<story><title>Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?</title></story><parent_chain><item><author>turnip1979</author><text>Dumb question .. how does one go about getting started as a freelancer? Are there agencies or some other mechanism to get you started? Specifically, interested in how to get started in North America.</text></item><item><author>awjr</author><text>I would suggest looking in the mirror ;)&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s be honest. Freelancers are not there to find &amp;quot;interesting clients&amp;quot;. They are a temporary resource that enables a client to get a job done they under-resourced.&lt;p&gt;You have a choice as a freelancer
1) Become money focused. Earn as much as you can for as long as you can. 
2) Become idea focused. Earn as much as you can until you have enough to bootstrap the idea. Rinse and repeat.
3) Become money focused but use your income to get the idea fleshed out using upwork.com&lt;p&gt;If you can get a few of you together it will be a better experience. Working at a co-location hub can be worth it.</text></item><item><author>herval</author><text>Do you have any advice for freelancers looking for interesting clients?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m mostly able to find clients that either 1) want full-time employees or 2) are working on &amp;#x27;me-too&amp;#x27; CRUDs (sometimes both).</text></item><item><author>lhnz</author><text>I enjoy programming but &amp;#x27;working as a programmer&amp;#x27; is infuriating.&lt;p&gt;There are so many interesting product ideas yet &amp;#x27;me-too&amp;#x27; CRUD app recreations of previously successful incumbents products are highly desired. This is particularly true in the startup ecosystems where kids talk about &amp;#x27;interesting&amp;#x27; problems and finding &amp;#x27;purpose&amp;#x27; and yet are blindly following the mantras and motivational speeches of trite capitalists.&lt;p&gt;I currently work as a freelancer&amp;#x2F;contractor in London and I am happy as I make enough money to finance my own intellectual and creative interests for months on end.  I hope I&amp;#x27;ll soon meet other intellectually curious people doing the same thing, and hope we&amp;#x27;ll be able to join forces to teach ourselves things or perhaps even work on small projects together.&lt;p&gt;Of course I feel extremely lucky to be in this position which has nothing to do with wanting a slower pace and everything to do with wanting to exert my whole self. And I can&amp;#x27;t say whether it will be good for me or bad for me; I&amp;#x27;m certainly learning a lot about myself and the practicalities of doing this.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cshipley</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s actually a larger question than you perhaps realize. There are different kinds of freelancing. The spectrum ranges from something that looks like &amp;quot;remote&amp;quot; work to something more akin to agency-like project work.&lt;p&gt;That former is much easier. The latter pays better but requires a whole bunch of other skills, and takes much more time. The two aren&amp;#x27;t mutually exclusive however, and that is what I&amp;#x27;ve done as part of my strategy.&lt;p&gt;There is a monthly find a freelancer thread on here where you might be able to find a gig. Work on building your portfolio&amp;#x2F;reputation. I&amp;#x27;d suggest small projects at reduced rates.&lt;p&gt;Next, I&amp;#x27;d visit a lawyer and get a template contract worked out. Rather than have him write one from scratch, find one that includes a lot of the things you want and have him tweak it. It will be cheaper that way. Most important (IMO) are indemnification, terms of payment, and arbitration.&lt;p&gt;Get used to promoting yourself. Have your short and long &amp;quot;elevator pitch&amp;quot; together. Put together a landing page and get some business cards. Talk.To.Everyone! You never know where and when your next client will come from.&lt;p&gt;One of the issues you will run into is the feast or famine issue. You never know when you will get your next client, you have to always be on the lookout and courting -- overloading the queue because a percentage will drop out. If you don&amp;#x27;t find the next soon enough, then famine. If, as it happens often, several prospects say yes, then you feast. By feast I mean work a lot of hours and save up so you can weather the next famine.&lt;p&gt;What are your skills? Do you have a portfolio? How about an up-to-date linked-in profile?</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?</title></story><parent_chain><item><author>turnip1979</author><text>Dumb question .. how does one go about getting started as a freelancer? Are there agencies or some other mechanism to get you started? Specifically, interested in how to get started in North America.</text></item><item><author>awjr</author><text>I would suggest looking in the mirror ;)&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s be honest. Freelancers are not there to find &amp;quot;interesting clients&amp;quot;. They are a temporary resource that enables a client to get a job done they under-resourced.&lt;p&gt;You have a choice as a freelancer
1) Become money focused. Earn as much as you can for as long as you can. 
2) Become idea focused. Earn as much as you can until you have enough to bootstrap the idea. Rinse and repeat.
3) Become money focused but use your income to get the idea fleshed out using upwork.com&lt;p&gt;If you can get a few of you together it will be a better experience. Working at a co-location hub can be worth it.</text></item><item><author>herval</author><text>Do you have any advice for freelancers looking for interesting clients?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m mostly able to find clients that either 1) want full-time employees or 2) are working on &amp;#x27;me-too&amp;#x27; CRUDs (sometimes both).</text></item><item><author>lhnz</author><text>I enjoy programming but &amp;#x27;working as a programmer&amp;#x27; is infuriating.&lt;p&gt;There are so many interesting product ideas yet &amp;#x27;me-too&amp;#x27; CRUD app recreations of previously successful incumbents products are highly desired. This is particularly true in the startup ecosystems where kids talk about &amp;#x27;interesting&amp;#x27; problems and finding &amp;#x27;purpose&amp;#x27; and yet are blindly following the mantras and motivational speeches of trite capitalists.&lt;p&gt;I currently work as a freelancer&amp;#x2F;contractor in London and I am happy as I make enough money to finance my own intellectual and creative interests for months on end.  I hope I&amp;#x27;ll soon meet other intellectually curious people doing the same thing, and hope we&amp;#x27;ll be able to join forces to teach ourselves things or perhaps even work on small projects together.&lt;p&gt;Of course I feel extremely lucky to be in this position which has nothing to do with wanting a slower pace and everything to do with wanting to exert my whole self. And I can&amp;#x27;t say whether it will be good for me or bad for me; I&amp;#x27;m certainly learning a lot about myself and the practicalities of doing this.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CaptainAmerica</author><text>You know I&amp;#x27;ve been wondering this lately too. I haven&amp;#x27;t done any freelance work but I want to get into it. I&amp;#x27;m still not sure the answer, but I started by turning on the &amp;#x27;Hire Me&amp;#x27; buttons on my Codepen and GitHub accounts. I just launched a portfolio website (last night actually) that showcases a few of my projects and lists my contact information. I think my next step would be to check out sites like elance etc. But I&amp;#x27;d love to hear other ideas from successful freelancers.</text></comment>