How good are freelance programming sites?
andrewbadera: Independent tech consultant here. I did a healthy five figures in part-time indie consulting in 2008. I went fulltime indie in June 2009, and in that last half-ish of the year, did more in Twitter-related work in '09 than all work in '08, and billed something like 200-250% total in '09 over '08.I've subscribed to various freelance sites for years (since 01 or so) ... guru.com, elance, rentacoder ... I've never once landed work off of any of those sites. You have to spend too much time competing with:a) cheap offshorers
b) cheap "clients" uneducated in project management/software development and are therefore unwilling to pay appropriately for it
c) noise, noise, noise
d) general wage pressure of the "marketplace"... to make it worthwhile. Some people who got in and got big early on made their reputations there, but individuals on these sites tend to top out at maybe 40k/year -- and those are rare. The only people making any greater money on them tend to be people who have turned around and co-opted teams of other developers via the site.You're better off networking, both online and in-person. Make sure you have a solid skillset and a unique value or unique sales proposition. Focus in one area to begin with -- new consultants who try to generalize too soon tend to fail before they have a safety net of money or reputation. Once you're really, really good at something, consider branching out.Attend and present at local and regional user groups and unconferences. Offer webinars and seminars. Maintain a regularly-updated blog and newsletter that focuses on that initial niche. Write (useful, not overly markety) whitepapers. Join your local Chamber of Commerce. Attend relevant Meetup.com meetups; start relevant meetups. Check out your local SBA office. Always carry a business card, and manage your personal brand and reputation -- it's your finest and most valuable tool.All of these things are far more worthy uses of your time than piddling it away on noisy, garbage-filled, flake-filled "freelance marketplaces."