alt Hacker NewsAsk HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?
I’ve spent roughly the last decade and some change as a software engineer, and recently decided to start a solo consultancy.
I’m focused on helping SMEs sort out the messy back-office parts of the business: spreadsheet glue, brittle internal workflows, poor reporting, awkward integrations, backend/platform problems, and AI workflows that need to do real work rather than just look good in a demo.
I’m not really interested in becoming a generic agency. I’d rather work with businesses that already feel operational pain and need someone technical to help untangle it properly.
For those of you who’ve made this jump:
* how did you get your first real project? * what kind of outreach actually worked? * did your first few clients come from network, content, cold outreach, partnerships, subcontracting, or somewhere else?
Also, if anyone knows SMEs or operators dealing with this sort of mess, I’d be glad to chat.
As a gesture of goodwill, I’m offering the first 5 clients 10 hours free to help get an initial project moving.
You can find me over at https://crescita.cc
Comments
Rework your website to say something real
Word of mouth / former employer
I have been a solo contractor for little over 15 years now. This was my goal all along and it did not happen overnight. My path was more organic, I was a W2 for quite some time and in that time I had one personal focus - become more valuable to the company than they are to you. I took on tasks everyone was running away from, I changed code which was preceded by comments like “// DO NOT TOUCH THIS OR COMPANY WILL GO OUT OF BUSINESS” and after so time every big thing that was needed or every customer fire/emergency needed me. I was even called into an emergency meeting on my honeymoom :)
once I was comfortable I am fairly indispensible part of the business I submitted my resignation along with an offer to continue working as an independent contractor which was swiftly accepted. once I got this first (and as steady as it gets) thing everything went much smoother after this, word of mouth mostly and I went to a lot of meetups (especially pre covid) from where I got a number of contracts too
You have to ask yourself - why? I’ve worked full time for consulting departments/companies (not staff aug) where I have been over projects for 6 years.
I get paid whether I’m on vacation, on the bench, full benefits, etc.
They take care of finding projects, chasing down payments, sales, marketing and I get paid…decently.
Every time I think about going independent - and I have a decent network and great credentials for my specialty - the juice just ain’t worth the squeeze. I get to focus on leading projects and not have to worry about the surrounding work.
Gumption and a firm handshake!
Hi, I did the same for a while.
Offer to help them solve a few small problems, and then deliver.
10 years of normal work slop
4 years as a sub contractor for two different fortune companies (Bank and ARM)
Then head hunted from LinkedIn. Six months so far of my own gig working for a VisualFX company. Linux migration and it's tight. Everything's a mess, so I'm just riding this until.
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Can you publish a very short and concise case study of how you've helped one of your clients? Would that client be down to reference you to their friends? If not, can you go the extra mile with them so they just gush about you to others?