I'm currently working 40h/week as a backend php developer and I think I can put an extra 20 hours every week to increase my earnings. However, I struggle finding remote work or above the average freelancing projects. Basically I don't want to waste my time on sites like freelancer.com...
Where could I find jobs like these?
Comments
Here's something you can do:
1. Go to https://trends.builtwith.com/websitelist/PHP to see websites that use PHP
2. Focus on smaller to mid-size companies (large corporations likely have the tech team and contractors to cover almost of their needs)
3. (Optional) Search for each company on Linkedin and add managers with relevant roles (VIP of sales, project manager, marketing manager, etc.). The goal is to familiarize them with your name so they're more likely to open your email (step 5).
4. Find the email format of these companies with https://hunter.io/.
5. Reach out to the most senior person with a relevant role at each company with a personalized 1-on-1 email.
The key here is to review their website and business and share 2-3 ideas of what you can them build or fix (if there are any glaring issues or vulnerabilities). They may not necessarily use your ideas but the goal is stand out and help them understand how they can put your programming skills to use. Here's a template you can reference: https://artofemails.com/new-clients#developer
There are a lot of businesses out there whose teams don't have the capacity to build everything so they would be keen to have a reliable freelance programmer help them bring some features or projects out of backlog.
By john_moscow 2019-09-1421:002 reply I happen to run a small company with a website built in PHP and I get several generic emails every couple of days from random individuals and fly-by-night "SEO consultancies", claiming that they "found issues on my website", "could help optimize website", "get us reach top Google positions" etc.
Most of this is auto-generated junk based on some keyword scrapping, but given the volume of it, I don't think it's possible to be taken seriously in that niche anymore.
I also get several "personalized emails" per week peddling software developers for hire, management trainings, factories in China, real estate investment opportunities and countless other junk, so I wouldn't count on that channel either. Anything that looks like a cold email goes straight to trash simply due to the volume of it.
IMO, a much better strategy would be to publish articles showing your expertise (i.e. comparing similar technologies, or sharing step-by-step instructions on accomplishing some familiar task), while mentioning that you do consulting in that area. People usually don't mind if you share them on Reddit/Linkedin/Twitter/HN and that can get a you a much better traction than cold-mailing people.
By preinheimer 2019-09-1421:261 reply I'm in a very similar boat to you, I think I've deleted three messages this morning...
But it would still be possible to get my attention. The average message is something along the lines of Hi {name}. I was at your site {domain} and had some ideas. [the same copy every single person gets]
If instead someone emailed me something that showed that they not only knew what domain they were mailing but understood what our product offered and how maybe they could help I'd probably keep reading. For me that might look like:
----
Hey Paul,
I love what you've built with WonderProxy, this GeoIP testing niche you've carved out is super interesting, I wish I'd known about it years ago! We had this horrible integration that refused to load in Germany but worked perfectly in our office, debugging over Remote Desktop at 3am still haunts my dreams.
Anyways i'm actually wondering if there's a way we can work together. I'm a senior PHP developer and I've got a lot of experience building OKTA integrations. It looks like you've started offering SAML, but let me tell you OKTA is like the secret sauce to get loved by IT departments. Your team is likely capable of building this in-house, but why spend tens or hundreds of hours learning the ins and outs of this stuff when I can build it in half the time with a quarter of the bugs :).
let me know if you're interested
----
I'm not saying I'd hire that gal/guy, but if it was something I wanted we would at least have a conversation. I'd optimize for quality messages to qualified companies, rather than quantity anything.
By mikaelmello 2019-09-1813:23 Kudos for "quarter of the bugs" and not "no bugs", seems like a great and honest developer.
By cutler 2019-09-150:39 But how will the small businesses you are targeting find your article?
> 5. Reach out to the most senior person with a relevant role at each company with a personalized 1-on-1 email.
So, spam them, basically?
I'm not even "the most senior person" and I get tons of e-mails along these lines all the time. I am the asshole mail server admin who blacklists each one of them and submits their spam messages, though. At the least, I can prevent their messages from making it through to other people.
By throwaway_def2 2019-09-1519:161 reply If you work for a SaaS company your CEO, your Head of Sales, your VP of Business Development are "spamming" other companies too in order to put food on your table. Read the history of famous startups and what tactics they used to get their first customers. "Naaaah they are just selling services and we're making the world a better place", right?
By throwaway_def2 2019-09-1519:211 reply And my advice to other freelancers: This is why you never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever contact a tech person first if you want to offer your services to a company. Go to business people and decision makers. Avoid gatekeepers.
By ianmobbs 2019-09-1523:12 I completely agree, but often, the gatekeepers and decision makers end up being the same person. For example, it looks like if I were selling managed-email-servers-as-a-service, jlgaddis would be the person I want to talk to.
By bernierocks 2019-09-1415:091 reply It's a numbers game. I used Craigslist last year to find freelance jobs. I talked to about 40 potential clients in a month. Out of those, 30 were a no from me right off the bat (wanted to hire cheap developers, etc) and out of the last 10, I was able to setup a contract with 2.
Here are two things that have helped me:
1) Answer the ad within an hour of it being posted. This may be tough if you have a full time job. My response rate when up 100% when I did this.
2) Give them your phone number and offer to talk on the phone. Email generally doesn't work that well to sell yourself, especially now with all of the low-wage competition.
3) get good at selling yourself. They need to know why they should hire you over a $5/hour developer from overseas. Some don't care and only want to pay peanuts.
Freelancer.com is horrible. I used it a few times and got a few potential clients..but most expect things like a turnkey Facebook clone for $100.
By staticautomatic 2019-09-1416:48 Freelancer is also horrible on the client side fwiw.
By mcthrowaway123z 2019-09-1421:452 reply As someone who ran a consultancy for several years, no one wants your last 20 hours. I think you'd do yourself a favor looking for more rewarding employment if you are feeling underpaid.
By disjhshava 2019-09-151:01 Yeah, I don't like telling people that they are asking the wrong question. But my experience says that if you are finding you have spare cycles in your job, you could probably be getting a much larger salary at a higher-end job. Depending what you are making now, you might double your compensation. Check levels.fyi.
What's holding potential customers back the most? The quality of the work, implying you are already exhausted after your current job? Or the fact that 20hrs is often not enough time for a meaningful contribution in a development team and you have to spend time to catch up every week?
Courious to know what your experience is and if a price conscious buyer would be willing to accept the trade-offs.
working with freelancers that have full time jobs almost always means that that freelance work is lower priority to their main job and will be first to be neglected if things get busy. Freelancers/consultants that do it full time value their good reputation to continue getting clients and work.
By conductr 2019-09-151:37 It’s all about communication and setting expectations. If client is expecting quick delivery with low chance of disruption and you have a full time job maybe this consultant shouldn’t take the job. Or at minimum tell client they are juggling multiple priorities at the moment and say that they’ve built in a buffer into the ETA but it could still be a risk. And that you’ll communicate frequently with any deviation to your ETA.
Not every client needs delivery at breakneck speed.
