Howto freelance

I'm a realish programmer (can multithread, cache optimize, GPGPU, etc), trying to into freelancing.
Trouble is, I don't have much work exp, and I walked out of my first professional job after 9 months due to anxiety attacks, so I have no references and barely any connections.

By gtfoing Los Angeles and moving back with my old roommates in my hometown, I can be surprisingly comfortable on 400$/month, so I only need about two decently sized projects per year, but

All the freelancing sites are nothing but bullshit projects descriptions like
>need computer scientist to make website
>virtual reality cloud e-commerce, must experienced in visual basic
>build website
>project is having 5-6 java classes
>I need this high tech and futuristic web site for building cat house furniture in 3d.
With pajeets racing to the bottom, bidding .50$/hr with no fucking idea what amount of what type of work needs done.

How do I battle pajeet?
I can't hold a regular job with a schedule due to crippling anxiety.
Am I just fucked?

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youtube.com/watch?v=UfcAVejslrU
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go outside and build your confidence.

stop being a little bitch

So you are asking how to get customers?
Jeez, what's wrong with you? There is no "secret", it's the same for everyone:

1. Make your own website
2. Talk to locals, get more contacts. Ask friends, let them know you make websites.

Also you can try to get into a collaboration with somebody. Often frondend-guy + backend-guy + maketing/customers-guy can archieve more when they team up than by themseves..

Oh, and I'd like to add: if you're thinking you're too good for this you're not made for being a freelancer.

Talking with customers is crucial in this job, so either learn it or get a normalfag job. Not every programming job is 12 hours a day, there's a lot of comfy jobs out there. Just look for them.

I also would like to know this.

Yes, but what about freelance sites?

I'm considering just getting some easy part time IT job where I just refill printers, reset passwords, and play dorf fort.
I had that when I was in uni and it was the best thing ever, although minimum wage.

I find that if programming professionally then it sucks horribly to come home and program more on whatever indie projects I have.
Despite being a quite good programmer, I'm thinking I'm not cut out for it professionally.

I randomly want to get into art now because I found out I'm a natural, and it complements my graphics programming background, but it clashes horribly with anxiety, so I can't practice without freaking out.

Oh and I didn't have any trouble with anxiety whatsoever before my last job, which lead me to multiple nervous breakdowns.
Damn the insanity-inducing abomination that is Cesium.js
I need to go harass Patrick Cozzi again >:C

Op look up Diaphragmatic breathing. Literally the only reason you have panic attacks according to a 20+ year veteran psychologist I know, and she deals with shit like 3 year olds that have been gangraped. Breathing only with your chest is part of the flight or fight response, learning this breathing technique will fix it.

I'm a shy person, but I network. I go to meetups and conferences and if I at least can talk to one stranger, I consider it a success. I am much more happy when I am coding. I code a lot put it online. People find it, they mail me and later the mail me money, because I helped them to solve their problem. It's a long road, do a lot of what makes you happy and stay thirsty my friend.

This desu

Freelance sites are fucking trash.

If you have 'crippling anxiety' starting a freelance shop isn't going to work for you. People who hire you are going to have unrealistic expectations, tell you one thing and really want something else, and the kicker - try to not pay you on time or at all.

Freelancing for yourself can be rewarding, but it is a huge pain in the ass to do.

If you really want to do free lancing for shit, drive around your town and find the smaller businesses in industrial parks. Write them down and then google search them. Most of their websites will be some garbage from the early 2000s with stale information. These are the best ones to try to sling some bullshit bootstrapped themed garbage at for a low start price and a low monthly fee. $1000-$2000 for basic websites is going rate and $100 a month for hosting if you really sucker someone in.

You'll still have to communicate effectively to people that are higher up (CEO, OWNER, ECT) to get these jobs. So if your anxiety is a real thing, you will need someone who is good with people to sell your services.

>who is good with people to sell your services.
In other words: someone who is completely free of any technical competency in that field.

I mean that sincerely. The salesman person should not be bothered by any knowledge whatsoever that should make him stop, reevaluate or hesitate in any way, shape or form. Clients want to hear bullshit. Salesmen can talk bullshit like nothing else. I am not even criticizing them; I wish I could do that.

I don't have social anxiety at all; I obsess over faults and imperfection. I'd rather rewrite a library from nothing than deal with an interface I dislike.

As for clients with unreasonable expectations, I don't mind if they are ignorant, but I have no tolerance for stupid people, which definitely reduces potential customers by a lot.

I don't know of a job where I can have the benefit of a manager dealing with the stupid people, without having to work full time on a schedule.

>I'd rather rewrite a library from nothing than deal with an interface I dislike.
You're unemployable.
>I have no tolerance for stupid people
Super unemployable.

>I don't have social anxiety at all; I obsess over faults and imperfection. I'd rather rewrite a library from nothing than deal with an interface I dislike.
If you say that I hope that you have at least implemented your own itoa, atoi, malloc and free. Otherwise you are like a little baby.

You really need to take a look at yourself if you're saying these things. No one likes everyone and everything.

You're going to have a hard time finding customers who are willing to pay you to reinvent the wheel. Even more so when you have no work experience to show that you're actually capable of doing so.

>implying that one default wheel fits everyone

It fits many, but not everyone.

In that case you just edit an open source wheel, or concatenate many wheels, you still don't reinvent them.

People don't want to invest in your (abc) rewrite.

There's a difference between a library being defective and you simply not liking it. If you can't put aside your preferences enough to get the job done, you're too inefficient to hire.

Instead of asking for advice on freelancing, you should work on fixing your behavioral issues.

I am talking about wheels that are incompatible per design.

I am not OP.

Then don't interject commentary that derails the conversation.

Make me.
>inb4 some bullshit
Make me.

Such as?
The only things you should be coding are business domain specific to the task.

I have already given examples, further above.

You aren't actually smarter than everyone like you think you are. "I have no tolerance for stupid people" is an excuse people make to hide the fact that they don't have good social skills. Your entire attitude is your problem, not the fact that your perfect ideal job hasn't landed in your lap yet.

Link

>three posts over the initially quoted post
You're not off to a good start here.

>I walked out of my first professional job after 9 months due to anxiety attacks

holy shit kill yourself dude, please don't go work again and just end it right now

this reduces anxiety pretty well
youtube.com/watch?v=UfcAVejslrU

Granted that doesn't happen often, the majority of libs are pleasant to use. But yeah it definitely fucks with things when I get some pattern that makes me want to write a wrapper for everything.
I could possibly keep my own frameworks for reuse, but any other programmers would probably hate me, plus it seems autistic.

I'm more and more thinking I simply can't be a professional programmer. I guess I'll keep it as a hobby and hopefully make money off it.

>Granted that doesn't happen often, the majority of libs are pleasant to use.
I beg to differ. But then again I am probably just another autistic fuck who doesn't know what he's talking about, so you can just ignore me like 99% of the rest of Sup Forums. Or Sup Forums in general.

Worked freelance before, I found it more stressful than being office drone. So you might want to reconsider that. As for how I got into it - my first couple offers came though the good old nepotism, the rest though the reputation I built from there.

You might want to consider attaching yourself to some university and write project / theses for students. It's usually trivial shit and pays well. Especially if you're sealing the deal days before the deadline. I think I've sold two day's work for over a grand once.

So as far as the topic,
>make websites for stupid people and fuck them over

>write project / theses for students
That could actually work well for me if I can get set up.
I'm moving to a town with a webdev factory where the students deer-in-headlights over java syntax errors

>where the students deer-in-headlights over java syntax errors

Is it really that bad? I never went to a university, I taught myself everything by myself.

Depends on the college and career.
Where I attend we shit out software left and right with no problems while knowing a lot of shit, but I hear there's a huge number of CS fags that fail fizzbuzz.

I wish I were exaggerating but I'm not.
Professor once told me one on one "I don't want to fail them, but there's a point where I can't go any slower."

If you have anxiety issues, talk to a doctor, get some pills, do some therapy, solve the issues which are causing your anxiety.

The thing is, your shy temperament may push you to working alone, but living alone will, in time, increase your anxiety. You need to get more human connection to solve your anxiety issues. Working alone cannot improve things. It can only be a temporary thing.

>A college where professors don't want to fail you
Shit college

Sup Forumseesus has spoken

You'll have people coming to college from technical high school, those will usually have some idea what's going on.
But you'll also have people coming to college from grammar school. These might be fluent in three world languages but never seen a line of code in their life before.

I'm a weird mix between an introvert and extrovert and can't really find a balance. I'd rather stare at a wall than hang out with normies.

Went to two shrinks and for some reason they refuse to give me anxiety meds because I also have mild bipolar.
The first two bipolar meds I tried temporarily fucked up my facial expression and made me cry uncontrollably, they were all like 'oh yeah that happens sometimes, no big deal' so fuck that.
I've been told that a psych who is covered by insurance is a fuckup, which has definitely been my experience.

Weed kills anxiety entirely, but can't do much while stoned.

Exercise doesn't help much, plus I don't want to get muscular in case I decide to trap.

>Weed kills anxiety entirely, but can't do much while stoned.
I once knew a guy who could only program while on weed. Maybe you can do that as well?

I program best after
>14 hours sleep
>fap
>cereal, multivitamin, noopept, espresso
>begin programming until first distraction
>once distracted fap no less than twice
>program a few hours, sleep 3-5 hours if can't focus
>besides breakfast, ignore food that requires any effort beyond microwaving
>if distracted, listen to either aggrotech or viking metal

I think I've rubber ducked my lifestyle.

this green text, loled like a newborn sucking a titty.

is this story even real? Sounds hilarious
> don't want to get muscular in case I decide to trap
fucking made my day

Put out some "free" work for a family or friend. Use that as a starting point for your portfolio.
Your website should look good and be fast.

But the hard part is finding clients. Look at local stores without websites who would benefit from them. The case is not hard to prove that digital presence in our day and age is crucial for any business.

Pitch it and add value. Make sure you don't work for cheap, because cheap work or offering cheap work is devaluing your company/yourself and that's not good.

/thread

Fuck you OP that bitch is ugly as fuck

Why don't you learn to be a sys admin and get a job on that field instead? It would probably work better for you.

make some commits to some gits, stick it on your resume

im not a programmer but thats what id do.

You're right. Last placed I worked in there was a guy who fits your description perfectly, and he was easily the best asset on the company, he could sell a Jew a Christian Bible.