What are your best tips to find clients?

My solution has always been. 1) Leverage your network but be specific in the ask "Do you know a programmer that's $20-$40 hour (likely from eastern Europe) that you've worked with and like?" 2) There so many new marketplaces jumping up focused on niches that may be worth trying (ex: http://elto.com & others). The only other solution (if you want to spend avg. ~$100/hour) is to call a local dev shop and try and get a "bro deal" / that may work great if you live in a small town and they have capacity. Hope that helps.

Depending on what you need, you'll probably want to look at actual agencies. A single freelancer is unlikely to have the complete spectrum of skills you'll need, and unless you're looking to hire someone full-time, you'll probably have trouble retaining a single freelancer for a long period of time without conflicts. A mid-sized agency like the one I started (and later sold) specializes in designing and building sites. Their specialty is marketing and client acquisition, so they wouldn't be much help for the custom stuff later down the road — but that may not be an issue now. Another option may be to use a high-end development talent agency like http://www.10xmanagement.com/ — this company hires out very good developers, but you'll pay a premium. Like anything, you'll get what you pay for. Sometimes you'll get lucky on Elance, but you take on a lot of risk for the lower price. A mid-range agency has lower risk, but may lack full-stack capabilities. A high-range agency can solve all your problems, but you'll pay top dollar for it. I have a lot of experience screening and recruiting talent for projects in the mid-to-high range, so if you'd like to discuss strategies, let me know. Good luck!

You need to make referrals a condition of doing business with you and do it upfront. Also, automate the referral ask. More details on "how to" below. To do this: During your first interactions with a client (NOT after you have delivered or closed the sale, that's a rookie mistake), you can tell them.... "Listen, it's our job to treat you guys so well that you'll not only come back to us over and over again when you need help...it's our job to treat you so well that you'll feel comfortable with us enough to send your friends and colleagues our way when they need our help. Does that make sense?" When they say "Yes" (and they won't say no) you say, "OK great, the way we do that is through referrals. So once you're happy and successful with us, we'll occasionally ask you for a referral. So, you get great work from a team you know and trust and you also get to connect people in your network to a service that you know works well so you look like a rockstar to your network.I want to make sure we can agree to that upfront? This is how we do business here and it holds us accountable to you and makes sure we deliver the absolute best product/service you've ever seen. So once you're happy will you send us referrals?" Once they agree, you now have permission, and a verbal contract that they will send you referrals. Now, treat them like gold with this mentality that you not only want to give them a great finished product, but you want them to refer you. That should drive the work. Once you've delivered...ask for the referral. Don't make the rookie mistake and just say one-time "hey do you know anyone that you could refer us to?" That will rarely work. Instead, ask "Hey, do you remember when we started this project and we both agreed that if we delivered and made you both happy and successful that you would refer us to people in your network?" Pause, shut up and listen, and let them say "yes". Ask them first "So are you happy with what we've delivered?" Pause, shut up and listen, and let them say "yes". If they hesitate at all, they aren't happy and won't refer. Don't hold back and dive-in deep here. Say "I sensed a little hesitation. What's up? What are we missing? I want to help." Figure out what's wrong, fix it, then ask them if they are happy. Then say, "well I've been looking at your connections on LinkedIN and I noticed you are connected to (enter 2 names and company names here). Can youintroduce us so we could have a conversation and get to know them?" The above means you have to do the research. You have to do the work. But the work upfront is much easier than dealing with a cold prospect. Most salespoeple/organizations just don't respect referrals enough to make them a priority. It's their loss and your gain if you follow this simple process. It's work. Just do the work and you might also find you get to know people and enjoy it. These are your customers. Treat them like people. Take care of them and they'll take care of you. Once you make the ask, continue to mine referral leads and ask once a month. Follow-up until they answer. Follow-up until they tell you to stop. Phone is best but email works too. Use it as an opportunity to maintain and develop the relationship. Truly care about your clients and they will never tell you to stop following up. It will be like talking to an old friend and often this process leads to more sales from your past clients as you stay top of mind. Want to automate this process... FULL DISCLOSURE FIRST: I co-founded www.referralriver.com If you want to automate the referral ask, try ReferralRiver. It's free and uses artificial intelligence to automatically research who is in your client's network and make the referral ask at the right time every month. It reduces your work significantly while you just Cc'ed on an email from your existing customers to new referral leads. It's freaking magical. There are other services out there as well like LeadDyno (more of an affiliate program). You should try it all but the truth is that you have to make the agreement upfront and you have to get serious about making referrals a priority. Book a call with me if you want to ask me any questions. Happy to help.

Establish your brand, team, and processes. There are plenty of dev shops out there so you have plenty of examples to follow. For example Thoughtbot has an open source playbook you can use to build your own company.

You'll find that to be the case on any outsourcing site. Focus on the reviews and comments left on a designer's profile. This will give you an idea of the quality of their work before contacting them. Further, check out LinkedIn and search for "freelance designer" or "freelance graphic design" and sift through the results. Good luck! They're out there!