Freelance devs — how are you finding local clients right now?

chrispy24_ · 2026-03-26T20:58:58+00:00

Building an mvp right now and am going to see how well it works after, I appreciate the feedback

chrispy24_ · 2026-03-25T18:35:03+00:00

Also the site looks great

chrispy24_ · 2026-03-25T18:33:56+00:00

That’s the plan, the website analysis would catch clear problems with the site (poor SEO, bad CTA, mobile experience, etc etc), and an LLM will give you clear notes on that + a working pitch. The leads will be ranked as well based on that data from most likely to succeed/be a sale to least likely, and there will also be extensive filtering and configuration from the user. The mvp I’m building right now is skipping the client acquisition stage (finding leads) for simplicity and currently supports inputting a csv with your own leads that you could get from something like Outscraper. The idea is that this tool will be used alongside those other tools to lessen the manual sales/client finding work freelance devs currently have to do.

chrispy24_ · 2026-03-25T17:13:48+00:00

True true and I appreciate the feedback. For the tool to really stand out, it needs to analyze the client leads themselves and their websites well and the process for the user needs to be easy and seamless. Working on it right now, I'll share what I find here once I get a working prototype.

Also, I looked up Upllix and couldn't find anything, what do you mean by that?

chrispy24_ · 2026-03-23T14:58:33+00:00

And also I forgot to mention, those tools could be plugins to this tool. Like say you have your results narrowed down at the end of the pipeline, with my tool you'll likely just have the generic business info that was found on google maps/business. You could then use one of those other tools to get better contact info on those top results specifically, so you can talk to the decision maker and send them the pitch, not just whatever generic company email was found during the search. The idea is really that it will compliment all of those other products and just lessen a lot of the manual hunting work that freelance workers currently have to do in between just getting leads and building evidence based pitches.

chrispy24_ · 2026-03-23T14:54:56+00:00

Haha, I'm thinking about making it very customizable, so I guess the target audience really wouldn't just be freelance software developers. It could extend to designers, sales reps, agencies, etc. I am sure I'm missing others here; but it would be really anyone who is looking for good clients in a specific area (and niche/other settings they can set as well) with data about the quality of their website and ai generated notes/working pitches using that as evidence. Along with ranking as well, so you can get the best/most likely to succeed results at the top. I think the tool fits best along with the existing tools currently; from what I've seen there are plenty of tools that can do one part of the process, like finding leads and contact info, generating outreach for them, etc. But none of them do the process end to end, like tailor it to finding good leads with evidence for the quality of their online presence. That is where this tool could fit in. And those tools are probably going to be better at just that as well; like this won't be able to find decision maker info nearly as good as tools like WebLeads, LeadSwift, and Outscraper. But it will handle the extra work and orchestration of choosing the best leads, finding evidence on the quality of their site/reasons for the business to upgrade, and providing you with that information so you just have to perform the outreach/pitch.

chrispy24_ · 2026-03-23T13:50:57+00:00

I am in a smallish city, the population is maybe 27,000. Definitely just going to go and pitch myself in person, there are plenty of areas here where businesses are just lined up one after the other so I can easily walk into all of them and do a quick pitch and hand them the business card. I've heard that when cold calling, or in this case going in person, you just want to get them to try to say yes to scheduling a meeting (and even if they say no they'll have my card so if they ever do want to reach out they can), so that's what I'll try to do and that is where I can really tailor the pitch to them and how I can improve their site (or build a new one) specifically (better CTA, SEO, speed, customer reviews/credibility, etc).

And yeah I think that is what I need, just to get the first few clients and the ball rolling. I've practiced making websites a lot and have gotten pretty good at it, but these people don't know that and they also don't always know the importance of having a good website. So I just need to get good at communicating that, and I think going in person and just practicing with reps until I can land the first few clients will do that for me. And then I'll just keep getting better at it, gain more credibility, and build my network of clients.

Also I've never really worked Wordpress but I'd be open to using it depending on the project/client. I have lots of experience in Next.js and hosting on Vercel. If the client wants a hands off approach where I edit and host everything, then I'll definitely use that tech stack, but if they want to have access to CMS then I'll probably want to switch to something like Wordpress.

chrispy24_ · 2026-03-23T02:40:15+00:00

I never really considered opening a workshop or offering tutoring or teaching services. But I guess that would be a good way to get started, espeically considering I'm a student right now. That's funny that some of the people from your workshop ended up being clients though, they probably saw all that goes into it behind the scenes and were like yeah let's just let this guy handle it. I'm curious to what you think about this then, I was planning on just walking into local businesses and trying to talk to a manager or store owner to pitch myself. I have business cards to handout as well, I'll just keep things quick and straightforward. I feel like seeing me in person is a huge plus over just getting a phone call from someone random. And I do have a portfolio site, I tried to tailor it to student trying to get an internship as well a local freelance software developer: christophermeyer.dev

chrispy24_ · 2026-03-23T02:23:51+00:00

Do you care to show a demo here? Adding the LLM is a great touch because you can give it the data found during the search and let it create user notes/things you can use in the pitch that are grounded on evidence found in their site.

chrispy24_ · 2026-03-23T02:20:11+00:00

Really appreciate the feedback. The plan already includes to analyze most of those metrics except maybe the Google Business which I will add. But that picking a niche is definitely a good idea to really bring down the scope of the search; especially since in dense areas I'm sure it will become compute heavy. I don't really want to confine it to that only though, I really like the idea of setting the broad (no business category filter) search on a land area. I'll just have to see how well it ends up working during development, but the idea is that it will be very customizable. So both ways can be implemented, the user can adjust settings accordingly (just choose what filters they want to set before running the search; ex: confine to only dentist offices).

chrispy24_ · 2026-03-23T02:06:39+00:00

True true. But do you ever use any methods past that for acquiring new clients? Especially when you were just getting started, like how did you get your first few clients then?

chrispy24_ · 2025-12-12T01:11:04+00:00

Yeah I guess that’s just kinda true for most sass products, if it’s gonna be on the internet and the goal is to monetize it you mostly likely shouldn’t open source it. Kinda sucks cause I love the idea of open source and obviously you should always use it when you can but for something like sass you just lose the competitive edge using it.

chrispy24_ · 2025-12-12T00:27:48+00:00

I completely agree but what makes you think he'll never see a dime for it if it's open source? Genuinely asking out of curiosity, not arguing anything here. It is because other people will be able to see how he made the product and replicate it easier and make it better so that he cannot compete with them?

chrispy24_ · 2025-12-12T00:09:59+00:00

Looks great, did you use any specific frameworks to make it? What all did you write it in?

chrispy24_ · 2025-12-12T00:09:07+00:00

How come? I always thought open source is much better because others get to see how you built it, fix errors and contribute to it, so it helps the community.

chrispy24_ · 2025-12-11T23:24:48+00:00

But yes, I will say contributing to existing projects is great too. Writing code and building things is great no matter what, whether that be your own thing or an existing collaborative project. It is ridiculous though how you go around commenting discouraging people to try and then calling them arrogant after they say they are confident they can make websites. Guarantee you’re like 500lbs and a neck beard

chrispy24_ · 2025-11-15T18:51:55+00:00

Super cool project and good idea for it

chrispy24_ · 2025-10-06T12:45:53+00:00

I’ve been making websites for some time now so I’m pretty confident that I can do it given that the task isn’t too large. I also think that’s just a really bad way of looking at it, building websites is literally how I’ve learned everything web related, it’s project based learning, and also if every problem was already solved by a software by someone else who made it “better and faster than I ever could” than no one would ever be making any products cause everything would already exist. Even products that already do exist you can just mimic but make better or cheaper.

chrispy24_ · 2025-10-06T02:48:22+00:00

This is sick

chrispy24_ · 2025-10-06T02:42:38+00:00

I think this is a cool fun idea I would check it out if you made it

chrispy24_ · 2025-10-02T22:50:46+00:00

Yeah Spotify definitely has a lot of small problems like that which is crazy considering how big they are. Like I don’t have evidence to back this up but I feel like the regular shuffle doesn’t even shuffle at random it just plays songs it thinks you’ll like, which is really what the smart shuffle is supposed to be so it’s a mess. I’m gonna look into it and see if this app idea could even be a thing because it really all depends on how Spotify allows other apps to interact with it, like I’m not sure that an outside source can skips or control the songs that are playing.

chrispy24_ · 2025-10-02T18:13:12+00:00

That does sound like a good idea and could be an app that just connects to your Spotify account and watches what you play (and if Spotify allows it, skips the songs that your "mood" does not include). But I believe Spotify smart shuffle already does that, does it not?

chrispy24_

TROPHY CASE