Absolutely agree. My spouse is an active contributor to an open source project. Often, someone will come into IRC asking for help, and soon realize that the scope of the problem is bigger than they thought. Their next idea: "I should hire someone to do this for me." If you have demonstrated your tech skills, ability to communicate, and willingness to help a client... you might get the gig.

It doesn't have to be open source. As long as it's a community of techies working together to solve a problem, being the Helpful Cheerful Person in the Neighborhood can lead to consulting work.

I'd add Jerry Weinberg's _Secrets of Consulting_ to the reading list. It had a major impact on my ability to turn my tech skills into a business. For example, it helped me understand that the right answer to a client request is, "Yes, I can do that. And this is what it will cost."

I was in a meeting last week and person A said "can we do X?" and person B said "Anything's possible, it's just a matter of time and money, right Mike? That's what you always say, right?" and she laughed as she said it. I've trained them well. :)

I don't quite have that as a standard reaction to all client requests all the time, as I'll often ask more questions and try to engage them a bit first before the 'this is what it will cost' bit, but that's generally the direction I go in.

I think tech people have a hard time with this response because they're often unsure of their own skills. At least, I know that's the case with a few friends of mine who rarely think about "the business side" of things. I've done this long enough now where i know that anything someone asks me for can be done, it's just a matter of figuring out how.

However, the flip side of this is that I've seen the result of people (and possibly even been this person) just saying "yes" to everything, building it, and it not really working. I do think some customers have been burned by that - a dev who claims to be able to do anything, then delivers them crap, charges a fortune, then leaves a mess for someone else to clean up. After they've gone through that a couple of times, they're wary of anyone who claims to be able to do anything.

I've learned to try to be more cautious how I phrase my abilities, because I know how it can appear. In general, anything someone wants done, I can make happen. It doesn't mean I will be the one doing the work, but I can bring in the appropriate skilled people when needed. That's a function of age, in that my network is more useful than it was 10 years ago, and possibly wisdom. 10-15 years ago I'd always try to build everything myself, and sometimes ended up with subpar stuff.

I totally agree.

You _never_ want to compete on price. Compete on quality. It's a good idea to eliminate the cheapskates ahead of time.

Cold calls rarely work -- unless you are as good at selling (yourself) as you are as a web designer. That's a rare combination.

Word of mouth is the most powerful way to get business, of course. So the first step is to let the people you know know that you're available. Tell the people who might need your skills that you have them; if they don't need you, they might know someone who does. (This is a good use for LinkedIn.)

Have an elevator pitch ready that summarizes your tech specialties (e.g. HTML5, Dojo), business expertise ("have created several websites for realtors"), and a sense of the best match that hints at your rate ("affordable for small businesses"). Have a web portfolio ready. Update your LinkedIn page.

Depending on how much "a bit of extra cash" you can get started with sites like elance.com but my sense is that the money isn't all that great. (That perception might be inaccurate.) If all you're looking for is "a little extra" and an opportunity to expand your skills, it might still be a good idea.

I am a huge believer in the word of mouth method. I've been doing web design and programming for over 10 years and have not once cold called or advertised my services.

I think there are two important aspects of "word of mouth" however. First, is you have to get the word out. Don't be shy about telling family, friends, colleagues, people you meet in a bar, etc. about what you do. Depending on your audience, be prepared to "present" your skills in an appropriate way. For people who may not be your direct client but will be acting as the courrier of your message, keep it simple – you probably won't get the business because of what you say to them but because of how they know you out of context from business.

The second important part is to give your clients a great service experience. You don't have to be the best at what you do as long as you find a way to make your clients happy. Clients can then speak to both your product and your service. Client referrals are over 80% of my new business.

Word of mouth is definitely the best way to go about it. I have also had success by going through friends who work at smaller digital agencies and PR firms. Places like that sometimes lack technical people, but they have a portfolio of clients who may be in need of web work. They basically refer the job to you or you work as a contractor under them.

I think the point was that cold-calling works if you're selling your skills dirt cheap or free, expressly for the purpose of building a portfolio.

It took reddit down!

We knew Reddit wouldn't be able to handle the government take down :)

Well they are ASKING for $1M. Nothing says they'll get a buyer.

Or am I missing something?

Heads up - I'm from the Apptopia team- but yes they're asking $1 M & the app has made over $1.4 M total already(whereas apps like Instagram & SocialCam got acquired for much more with no revenue at all).. In terms of a buyer there's no guarantee, you're right about that, but big companies like Energizer would benefit so much from acquiring the app as a branding play that the $1M wouldn't mean much.

Sure, but "asking price" isn't necessarily "getting price." And may or may not have much to do with "actual long-term value." :-)

Yes, good point. We're very experienced in app valuations and I agree with you 100% that asking is not getting. But this app has millions of users, which is a huge deal because so many people can be reached through the app! In addition, they are only available to 25% of people with iPhones since the app only works for the iPhone 4 & 4s.. think about how crazy their user base will be once the iPhone 5 comes out next month! This is a huge asset you can not overlook during the valuation process.

I was all ready to upvote this in a passionate YEAH... and then I looked at the link. What's sexist about it? If anything, having a geek chick with a tech book makes it obvious that the company wants to hire women.

That's the new reality these days. Put a good looking girl on the cover - they will accuse you of making women look like sex symbols. Put an all male picture and you are suddenly not very welcome to women in tech.

I agree, what the actual fuck is supposed to be sexistic here? Can't we all live in peace? And _why_ would you post that on HN anyways? It has nothing to do with technology/startup-things. I dont really care about stuff like this, and if I did, I'm sure I wouldnt visit HN to inform myself about it. Seriously, please stop posting unrelated messages. I don't ask about programming languages in a feministic newsgroup either. This submission is just noise, nothing more.

Maybe I should build a script to filter HN... this is getting overboard.

Agreed. This isn't sexist at all. Bad OP, bad.

Oh _good grief_.

I had one boss for whom I could check mark every one of those 31 signs.

The signs appear to be different manifestations of the same underlying personality [disorder].

I was able to hit 27/31, the only ones that didn't get checked would have been a "n/a" rather than a "no".

No, because the end result of that policy is cat pictures.