Ask HN: How did you land your first projects as a solo engineer/consultant?

I’ve spent roughly the last decade and some change as a software engineer, and recently decided to start a solo consultancy.

I’m focused on helping SMEs sort out the messy back-office parts of the business: spreadsheet glue, brittle internal workflows, poor reporting, awkward integrations, backend/platform problems, and AI workflows that need to do real work rather than just look good in a demo.

I’m not really interested in becoming a generic agency. I’d rather work with businesses that already feel operational pain and need someone technical to help untangle it properly.

For those of you who’ve made this jump:

• how did you get your first real project?
• what kind of outreach actually worked?
• did your first few clients come from network, content, cold outreach, partnerships, subcontracting, or somewhere else?

Also, if anyone knows SMEs or operators dealing with this sort of mess, I’d be glad to chat.

As a gesture of goodwill, I’m offering the first 5 clients 10 hours free to help get an initial project moving.

You can find me over at https://crescita.cc

My advice would be to differentiate yourself:

• Become an expert in 1 thing, and one thing only: either start an open source project, or become the main collaborator in one. And be an EXPERT in that ONE thing. Not a generalist.

• Go personal: I can't see who you are or where are you based in your website. If I want to hire an EXPERT (see point before) consultant, I want to see their face and why they're different. I need a feeling of trust.

• Network the hell out of it: once you're an expert on one thing and you have a face, people will recognize you and recommend you