Ask IH: Is selling software development services inherently hard? How do you market? And sell.

Perseverance is a must. It's going to be a grind, so if you're prepared for that, well then, you're prepared. Believe in yourself and in your abilities. Don't let it shake your self-confidence, because the frustration will, if you allow it to. Try partnering up with a small team of developers. Over-deliver and under-promise. Never let the client design. Ever.

This path is feast or famine and, almost always, a good mixture of both. It is worth it to be able to work for yourself, but, as you know the 6+ years you've been doing it, you're going to work much harder for yourself than for anyone else.

It's hard to find a golden rule. But glad to hear you've started the journey, which you've already ahead many people. @khadegd

Simple question: How many software development services in the market?

If not millions, probably a couple of hundred thousands...

So, what's your plan to stand out in the market?

It's nice to read and distribute outbound content on those platforms. What matters the most whether you can find a niche and solve specific needs

Generating inbound leads is very important, so this is a good first step!

The single biggest problem for freelancers now vs the past is that jobs have become more commoditized. Your

The very worst kind of client to find is one who has already been thinking about their business issue and not only decided what work needs to be done (e.g. design/dev/copywriting/etc) but has also decided how they want it done. Once a potential client has decided their problem is "poor UX", what changes they want in their app and what specific tools they want to be used to make the changes, it's too late. They'll be on a site like Upwork or Fiverr searching for people with experience using that tool... and filtering on price.

Much better is if you help clients discover what solutions make sense for them and decide on the methods yourself. It is your expertise, after all! This has benefits on both sides. It saves clients a lot of time and prevents them from making poor decisions outside their expertise and then spending money implementing them. It also makes you less of a commodity.

The only way to do this is to be found much earlier in their search. Writing and YouTube is a good way to do it, but I'd think about what kinds of people would hire you and why they're searching. Nobody starts with a desire for a "Kotlin/MaterialDesign" developer. They start by wanting to fix a business problem. Then they might decided they need a mobile app. Then they search and find that most people in their locale use Android and search for how Android apps are made... and so on until arriving at "Kotlin/MaterialDesign" and typing that into a race-to-the-bottom market place.

Writing articles aimed at topics earlier in the client search would by my main long-term advice.

What's your hook? The last time I hired a freelancer, I was searching for someone who filled a specific niche: a visual designer that had experience building and animating vector cartoon monsters. I searched through a few places and found my gal. When I hired an engineer a few years ago, I was explicitly looking for someone who was familiar with building plugins for Bubble.

So let me ask you this question: What's the value that Ganesh Khade is best positioned to deliver to me (buyer) as a freelance developer?