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I started self employment as software consultant, which worked pretty well despite not having any …

… I started self employment as software consultant, which worked pretty well despite not having any connections from my previous employment. I only needed one or two projects a year to sustain my lifestyle. Getting two companies a year to accept your application isn't hard. If you write at least 5 applications a month, you need a success rate of less than 5%. I changed to technical writing later, because text is less of a struggle than code, and educational articles that explain how to use software (e.g., services, tools, SDKs, frameworks, etc.) are paid pretty well, especially compared to the non-technical writing tasks. Regular software consulting projects take months and can haunt you for years. An article takes a few days and after that you can do other things you find interesting. Via technical writing, I got into other kinds of text related jobs the software industry offers, like social media management (e.g., Twitter/X, newsletters, blogs) for companies with developer audiences. …

Original discussionAsk HN: How many of you are self employed?438 source comments · at import
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AS

How many of you are self employed? What do you do? I won't count startups that are funded, but more the individual who started something for themselves. Curious to know what sustains people.

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UN

How do you get clients for tech writing, if I may ask? Are you maintaining a stable pool of companies and doing work as they need it, or do you always have to fish for new opportunities? I've been authoring sw dev books that target a niche audience, and I've done some writing for the company that develops the sw itself. I'm wondering whether to expand to other areas, too—I've got the feeling that 2024 is going to be a rather challenging year, financially speaking.

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VI

Curious about this. How did you manage to build up a consulting business without prior contacts? You say you wrote applications, but normally companies aren't soliciting consultants in a public fashion (other than fiver/upwork which seem to be a race to the bottom).

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