| Assess your interests and join related communities. Find new interests and join more communities. Seek out technically interesting domains currently attracting the interest of entrepreneurs and investors. Ignore any stigma and be a good person with integrity. Be attentive. Be intentional. Look for problems you think you can solve. Solve them for people. Build connections. Make genuine friends. Help your friends out. Spend time helping them find work and being there for them when they need it (Looks like you're doing this now!). Good people may return the favor one day when you most need it. Showing up is half the battle. Show up everywhere. Find cool emerging scenes and become an early expert. Don't fake it; develop the ability to be earnestly interested in anything. Be interested in what other people are doing. Make your services and expertise known. Make it easy to contact you. Go out and talk about what you know in public spaces such as this forum. Reach out to people who are doing the same, and build a professional network. No pretense, just reach out, tell them what you like about them/their posts, tell them what you do, and that you'd like to keep in contact with them. Remember personal details they share with you. Follow up. Raise your flag and people will see it, and your tribe will coalesce. I received several emails just yesterday from the Hacker News community, people reaching out to discuss things that I've posted and offer work. You won't find work tomorrow following this advice. You might not find work at all this year, or next. But this is the playbook for networking online and finding yourself in interesting situations with interesting people. Do that enough, and suddenly it becomes history. Suddenly you're a known quantity in your circles, and you have contextual expertise to draw from in order to solve people's problems. People will pay you to do that. |