What would you do if you were good at webdev, needed to make $2k in the next month, but didn't have the mental health to hold a regular job?

Hi @lumenwrites!

I can recognise exactly what you are feeling! I fighted that for almost 4 years. I REALLY hope this reply gives you hope to fix it. Because

IT

IS

FIXABLE.

Do not stop looking for the solution.

It's not something that you are making up.

It's not your fault.

It's not that you are "broken".

It's not that you are "depresing" or "lazy".

You are just sick. That's it. And it will be fixed.

The same thing happened to me when I was 26, and I went to EVERY DOCTOR here in Spain, and all of them (except one) had no idea of what was happening in my brain. They only knew that "something was off" and that "seemed to be related to the immunology system". Some said it was "anxiety", some said it was just the "I was not a teenager anymore" (!!!!!).

Damn, I thought I had a tumor or something in my brain! 😅

I remember feeling "broken". I was working in merger & acquisitions and I had to organize my work so I always had a pile of "dumb work" to do when that "happened". I know what you mean by "it's entirely unpredictable when my brain will break and refuse to function". Some of my symptoms were:

• I had not memory those days. Like...Short term memory was just not there.
• I was physically exhausted. Like...REALLY tired.
• Photo sensitivity: the light hurt. Like...my eyes didn't "close" properly to adapt to excess of light and that hurt
• Even my stomach felt "weird"
• And in general extreme brain fog (like...not being able to use my brain at all).

After 4 years looking for a solution, a doctor told me:

"Look...I don't know what it is. But IT IS SOMETHING. And it seems like a food intolerance. I have read about cases like these lately. Visit this other doctor who is a specialist on food intolerance".

So I did. A couple of weeks later, they made some test on me and detected that, even if I didn't have the "antibodies" (or something like that), I was genetically intolerant to gluten. The doctor told me: "try not to eat gluten for a month". And in a couple of weeks, those "periods" started to vanish. What before happened every other day, was then happening once per week. Then once per month...and now is history. :)

I am in the best shape of my life (at 35!), I created an ecom brand 3 years ago and I am now on the move for me next project (actually going to Bali for inspiration 😎)

So...

1. PLEASE don't stop looking for a solution. 10 years ago (when I had it) there was almost no info about this, but today a lot of people are suffering the same thing (brain fog), and doctors are begining to take it seriously.

2. Try to stop eating gluten! You have nothing to lose. (Please if there is a nutricionist in the room, avoid giving us the 'you need gluten if you are not celiac' talk...)

Today's gluten has something that hurts our brain in some way. I have no idea what it is, but there is plenty of evidence about that now. Just give it a try!

PLEASE, write me if you need to chat about it. I know how desperate it can be and I would be more than happy to help us much as I can.

Cheers!

Insomnia is so debilitating, best of luck finding a solution to your health problems.

If you want to go the freelance route, an easy way to get started is to submit proposals on https://www.upwork.com There are all sorts of projects on there that I think would fit your situation. Good luck!

Edit: also, if you would like to work as a traditional developer you may be surprised at how flexible some employers will be. If there is a specific team/company that piques your interest, it wouldn’t hurt to reach out and explain your situation. If they can’t hire you full or part time, offer to work as a contractor initially so that you can prove your contributions. (I have done this twice and both times it led to a full-time position.)

While being transparent (especially about your health) can be risky, I have found that when dealing with trustworthy people it is worth it. The hard part is knowing who to trust.

Your portfolio is really strong for someone who has never had a job. Most of the devs I work with don’t have a single full stack personal project to showcase, and the juniors can barely string a front end project together in react - you have several full stack projects that are fairly rich in functionality. This speaks a lot of volume to employers.

The landscape has changed now since covid- with companies being a lot more flexible with working hours and fully remote. Mental health considerations are also now becoming very prevalent in the tech industry, and not hiring someone due to their mental health condition is now being viewed in the same way as not hiring for physical disability etc.

I honestly think that you would get your foot in the door EASILY as a junior. Just deliver the work they asked of you but on your own schedule, they would be fine with it. You might need to compensate a little by going the extra mile to make up for any inconvenience caused by your availability, however, if your work is good and u are fairly quick, which I believe it is from your portfolio, they would be more than happy.

Where i work we have one 15 minute meeting at the same time every day, (video call) it’s nothing intense it’s just to say where u are upto with your work, and then for the rest of the day you are left to get on with it. Some days I don’t make that meeting, if that’s the case I’ll leave a written update in slack. Some days I have to deal with stuff outside of work so I’m not actually working. I leave my desk for a few hours, half a day, I make up that time later on in the evening or later on in the week. No one cares so long as you get stuff done.

What I would say is you probably don’t want to work at a place where they encourage pair programming. Cos then you have to match someone elses schedule. My place doesn’t encourage pair programming unless you are really stuck on a problem. Pair programming sucks anyway, in my opinion.

It might be worth looking for part time positions as well, and trying to get a couple of these going.

Either way, you have nothing to lose by applying for jobs. Just ensure that you explain your condition to them. But emphasise that you will still perform, and for them to give you a chance/ trial run. Honestly I think with that portfolio you are going to run rings round the other juniors, even if they are sat at their computer all day and you are spending half of it in bed.

Hey, we are actively looking for a self-starter and full-stack engineer (looking at your portfolio, I believe you qualify for both). I will reach out via DMs.

Maaaaate,

There’s already so many kind, cheering, positive and rewarding posts here for you - so I’ll skip that side of it. Really hoping the best for your health.

But, that being said, I might something to do for you. Currently building a SaaS startup. Well I’m not building anything I’m just the founder, so I need technical guys to help my out.

I have a Python developer part time and two freelance frontends. But I might see a fit for you for some regular hours.

Shoot me a mail at keje@clax.ai and let’s chat if you’re up for it :-)

This sounds awful and I feel very sorry for the state you find yourself in.

If you really do need to find income as quickly as possible and don’t want to succumb to the awful low prices on up work (from US here and they are insultingly low for new freelancers with a bit of experience like you seem to have), I would try finding freelance gigs locally.

What I’ve done in the past is made a list of “industries” or sectors that I could focus on that might have need and budget to spend on a website (I am a web developer so you will need to tweak for your skill set), 3 or 4 sectors like Schools, Dentist/Doctors offices, Libraries, Town Halls/Legislatures, Builders, Lawn Maintenace, whatever.

For each sector Google companies (or if you have an old school phone book use that) to get contact details - email AND PHONE - for 100 companies/organizations in each sector.

Draft a email offering to do work for them and send them all a cold email. Follow it up 3 days later with a phone call and another email.

Many will ignore you, many will tell you to piss off. 1 -3 in 100 will need your services. Find out what they need, what their budget is, and give them a timeline that works with your situation. If their budget isn’t the 2k you need, keep looking.

Make a new list or add to the current sectors every 3 days. After a two or three weeks you should have 6 or more paying clients if you’ve done what I said.

The key will be to be consistent and methodical but you should be able to fit this into your situation....oh and to finish the jobs of course.

Good luck. I know the feeling and the stress and hopelessness it causes. I hope you find a way to work around it. And a cure for it.

hey @lumenwrites

this sounds really tough, thanks for sharing and being so open.

i’m not exactly sure, maybe a course? something you can write and sell, if you are an expert in something?

or use your health as your competitive advantage, experiment with what helps you, and make a few videos and blogs with what works and what doesn’t? for those that suffer with it too? make it really easy to use and follow, i know my mum would find it useful she has fybromyalgia

i hope you feel better soon! i know that a low carb, low gI diet can help with brain fog

all the best!

Building digital products could be a viable option. Digital products have a number of different options depending on your preference / experience:

• Templates for popular platforms like Wordpress, etc (as others have mentioned)
• Build plugins for existing platforms, such as Shopify (requires a bit of upfront work to understand the platform, but there's no shortage of money to be made there)
• Build a boilerplate product (i.e. use your fullstack knowledge to put together a boilerplate system for those wanting to quickly spin up an app to get going on a sideproject)
• Build an info product, such as en ebook on a coding topic (A fellow IndieHacker recently wrote about that here)

The benefit of digital products are that you can typically get income flowing a lot sooner than a traditional SaaS as you're often selling a one-time payment. Hope that helps a bit and all the best!

Make a tweet, write your skills on it and ask for work there, there are plenty of people that need someone to help.

I got offers without being asked, only because they have seen my projects.

I got started, way back, creating Wordpress templates and PHP/JS scripts and selling these on ThemeForest/CodeCanyon.

Although I don't think these options are as good as they were back then (say 10 years ago), there are similar paths you can take where you benefit from existing marketplaces. That way, you can focus on building/coding and benefit from existing marketplaces.

I know a couple of guys doing really well selling templates for Webflow for example. Or Shopify apps. Anything along these lines would work. Plenty of no/low-code platforms out there that have marketplaces allowing you to sell stuff.

Good luck!