Ask HN: Are there any freelance "problem solvers" out there?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4472979

by ThoroughlyR • 14 years ago

1 2 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm interested in a very specific kind of work. I want to consult in many different fields, applying concepts from math and computer science to solve hard computational problems. Are there any readers that do (or know someone who does) this or something similar?

ideamonk• 14 years ago

If it's related to data crunching / classification / recommendation / ml , do take a look at http://kaggle.com

gexla• 14 years ago

It doesn't matter that someone is doing it or not, only that there is a market for it. It's up to you to find that market (or to help it along by creating a market for your services.)

So, you need to start doing some research into connecting with clients.

Setup some social networking scrapers / alerts to look for keywords which might indicate someone is looking for something you can help with. A lot of people use these services as lazy ways to troll for talent.

Look through the jobs boards like Authenticjobs and all the others like it. Some jobs are full time, others are freelance positions. Either way, you could reach out to good matches and see if they would be willing to pick you up for freelancing.

Find communities which are targeted towards people with your skill set. These are great for general discussions, but also for people who go there looking for hired guns.

Look through Elance and Odesk (these are the only two worth bothering with) to look for job and service providers which might be matches for your skills. Look through the service providers history to see what sort of hits / rates they have been getting. Look at the companies they were being hired by. Obviously if there are jobs posted, then you could apply for those. These places are hit and miss for getting work, but they are decent for research (maybe you could contact some of these places directly.) Sometimes people post crap jobs, but sometimes good potential clients post there because they don't know where else to look.

Build up an online presence for the services you can offer. Find competitors and copy them until you can beat them. If you are in a large market (NYC) then target local.

Go niche by building your own market or by specializing. Build a service and then market that service to people who don't know how much you could really help them. Pivot based on feedback.

Apply your skills to your own business ideas (and ship!) Your skills can give you a competitive advantage if leveraged properly and people will notice / respect your success. Also, if you are able to build an income stream outside of client work, then you don't have to worry so much about landing gigs. Properly applied, your skills become far more valuable and you can charge whatever you like.

I use these tips mostly for web development, but they should apply to anyone looking for freelance work.

Ask HN: Are there any freelance "problem solvers" out there?

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