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Comment by timmyboop | Hacker News Reader

How do you do contract work where you get paid a significant amount without even meeting the person? How does a company or a person trust you to give you some work without even meeting in person. You must be doing something super right that some of us might not know that would open doors for us.

Can you please elaborate?

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I have customers who have paid me thousands of dollars every month, for years. I haven't met most of them face-to-face. It comes down to trust. Since 2014 I have worked through an agency that takes care of contracts, billing, payment, so that's one route. But even before going on with the agency I never had a problem getting paid.

You should not put yourself in a position where a customer owes you a lot of money. I define "a lot" as an amount I would consider legal action to recover. Charge for deliverables with clear expectations and definition of "done." If you get a sketchy or slow-pay customer who argues about your bills, drop them, they're not worth it.

Anecdotally I have known lots of freelancers in my career and slow pay/no pay is not a big problem for the freelancers who deliver what they promise and avoid the fringe customers. It's the customers who want you to clone eBay for $5,000 in a month who won't pay you. Reputable companies and organizations might take a while to cut a check but they won't screw you.

It's all about derisking what you are selling (your labor and expertise).

It's been a few years, but here are a couple of tips:

* Start with a warm intro from someone you've worked with in the past. This lowers the risk for both parties. This is why I suggested reaching out to former co-workers; they know you and (hopefully) will vouch for you.

* Begin with a small project first. Again, this is about lowering risk. Is there a project you can do for a couple hundred bucks? Can you write a planning document, or do an analysis of the current infrastructure with a read-only account? Or a small enhancement/bugfix?

* Document your expertise in a way that others can find you. This could be code, gists, a blog (I have multiple :) ), articles in places like dzone or the stackoverflow blog, or podcasts. This is good for finding new clients, too.

* An entirely different option is to use a contracting company, where they find the work and take a cut (a large one, typically). This way the company has trust that you can leverage. It's been decades since I walked this path, so I don't know how available it is now.

One other thing: contracting is risky for both sides, not just for the client.

For the first project or two with a new client, don't ever bill more than you can afford to lose. I've never been stiffed 100%, but one time I had to pursue a client for months to get a 4 figure paycheck. Here's that story: https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/2650

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