[csomar]

Your labs.im pitch is probably going to send you the worst freelance jobs you'll ever have. Nobody gives a shit about your situation, and your University tuition fees. Actually, this signals a red flag for serious clients: You might drop their project as soon as you get some financing.

Promote yourself as a young, intelligent and enthusiast developer with coding and design skills. Price your hourly rate at $80-100/hour; and get your tuition paid in the next couple weeks.

Edit: Quite a discussion here. I'd like to add that an important part of doing business is trust. Clients are going to throw lots of money that's going to evaporate on HTML and JavaScript code. They want to be sure that you are the guy who is going to give them the right result.

Tip: Make a decent lab page. Look at design agencies in sortfolio and copy them (not their design, their strategy). Build a couple more projects, and open source them on Github. Send emails to design agencies, and try to build a network.

Finally, decide if you want to do this for a living or concentrate on EE. The overhead to get a single project is the same to get a constant stream of projects.

[DavidChouinard]

I agree, I can't overstate how weak your labs.im pitch is, especially in regards to your clearly very impressive skills. That pitch easily cuts your market rate by half, probably more. And as csomar mentioned, it's going to get you the crappiest, bottom-of-the-barrel jobs.

In all types of pitches — to employers, VCs, etc. — desperation is the absolute worst thing you should ever let transpire.

[nhoss2]

Hey, OP here. I realize now that it was a mistake to come off like that but there were a few reasons on why I did:

- I just felt like a piece of shit when I wrote it because I have no connections and have had a very hard time trying to get a normal job. I also had no confidence that any of this would work out so that did not help my ego when writing.

- When I submitted this to HN, it was fairly late and I went to sleep about half and hour later so basically I slept through the entire discussion going on here and it would have been a bit late to change anything after I woke up.

- There was a comment or two saying that maybe I should change the post of labs.im (before I went to sleep) but I did not know what I could write. I didn't just want to write something like "im smart and can do this well" because anyone could say that and I particularly dislike talking about myself like that.

Also, to anyone that has emailed me, I have not replied to any emails yet but I am starting now. And sorry for the late reply.

[bpatrianakos]

I can relate to not wanting to say you're smart and can't do something well. I was/am sometimes the same way. For me it was imposter syndrome plus the idea that since everyone says it how would anyone ever believe such trite, cliche pitches. Well, I've learned from experience that there's a reason so many people market themselves in such similar ways. It works. It's still unbelievable to me but it works. Plus, if it ends up being true it makes your life much easier and things just flow.

You are smart and talented though. So just say so, feel cheesy about it, and profit.

[cglace]

This is the first time I have ever heard the term "imposter syndrome" and I realized that is exactly what I have. Thanks for introducing me to the concept.

[Rulero]

I couldn't agree more with this.

As an employer, what really concerns me are retention rates. I don't want to spend more time a month later looking for another developer.

The way your story sounds is like you want to work for one month and then you will part. I don't know what your plan is, but if you just want to freelance temporally I suggest you go to sites like Elance or oDesk, you will not get much but you will get something. On the other hand, if your looking to start freelancing, even when you begin studying, I strongly suggest you update your homepage and come across more confident.

Finally, if your in a bad financial situation, don't announce it. People will take advantage of the situation and make you work for something your not really worth, when in reality, you know you're worth more.

[mehulkar]

I wouldn't have assumed OP was a broke college student if the home page hadn't told me. There's something about broke college students that just makes you want to make them work for free. And there's something about them that they do it without much persuasion.

[rokhayakebe]

Spot on. I visited the page and immediately thought "Dark Knight," for whatever reason, and I was telling myself this person is a great designer. Out of curiosity I went to the homepage, and the pitch, while moving and honest, kind of took away from him.

[joshmlewis]

Something that I've learned, never undercut yourself when pitching yourself. Even if you don't have real world experience, act like you do. Don't lie, but don't flat out say it. If you act like you know what you're doing and can show a few things like this, this will be enough for most people. Overstate your passion for this stuff and that you're a hard and dependable worker. No doubt you'll get a few emails from this and some will be job offers. I was in the same exact boat almost a year ago when I posted something similar on HN, I got an offer and that gave me that good start I needed. Now I'm cofounding my own startup and we're in an accelerator and raising money. Keep your head up, don't be negative about yourself, and keep pushing, you'll get there.

[devcpp]

$80-100/hour? Is this feasible?

[breckinloggins]

Yes. Yes yes yes!

Did I mention "Yes"?

Look, I used to be you. And lately I've been missing me so I thought it would be fun to sit down with me and advise me on what I didn't have the guts to do years ago.

You're very worth it. Your site alone shows a combination of the following:

- The ability to program something more than just "hello world", a linked list, or the fibonacci sequence. You'd be surprised how many so-called computer science "graduates" I've interviewed who can barely do that, and if so, ONLY that. Don't underestimate the ability to actually program. Contrary to the impression you might get from Hacker News and Proggit, where it seems like everyone and his mayor is learning to code, MOST people in this world can't. There are great people in this world who don't or can't program. They may be smart, but they aren't programmers.

- Experience with modern Javascript, web apps, HTML5 (whatever THAT is), and all the deployment logistics that go along with those things. There are great programmers in this world who can write compilers but who never really groked the web or how to put stuff on it, let alone cool dynamic stuff that works. They may be programmers, but they aren't developers.

- You seem to be able to make it all LOOK good. This is something I still struggle with and, even if all you did was copy something from somewhere else, your site still shows that you care about aesthetics. In this brave new world where geeky toys (read: programs) have become seen in the mainstream as actual "products" (thanks, Apple), people - even geeks - are starting to demand more from their software. They demand that it be friendly, intuitive, and look nice. This is a great advance in our industry. It finally denies us all the permission we've been giving ourselves to produce crappy-looking and crappy-acting software and then hide behind how hard it was to get it working at all. There are great developers in this world who grok the web and apps and all that and still for the life of them can't make something that looks nice. They may be developers, but they aren't designers.

- Your site and HN submission show an aptitude for - or at the least more than a passing awareness of - the necessity, power, and effectiveness of marketing. There are great programmers, developers, and designers in this world whose creations never see the light of day. They may be all those things, but they aren't marketers.

So go back again and take stock of your marketable inventory. You seem to be a:

- Smart

- Programmer

- Who likes to develop "products" as well as cool programs

- Knowing it's important that they look as good as they work

- And realizes that none of it matters unless people know about it

And you don't think you're worth a measly $80-$100/hour?

You know what that is? It's our traditional economic and academic systems infesting your mind with some of its most anachronistic and worthless beliefs. In days gone by, that piece of paper was a requirement to get anyone to even LOOK at you. But now?

No.

You're in the right place already at Hacker News. Here we have people who need good talent. They know it when they see it. They know how much more important a Github and app portfolio are than a "To all whom these presents come greeting..." poster on your wall. In short, they aren't pointy-haired bosses. And you don't want to work for those anyway.

So do me a favor, me: demand what you're worth, and do it before you begin to BELIEVE you're not worth it. Because then you won't be.

[true_religion]

My thoughts....

He's just a second year student and the only project I've seen is something that any competent student at my almma matter could produce.

Now look at the marketplace. For $40/hour you can currently get an experienced developer living anywhere that isn't San Francisco or NYC.

$100/hour is $4000 a week and $16,000 a month. Now certainly someone, somewhere can command this price but lets not pretend that it is the natural fit for a student.

If you're willing to pay $16,000 then your rate is comprable to what Google/Facebook pay their summer interns for 3 months whom I assure you have just as much skill and passion as you see here.

[bigiain]

What're you suggesting you can get for $40/hour?

You might get an "experienced developer" for $40/hr on a fulltime employed basis where that means "$80k/year". You certainly won't get the same level of talent on a contract or freelance basis at that rate.

For a freelancer, "$100/hr" is much more likely to mean $2000/week than $4000/week. Even consultants at the top consulting firms can't (legitimately) bill 100% of a 40hr week consistently.

I'm inclined to agree with other posters - if this site pitched him as a dedicated freelance web dev, I'd quite likely consider hiring him at a $100/hr rate based on the skill demonstrated in the HN Stats site. As a "please buy me some ramen and help pay my tuition" plea - I'd pass him over completely even if I needed pretty much exactly what he's demoing. Its all about perceptions and implications of trust.

[true_religion]

I think we're using different definitions for experienced.

Junior developers are still very much more experienced than a student, and won't be making 80k/year anywhere except DC/NYC/LA.

But I find that salary comparisons quickly go downhill on HN because of the bubble that we live in here, so I'm just going to let this conversation go.

[csomar]

Huh, so you measured his skills by his level of education? Even worse, he's an EE student; so Web Dev is really not his game.

[4ad]

> There are great programmers in this world who can write compilers but who never really groked the web or how to put stuff on it, let alone cool dynamic stuff that works. They may be programmers, but they aren't developers.

So one can be a developer if and only if he does web programming? What about all the other plethora of software products that need to be developed?

[breckinloggins]

I was being terse for the sake of style, but the gist of that was intended to be "programmers who make nicely packaged product-type things", which of course includes app developers as well as other categories.

[huhtenberg]

Let's not get carried away here. A quick poll:

  If you are in a position to hire devs (with a proper 
  budget for it), would you hire this gentleman for $80/h
  knowing that he is a 2nd year EE student in Australia?

Given the circumstances, I'd have hard time justifying $40/h. Not because $80 is too high, but because of the inherent performance risks associated with this particular type of hire.

[bigiain]

For "hiring as a dev", $40/hr seems in the right ballpark.

For freelance work, I've paid well over $100/hr to people with similar age/experience based on nothing more than portfolios similar to his and a plausible sounding phone-screen.

I've contracted students for work, and while I'm more likely to propose payment terms based on estimated hours with payment on milestone delivery rather than just hourly rates, I'll still assume a similar overall "hourly rate".

(That's in Sydney, Australia.)

[eibrahim]

$30 to $40 is reasonable...

[derrida]

Not in Australia. Minimum wage is ~$20/hour +/- $2 (That's about $22US). But you know, income is more equal here, so we don't have the highs. I think $60-$80/hour considering it is freelance.

[alexobenauer]

How is it not feasible? Anything less would be underselling him/herself, which can also devalue others' work.

[flyinRyan]

Feasible? It looks a bit low to me. :)

[hussfelt]

I agree with csomar! Your pitch seems weak and I would hesitate to give you a project.

It looks like you have some skills - use them to promote yourself! :-)

Nice work!

[slurgfest]

Although the page clearly demonstrates some specific capabilities, that doesn't count when you are expressing the wrong kind of sentiment. That is pretty amazing.