this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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Tips on how to get clients as a freelancer? (programming.dev)
submitted 1 year ago by sirdorius@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev
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I'm considering doing some freelance work as a backend dev. I have around 8 years of experience as a full time employee, but I'm not entirely sure how to get the ball rolling as a freelancer.

What are some good platforms to find clients? The only one I know of is searching job postings on LinkedIn.

Are platforms like Upwork and Fiverr good? I've heard that they're a bit of a rat race, and honestly looking at Fiverr ads it does seem that way.

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[–] oldfart@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

I've had good luck with Upwork, moved two of my clients off Upwork. Worked with them for a few years after. One went out of business, one was paying a lot and demanding a lot, eventually I wasn't able to keep up for personal reasons.

I also had a professional website and ran Google Ads (at a time it was still relevant), got many small gigs and one long-time client this way. I should mention I also wrote and sold a small software addon there, mostly as a way to acquire new clients - tried to make the support top-tier and lure clients into giving me other work.

After that, I haven't been actively looking for more work and eventually shut the website down as the software became irrelevant and I had work by word of mouth.