[testimonial] /r/forhire helped push me towards me being an actual self-sustained freelancer. I'm moving into my apartment this fall, and closing the gap between my long-distance SO and I. All thanks to this subreddit.

I recently graduated high-school, and have about 6 years of design under my belt. The last 2 or 3 years have been entirely focused on web. Web design, and front-end for the most part. After contemplating what I want to do after graduating high school, I dreamt up the idea of being able to move near the university my long-distance girlfriend, whom I've been dating for about 18 months now. The problem was the fact that I didn't have much work experience, and I had no clue how to market my skill set. I have had a few clients in past, but nothing really "legitimate".

I started posting on craigslist, and lurking around r/forhire. I discovered a few people looking to give me "equity" etc. etc. but no cash, and it kind of burnt my dreams a little. About a month following that, my laptop was irreparably damaged. I had plans of visiting my SO for quite a chunk of time, and would need to rely on my laptop as a workstation for this amount of time. I was upfront about why I was posting to r/forhire, and got an amazing 6 leads in just 90 minuets. Only 2 of them came through, but it was enough to boost-start my confidence and replace my laptop. Success!

I continued this, got a few more leads. It came to the point where I made a real-world salary for that month and the next month. I was bewildered and more excited than ever. So fast forward a a lot of leads and talking about contemplating, and enter now. Now, I have been looking for long-term relationship clients. Well, lucky me, I managed to spot an ad for someone like myself -- something that will be long term an eventually lead to a managerial position. I applied via reddit, and some follow up emailing. Socially awkward me managed to make it through the group call in which the 2 owners questioned me. I pretty much blacked my conscious self out and just placed the web dev / entrepreneuer in me infront of the phone. Week later I get an email. They want to add me to their team of designers/developers.

I'm now working for an extremely fast growing marketing firm, and am confident that this venture as well as my other clients are going to be reliable enough to depend on to move out. I'll be closing the gap on my long distance relationship, entering the real world of design and development, collaborating with some amazing people, developing my skill set in ways I never had the opportunity to before, and live a comfortable independent life-style. All thanks to this subreddit.

Sorry for the rambling. I love you guys, and I will always remember what this community has provided me with. This has been a life changing 3 months, and I'm proud to say it all happened here.

If anyone's interested in checking out what I am doing or will be doing, I try to keep http://be.net/kinetik pretty up to date

Edit:

Mod MediaMoguls was kind enough to place this in the sidebar so future users will be able to see what this subreddit is all about and it's huge potential. Good luck everyone. The key is consistency