Post: #1

Why do this?

As Roosh said in http://www.rooshv.com/nerds-will-rule-the-world, this job is one that is likely to be around for the forseeable future, as society gives more control of its infrastructure over to technology. Another reason is this is one of a number of jobs that has the ability to give you true location independence, allowing you to accomplish your goal of traveling and seeing new cultures. I started learning this at 15 as a hobby, and to help my uncle with a startup he was working on. I ended up writing their entire point of sale application from scratch, which ended up netting me more than $10,000 (at 17 years of age, I bought a car - stupid). It ended becoming my career (minus a few year stint in running a used car dealership).

Where to get customers?

This is where your networking and sales techniques come into play. It’s hard to tell you how to find customers in the world, but needless to say, it’s a good idea to network to as many people as possible. Go to meetups on http://www.meetup.com and meet with entrepreneurs, other coders, and even recruiters. There are many jobs available where you can work remotely and still get paid hourly or even salary with benefits.

You want to just make a few quick bucks doing this? There are many freelance hiring sites:

http://www.fiverr.com
https://www.elance.com
http://odesk.com
http://www.freelancer.com
http://craigslist.org

Now, there is a bidding component to these sites (just like the real world). Some people are just looking for cheap coding monkeys to crank something out. It helps if you take some shit jobs and get a solid reputation on there for quality work. You will benefit from working your way up.

A few ways to do this:

1. Simply installing your own blog / a blog for someone else
2. Simple site design / some back end work
3. Full site design / admin panels / web apps
4. Full stack system engineering

In this post, I will cover the first one. If there is any interest, I can cover the last three as well, although you should know these require a significant amount of learning and dedication to become good at (and therefore make money at).

1. Installing a blog

This option, generally speaking, does not require a lot of programming experience. It helps, of course, but there are many open source (read: free) blogging platforms that are easy to install and get going. I’m going to cut through the B.S. - go with wordpress. Most programmers cringe at the thought, since wordpress was written in php during a time when it was barely a programming language, and has changed very little since. However, it is one of the most popular blogging platforms in the world. It has thousands of plugins, is free, and is easily installable in most hosting environments. The next consideration is hosting. Generally speaking, you have 3 options as far as web hosting, and your decision will be based on price and scalability.

a. Shared hosting

This is the cheapest option, and also the most limited. Basically you are on the same server as many other customers, sharing the same web server (apache) and database server (mysql). You should expect to pay around $8/month for the most basic plan, and this is generally good up to a few hundred thousand visitors per month (this can vary wildly depending on several factors). I recommend starting here, to see if you can start generating enough traffic to justify moving up. The limiting factors here are:

Memory & CPU (more visitors means more apache processes used - increasing your memory usage and CPU usage)
Bandwidth (think of bandwidth as a pipe carrying data, the more visitors you have, the more data you send through the pipe)

In most cases, you can pay a few additional bucks a month to increase either (or both) of these if you start to see traffic increase. The biggest drawback here is if one of the other shared customers starts hogging the CPU or network bandwidth, your site could be affected.

b. VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting - managed or unmanaged

This is a more expensive option than shared, as you get a dedicated virtual server.
Meaning you get your own apache instance and mysql instance. This gives you the benefit of not being at the mercy of traffic spikes for other customers, but comes at a higher price. There are managed and unmanaged options, managed meaning the host manages your machine for you (installing apache, installing mysql, firewall rules, etc). This typically costs more and you can be at the mercy of their tech support hours. Unmanaged means you handle all this yourself, meaning you need more training.

c. Cloud based hosting

Cloud hosting is similar to VPS, in that you get your own virtual server. There are many, many tiers depending on your needs, and you can add virtual servers on demand if needed. With cloud hosting, you are charged based on hourly usage, so if you shut off an instance during low traffic times, you won’t be charged for that time. These are typically unmanaged, meaning you install your own web server and database server, and configure your firewall yourself.

Also, you will need to decide on whether or not to have your own domain name. Some shared hosting providers will give you a free subdomain (i.e. http://{your-blog-name}.{the-hosting-provider}.com). If you want your own domain name, that will start at a few bucks a year (http://godaddy.com always has coupons online for first year domain names. After the first year, it’s generally $35.00 / year).

For guys just starting off, I recommend going with shared hosting on the smallest plan available. You can get a free blog at http://wordpress.com, however, it will be their ads, not yours (meaning they make the ad revenue), and it will be their domain name. Also, you will be at their mercy in terms of “questionable” content (remember the heartiste controversy). My favorite shared hosting provider (and the one I will go through installing wordpress on today) is http://webfaction.com. They allow a bit more freedom than most other shared hosting providers (i.e. ssh access and port opening), and are always upgrading their plans for free (they doubled my available memory at no cost, without me asking). They also offer one-click install for wordpress. This is a great guide on how to do that, I don’t think I could do a better job: http://pursuitofepic.com/set-self-hosted...ress-blog. This will have you up and running in a matter of minutes. Then, you (or your client) can start writing content. It’s really that simple. Also note: since you are administering this yourself for your client, you can charge them monthly hosting as a reseller (if you have enough clients with simple blogs, this can be a decent small revenue stream for you). You are charged $8.00 / month for hosting, you charge the client $25.00 / month for hosting (plus per hour for plugin installation, etc), at 10 clients that’s an extra $170.00 / month you get for simply owning a hosting account.

Now, that was just a few easy ways to get a blog up and running, and your options for scaling the blog as it grows. I’d be more than happy to continue writing additional posts (installing the blog on VPS / Cloud hosting, setting up a local development environment for programming / testing, installing and scaling cloud applications on Amazon EC2, and even writing full stack software basics) if anyone is interested. I just realized I’ve been on this forum for over a year and a half and while I’ve taken a lot of value, I’ve given very little back. I’ve decided to not contribute until I have something of value to give to this forum. This forum is like an open source lifestyle project, and it’s my time to contribute back to the community.

Post: #2

I'm learning how to code. So how much do you expect to earn? Ideally I want to be freelance and work just enough to earn $2000 a month

Post: #3

OP do you enjoy coding or just the lifestyle it provides? I am the latter and teaching yourself to code is tough curious how other people are about it.

Post: #4

(04-19-2014 08:27 PM)2014 Wrote:  I'm learning how to code. So how much do you expect to earn? Ideally I want to be freelance and work just enough to earn $2000 a month

It depends on how you want to make the money. I've done both freelance and salary. Freelance I charged $65 / hour, but that was back when I was inexperienced. I would easily charge upwards of $125 / hour now. The trick to that style is finding clients. But if you have them, you can make a lot of money doing the actual work, and reselling domains/servers/SEO/etc.

Salary, I started at $45,000 right out of college. I'm now at around $120,000, with health, dental, 401k, all that stuff. But I'm really just taking most of that and stashing it away for what's next.

Post: #5

(04-19-2014 08:50 PM)shanked Wrote:  OP do you enjoy coding or just the lifestyle it provides? I am the latter and teaching yourself to code is tough curious how other people are about it.

Both - I actually really enjoy coding. To me it's like solving jigsaw puzzles that never get boring. Especially when you get a gig that allows a degree of creative freedom.

Post: #6

I've learned python decently well over the past year and a half. It's part of my 'skill building' protocol so I can make some income when I quit my job and travel. I haven't used the skills to freelance though.

What programming languages do you guys find most profitable for online freelancers?

Post: #7

(04-20-2014 04:42 PM)Neo Wrote:  I've learned python decently well over the past year and a half. It's part of my 'skill building' protocol so I can make some income when I quit my job and travel. I haven't used the skills to freelance though.

What programming languages do you guys find most profitable for online freelancers?

If you are more into the design / aesthetics of a website, I would learn html/css/javascript, there's plenty of design work for freelancers. You typically won't earn as much as working on the backend side of things, however.

For the backend side of things, I would learn php. It's not a great language, but it's widely popular (low barrier to learn/install), and wordpress is written in it. Wordpress plugins can be profitable. Since phone apps are getting quite popular, another 2 to learn are:

Objective-C (iphone/ipad)
Java (Android)

Both have a steep learning curve, but you can make some decent money writing phone apps. I haven't done any myself, but I know java, so I might start with some basic Android apps here in the near future.

Post: #8

It's basically my dream job to be able to work from the PC anywhere while travelling.

Imagine you have 1 year and 2 hours a day to train, would you suggest HTML/CSS first, then PHP for wordpress then Ruby and Python?

I'd just want learn skills to the point of earning say $50 an hour and working remote.

Please serious advice!

Thanks bro

Post: #9

Funny, I started learning a couple of days ago upon finding this website (not sure if this was referred by another forum member earlier)

Seems like a handy skill to have

Post: #10

(04-21-2014 02:22 AM)2014 Wrote:  It's basically my dream job to be able to work from the PC anywhere while travelling.

Imagine you have 1 year and 2 hours a day to train, would you suggest HTML/CSS first, then PHP for wordpress then Ruby and Python?

I'd just want learn skills to the point of earning say $50 an hour and working remote.

Please serious advice!

Thanks bro

Since you will find very few, if any, gigs that require PHP knowledge but no HTML/CSS knowledge, I would say stick with HTML/CSS first. It's not usually as profitable, but it sets you up with a good idea of how the front end works. Get brushed up on that, you wouldn't be perfect after a year, but you should be pretty solid. Then start learning PHP, I wouldn't bother with Ruby or Python quite yet, unless you want to do this stuff full time. It also depends on your desire / skill set, would you rather be the guy designing the face of the website, or powering the engine that makes it work? Which are you better at?

Post: #11

Hey OP, in your opinion what do you think is the best package of skills to learn right now that will still be viable in a few years from now?

Post: #12

(04-22-2014 10:02 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  Hey OP, in your opinion what do you think is the best package of skills to learn right now that will still be viable in a few years from now?

Not OP, but I'd say PHP would be relevant as long as Wordpress is around, which is going to be for a very, very long time.

Note that the clients you pursue will usually be happy with a Wordpress solution, which is why PHP is ok for this. These are people who truly just have no idea what's going on, so they won't know you're using Wordpress (which is good, cause WP is so easy).

Post: #13

I was wondering if anyone knows which lends itself better to remote work? Front or backend?

Post: #14

(04-22-2014 10:02 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  Hey OP, in your opinion what do you think is the best package of skills to learn right now that will still be viable in a few years from now?

PHP is pretty easy to learn and wordpress is huge. That being said, there are up-and-coming competitors which can scale better, so I'm not 100% of the security in its future. The language itself progresses pretty slowly. That being said, you can get it up and running quickly, free, and the learning curve is low. If you want, I can do a post about how to get it up and running.

Another 2 technologies I would recommend looking into are Java (Android SDK) and Objective-C (iOS SDK). Mobile apps and tablet apps are huge, and only look to be growing. It looks like the mobile/tablet market have boiled down to these 2 techs, for the foreseeable future. Both have a rather large learning curve, but can net you quite a bit of money doing contract work, and allow you to develop your own app using your own idea, often for free or cheap.

Post: #15

The trick is in finding clients, and keeping them. Once you have the clients, they'll hire you endlessly. There is plenty of work for agencies, more than they can handle and they like "RELIABLE" freelancers.

If you are reliable, they'll pay nicely for you. I'm charging in the $60-80 range for long term contracts.

Clients are usually suspicious of third-world or far away remote freelancers. Especially, when you don't have a portfolio. The odds are the experience will be bad. Try to start with a small project and then grow business with them thereafter.

Always ask for a linkedin recommendation. It's quite important for prospect clients.

Finally, it'll take 3-4 years until you master one framework or platform (like coding HTML/CSS or Pro-level JavaScript). So accept the fact that you'll not be hired immediately or relatively low hourly wages.

Post: #16

(04-19-2014 09:50 AM)ryanf Wrote:  A few ways to do this:

1. Simply installing your own blog / a blog for someone else
2. Simple site design / some back end work
3. Full site design / admin panels / web apps
4. Full stack system engineering

Do u guy mind expanding on 2,3 & 4

Post: #17

removed

Post: #18

<question class="vladimir-poontang">

I've recently started learning to code. I'm learning HTML and CSS for the time being. I find both to be very logical and interesting, but I feel that it's more long winded than it needs to be. I'm sure there must be a more concise way to get the same result. Also I dread the idea of having to wade through mountains of code to find errors. Problems could be caused by improper positioning of tags, forgetting to put the / on the close tags, missing a >, or even just a spelling error.

My question is, what is a good way to earn money doing coding, self employed, on the basis of doing one off, relatively simple-ish jobs and then forgetting about it and moving on to the next?

</question>

Post: #19

I've recently started learning to code. I'm learning HTML and CSS for the time being. I find both to be very logical and interesting, but I feel that it's more long winded than it needs to be. I'm sure there must be a more concise way to get the same result.

For HTML : https://pugjs.org/language/tags.html

For CSS : https://sass-lang.com/

Both require installations and a compilation step.

Also I dread the idea of having to wade through mountains of code to find errors. Problems could be caused by improper positioning of tags, forgetting to put the / on the close tags, missing a >, or even just a spelling error.

That's life when if you're trying to learn. You can try to use:

For validation:
https://www.freeformatter.com/html-validator.html

For prettier indentation:
https://htmlformatter.com/

My question is, what is a good way to earn money doing coding, self employed, on the basis of doing one off, relatively simple-ish jobs and then forgetting about it and moving on to the next?


Given your skill level, you're best off finding non-tech savvy individuals in-person who need simple sites.

Post: #20

(09-06-2018 03:40 PM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  Also I dread the idea of having to wade through mountains of code to find errors.Problems could be caused by improper positioning of tags, forgetting to put the / on the close tags, missing a >, or even just a spelling error.

Wait until you get to the actual codebase of 100k + lines of code written 15 years ago. You haven't even cracked the surface. Seriously decide if this is for you.

Post: #21

(09-06-2018 03:40 PM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  <question class="vladimir-poontang">

I've recently started learning to code. I'm learning HTML and CSS for the time being. I find both to be very logical and interesting, but I feel that it's more long winded than it needs to be. I'm sure there must be a more concise way to get the same result. Also I dread the idea of having to wade through mountains of code to find errors. Problems could be caused by improper positioning of tags, forgetting to put the / on the close tags, missing a >, or even just a spelling error.

</question>

I use VSCode and there are a few extensions that automatically completes the tags in case you make an error. Very fast and comfortable to code.

Post: #22

I was a coder for 20 years. I quit last year and I'm now teaching in Asia.

Code has got way too complicated for its own good and the glory days of easy money are long gone.

I love Angular.JS. I went to upgrade to Angular 2 and I was like - WTF - this is on another level altogether. There must be 3 people in the entire world that understand this.

I tried freelancing on UpWork 5 years ago but had a succession of shithead clients. One gave me Indian code to fix. Another insisted I bill in 2 minute chunks. So if an image needed editing then I would get paid for the 2 minutes it took, not the time taken to boot up my PC, fire up PhotoShop, FTP the file up, check the result etc. etc. etc. On top of that you are of course competing with Indians and Filipinos who will make an entire Facebook clone for $100.

Thankfully I was smart to:

1) Learn to code
2) Get high paying jobs in the UK
3) Ignore all office politics
4) Shun consumer debt culture and save ~75% of my income
5) Retire from IT at 45 before I burnt out and died like so many of my colleagues

Post: #23

Top Panda,
I assume you're exaggerating about foreigners doing a FB job for 100 bucks.

If not, it explains why so many companies and people are outsourcing, which makes learning code at all-outside of personal goals of entrepreneurship- all but pointless.