Title: 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.