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Ask Slashdot: Money-Making Home-Based Tech Skills?
New submitter ThatGamerChick writes "I'm a stay-at-home mom, but I'd like to be a work-at-home mom. I've done a few writing gigs, but I'm not a really good writer and cannot charge the fees needed for it to be worth my time. I'm just looking for something that I can teach myself in a few months and start taking small projects and working my way up from there. I've found that PHP, HTML and CSS to be the most demanded skills on sites like Elance, but the talent pool is flooded with overseas workers and Americans with so much more experience than me. Even when I was offering writing and virtual admin services on Elance I was having a hard time against them. So I'm asking here, because I think most of you may have a good insight on this type of thing as an employer of freelancers or as the freelancer themselves." What success have you had, either working from home, or employing those who do?
Seems like the best way to me!
The cheaper internet competitors from other places cannot enter this market.
There's an article in Cracked about why homemade porn tends to fail: good makeup, lighting, camera work, editing, writing of the frame story, and marketing all cost money.
Lots of software companies will either hire you on staff or contract with you as a freelancer to do remote quality assurance on their products.
You can pitch your writing & communication skills as an asset here. Instead of saying: this doesn't work, you can write reasonable, reproducible, clear defect and quality reports.
If you are interested in learning a web development language, use that skills to work on a idea for your own sites. When I started learning web development, I created a small on-line tool that people can use. Every time I learned a new language, I've re-written the web app in that particular language as an exercise. So my little webapp went from Perl, PHP, Python WSGI to the current Python Django. Now after a few years, I'm getting 1.5K visitors a day and earning about $300 a month for doing nothing. So instead of working for someone else at $100 per project, I starting on some new ideas and seeing if I can earn more recurring income while sipping on a beer. The only hard part is finding the idea to work on.
Little side jobs that I do often come from business contacts of friends, followed by word of mouth from those jobs.
Real people like to deal with real people. Asking someone in India to do work for you feels like a bizarre gamble for your average business. That's your competitive advantage and you should use it.
I haven't done any online projects recently, but for some years I used to work pretty much exclusively on projects from rentacoder.com (now vworker.com).
The way I got into it was by starting bidding low on small jobs, getting good feedback, and progressively moving onto larger jobs. You'll find that the people willing to pay a decent amount on these websites also want experience and good reviews.
Once you have the reputation to even be considered, you need to make sure you bid on the right projects. That means finding projects that don't have a huge number of bids, and projects which match your previous experience. You need a portfolio. If you have spare time, spend it working on something which you can show off to prospective bidders. I'm pretty sure a little javascript asteroids clone I wrote 5 years back got me more work than any other reasons I gave people to hire me.
It also helps to concentrate on projects which are the latest big craze - when I was working, this was javascript. Not many people knew how to use it properly, so there were fewer bidders and you could charge higher prices. Of course, everybody "knows" javascript now days - I imagine phone apps is where it is at.
However you approach it, don't be discouraged when you don't win projects. It takes a while to get into the game. And regardless of how well you do, remember that you'd still make more money by working for locals (which is why I quit). Unless you enjoy it, theres probably better ways of making money.
Good luck!
I've tried what you've tried. I was on Rent A Coder, Moonlighter, Guru, and a few others.
First of all, with a '0' zero score, it will be extrememely difficult to get work - even if you offer your services for $1 or whatever the minimum is these days. Those sites are saturated with people. And many folks posting jobs actually have geographical restrictions: if you're not in a Third World country, you can't even bid.
Local business?
Again. Depending are on where you are matters, but here in Metro Atlanta, things are saturated. There have been a large amount of lay-offs and many folks are trying to do what you're doing out of desperation. Every Tom, Dick, Harry, Larry and Mary are in web development, support and PC repair. And contrary to the opinion here, they're not all screw-ups or mediocre - there are quite a few talented people out of work. Many of them had real jobs doing those things and got canned during economic meltdown. I constantly see signs on the side of the road from folks trying to get web design, coding, PC repair, and support work.
Retrain?
Good luck. Without paid experience it is also very hard. Folks want to talk to previous clients and see what other work you have done. And even then ... Out of desperaton, I tried putting up my own websites under different company names to use as "references" but my measely two websites werent' enough or I just sucked - I don't know because I never got feedback from people who mattered. Sure, all my friends said they looked great but apparently they weren't good enough.
I do know someone who did do well - as a graphic artist. She had a following at her old job and when she quit, the folks who liked her recommended her and when they changed jobs, they hired her - that way she didn't get into trouble for poaching people.
tl;dr Starting in this day and age as a freelancer is extremely difficult. All the folks I know who are making a living as freelancers were doing it since the 90's early '00s.
What you are asking for is not possible due to the way markets work.
If there is a skill that takes only a few months to learn, doesn't require formal background, and then you can do meaningful projects, that skill is not worth much because just about anybody can learn it.
Pick something that is more than a simple skill (i.e. artistic aptitude, something unique), find a niche, find something that's still widely used but "out of fashion", go local (works better in a relatively "low-tech" locale), find somebody who will take on an apprentice / mentee in some area deeper than a "2-3 month learning curve".
Also, if you're already writing, they way to get better at writing is to keep writing. Start a blog or two, volunteer to write documentation for a non-profit or open source project or similar, use that as a portfolio to find better paying writing work.
Speaking of non-profits - volunteering with one is a great way to network, find somebody who might pay you for the skills you're using as a volunteer, etc.
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1st -> Find the free open source web content management system used most in your area/country in the professional field. In Germany that'd be Typo3, in your case (I'm guessing you're a US resident) that would probably be EZ Publish, Drupal or something like that.
2nd -> Learn that system and learn it well. Do this in the following order (timeframes mentioned are basic estimates based on my experience in 13 years of web development):
a) 6 months: Editing and Management, understanding the systems structure principles, Backend/Admin Interface Navigation, core system functions and features. (Coverd with User Maunals and User Books on your CMS) --> take on first jobs as an editor for installations and websites using said system.
b) 4 months: Markup stuff. Templating, HTML, CSS, minor changes and adjustments at that level, look into mobile templates aswell, everything is going mobile, you want to be on top of that when doing markup stuff (covered with HTML and CSS books)
c) After about a year: Installing and maintaining, DB structure, MySQL DB Management (I'm presuming it uses a MySQL DB, since they all do), low-level maintainance, basic admining and maintainance at shell access level (Unix/Linux/OS X type stuff), DB and media directory backup, versioning ... Here is where 3rd party tools come into play and will become an important asset. FTP GUI tool, Versioning GUIs, DB Tools, editors, etc. As for versioning my hint: Go with Git right away, the tools awailable now are foolproof and if you start versioning with the distributed paradigm right away you won't have problems understanding it later on. (covered with DB adming, Shell navigation, Linux, Apache and Books on Versioning ... you're entering solid OReilly territory here)
d)1,5 - 2 years into your new field: Programming, internal framework structure, maybe some PL basics before hand (more specialist tools, perhaps an IDE of some sort, maybe your own remote system) (covered with books on the programming language the system is implemented in ... most of them are built with PHP, Ajax / JavaScript would be the other end)
If you really want to make this your job, *do* focus on one system and one system/framework only! Pick the one most people are using or the one with which you get your first big-time paying customer. And don't be fooled, even then getting good money won't be easy at first. Proper editor level maintainace of a non-trivial web CMS requires experience, as does handling whiny customers and keeping your cool when the system goes offline for some odd reason you'll be researching for the next 30 hours :-) . You'll gain experience on the way, but also some grey hairs, so I expect anyway.
Start with maintaining your own test system and your own site running said system. Offer yourself up for editorial and maintainance work. Take it from there going into low-level maintainance and programming This will become interessting after 12-18 months into your new job.
Bottom line:
Popular system, start of as an editor, take it from there.
Good luck.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I admit, you might need to get a babysitter for those times when you're actually doing initial networking and later meeting with clients, but you might be able to find a high schooler in the afternoon, depending on when the local high school lets out. In the summer, it might be even easier.
Anyway, the local chamber of commerce -- do your research first:
If you can get a job from that, then you use that (and their contacts) to build up more clients. (and you might want to join the Chamber of Commerce, too, once you're established). If you can't, then you go for other ways to build up your portfolio -- find business with no web presence, or you might check on what the local non-profits are in your area, or if there's a small municipality, or even just check 1-800-Volunteer to see if there are local groups that might need website work. (eg, I volunteer for the local Friends of the LIbrary, and our town's annual street festival, run through the local Recreation Council; both could use help, and maybe also a presence on social networking sites so we can do more 'push' of information).
If none of those work out, I'd then look to see if you can help out with Code for America or any other open source group you feel passionately about, while still trying to network to find local work. You could even look to start up a local community website if there isn't one already (list local businesses, events, what's going on in local government, etc.).
Basically, don't just look it as a way to make money -- look at is as a way to help local businesses/non-profits/government to improve ... making it easier for people to find important information (when do you open on Sunday? does the restaurant offer anything vegan/gluten free? What services do you offer? etc.), presenting the information in a better way (ie, the website is too disorganized; it might be how their business is organized, but the general public doesn't expect to find (x) under (y)), or helping them reach out via social networking or e-mail (eg, this week's specials; important upcoming events; etc.)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Hi, OP here. I would also like to thank everyone for the tips and suggestions. I'm still doing my own research, and this thread has given me more to think about. I just wanted to address a few things. I know I'm not going to be a complete master at the end of 2-3 months. I was hoping that, like some other fields, you can learn a bit and then start working. Like programming scripts to automate tedious tasks, or gather info from the web, etc. I figured that I could offer something small and reasonably priced. At first, I thought about learning a piece of specialized software like ACT for real estate agents, or how to set up and write scripts for Ubot. There's just so much out there, I'm not sure where to focus on. Also, I am and will always be a full-time Mom. They come first and is the main reason I'm staying at home. But the household does need a few extra bucks a month. I'm not looking for the equivalent of a full-time job. So, thanks again for all the comments :)
Cherish the good friends you make over the years, because like you, they're rising in their careers, and some day they might have a contract or job bid to throw your way.
Never be afraid to meet people, hand out your business cards, and introduce yourself and your business. Even if they're not interested, give them TWO cards and ask them to pass one along to a friend (you'd be surprised how often they end up in the hand of a friend who's looking for such services.)
You can not win the game of life playing roulette with every other schmuck on the planet who thinks slinging code == programming. It's not. Programming is a broad-based skillset of analysis, debugging, design, and coming up with unorthodox ideas to solve everyday problems. A coder is a dime a dozen; a PROGRAMMER is a special breed.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.