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I achieved an Informatics Master Degree in Germany and I am still poor. HELP!!

Hi Guys, I am looking for a mentor who tells me exactly how I can use with my programming knowledge to earn money. I always worked for big companies so i don't know how to make money by my self. I could take a job in a big company at any time, but it wouldn't make me happy.

My goal is to be independent. I heard about some sites like "upwork.com" or "twargo" "Fiver" but never used them because of the high competitors.
Is here somebody who had or have the same situation?

What is the first step here?

  1. 5

    First step is to learn how to ask for help - your question above is full of ambiguity and to be honest lacks effort. I'm not trying to troll, this is serious advice:

    First of all, what do you mean "independent"? Financially independent? Well that then depends on your living costs - which depends upon what is "enough" for you. Only you can decide that. If you want to be frugal, there is the Mustachian approach: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/

    If you want faster results you're going to have to work harder and try more things. First step is to acquire valuable skills, what Call Newport calls "career capital". Then you'll want to look at ways create income that isn't tied to your time. This is what most people on Indie Hackers are focussed on. A great high level (and quite philosophical) 3.5hr podcast on these principles is from Naval Ravikant:https://nav.al/rich

    Finally, regarding mentorship and asking for advice - you will get better results if you can say "here is what I have tried, here is what I am thinking of doing for these reasons". Successful people (and I am certainly not one of them, but I know people who are) love to help, but they need to know that you are someone ready to be helped.

    1. 2

      Hi Chris, yeah you right. It is full of ambiguity, i think the first thing i should learn is to express myself. With independent i mean "create income that isn't tied to your time" as you mentioned. I will checkout the podcast thank you :D.

      Best Ruslan

  2. 3

    https://nathanbarry.com/wealth-creation/ is a great article.

    What I wish I done is get a job -> freelance on the side -> find a profitable niche -> make $$$ -> build a SaaS

    Upwork is a race to the bottom.

    If you have a job you can say no to bad freelance gigs.

    If you like teaching courses might be a nice option as well.

    1. 1

      Thank you for that article, very informative one. What do you mean by "If you like teaching courses might be a nice option as well." Do you mean i should create some kind of programming courses on youtube? I love teaching. <3 very good idea too.

      1. 2

        Selling courses/digital products are much easier than SaaS.

        Also think about a different route (not youtube) can you do training for tech companies in certain software? I believe that is high paid and doesn't require as much "luck".

  3. 2

    Do you like teaching? Would you be interested in monetizing your skills by creating online courses and writing books?

  4. 2

    I assume you're still based in Germany, and I understand you want to work as a freelancer, as you're referring to other gig websites?

    Two popular freelancer websites are https://gulp.de and https://www.freelancermap.de/. You should create a profile there and search for matching opportunities. (Might require paid membership, not sure.)

    There are also lots of agencies who earn money by placing you as a freelancer, one colleague of mine is working with https://www.hays.de/ since years and seems to be happy.

    Good luck!

  5. 2

    I don't understand what do you mean by independent but if you want to be a freelancer you need to look at websites freelancer in Germany or get in touch with freelancer agents in LinkedIn, i have no idea how it works in Germany but it's not a good idea in job boards like Upwork and fiver... because it's low cost their and not for elite freelancers.

    Well if you want to be independent you need to have your business or product.

    Good luck

    1. 1

      LinkedIn i a good one thanks buddy. With independent i mean self employed.

  6. 1

    Big companies sometimes have a lot of interesting internal projects. You just need to be choosy with the positions/projects/offers. People with PhDs have a LOT of freedom in choosing their own work.
    Feel free to reconsider ;-)
    On the other side I have been working on side projects for 20 years and so far I haven't made a cent - not that this was my priority. You need to be a good businessman as well, if you want to make money on your own.

  7. 1

    There are some valuable articles linked in here but if you're completely new to this, here's my 2 cents.

    Don't think too much. Build something quickly within 3-4 weeks and ship it. That experience will teach you wayy more about entrepreneurship than anything.

    Then go and read those Naval/Nathan articles. They will make much more sense.

    1. 1

      Nice one, i just started to develop a product which i will introduce here soon. Thank you i will check out this articles.

  8. 1

    What is your current experience? What is your expertise?

    1. 1

      I develop Software for companies for about 3 years. I have experience in Swift, Flutter, Vue js, Node JS (Express), GO Lang, Python. My expertise right now is VUE js at front end and Strapi (Node JS) as backend as well as Kubernetes and Openshift for Cloud Infrastructures, since i did it for the last 2 years in a big company.

  9. 1

    Go to tech meetups, and make friends. Tell people that you're a freelancer and you are taking on new clients. If you want to take things a step further, offer to present at a local meetup or conference as a way to build leads.

    1. 2

      i just checked some meetups in munic and will visit some of them. Nice idea :D thank you.

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