. I do use it to hire the occasional contractor though; I hired my accountant there, and have recently found a great front-end dev there as well. The issue with Upwork is that as a client, you get bombarded by dozens of generic bids and sifting through them to find a quality candidate is a chore.

Most of my work has come through recruiters, which is both a blessing (I didn't have to do any marketing) and a curse (I don't "own" the client relationships). These days I am focusing on building my online presence and finding ways to get in front of people who need my expertise.

[au246]

Don't laugh, but I've landed some consulting/side gigs (most recently an I.T. project review with a recommendations report deliverable), based on people that I've met while out socially, and also intro's from people that I know that I run into socially. However, when out socially, I never start off by selling my services, but by having regular conversations, asking them what they do, et cetera.

I also blog about interesting topics in the Caribbean (which MSM rarely touches, at least in my neck of the Caribbean woods), and I use that as a convo starter when people ask me what I do (citizen journalism personally, CTO professionally), and what background I'm from (I.T. and business/commercial roles).

Hope that helps.

[rossdavidh]

I am usually operating at a senior programmer level, not making CTO type decisions but often making architectural ones (for clients that don't have a full-time IT staff). So my experience may or may not be comparable to yours. But, for what it's worth, here's my count of where I found clients:

job posting forum: 10 (2 of them HN "Who's Hiring" posts, 1 meetup.com, 1 Google jobs, the others I don't recall but some were monster.com or indeed.com)

previous coworker: 3

previous client: 2

friend of a friend of a friend: 1

I haven't actually taken a gig found via LinkedIn, but I get inquiries from there.

[revorad]

Personal contacts, LinkedIn (I know), recruiters and some specialist job boards.

I covered some of the details in this video - https://learnetto.com/tutorials/how-to-look-for-contract-wor...

[mraza007]

This is great thread as someone who aspires to pursue independent contracting, later in future.

I would love to hear someone's perspective on how technology blogging landed them clients

[JoeMayoBot]

During the pandemic, most of my work is coming from previous clients. Occasionally, some of the people I work with leave and make referrals for me in their new companies.

[bdcravens]

Codementor is good. Doing one-on-one calls at a reasonable rate is good, but even better, many of those "mentoring" calls can turn into long-term engagements.

[vr46]

Word of mouth - they find me. I'm not on LinkedIn, my hatred of it is well-known, but I have met enough people over the years that keep me busy with work.

[buttocks]

I have found some of my clients in end-user forums related to the tech for which I specialize. In some cases, they have found me.