Finding freelance clients is easier when you fish where the fish are.
HN's "Who is Hiring?" threads are published monthly and contain 400-700 companies actively hiring — many open to contractors and freelancers.
The problem: reading through hundreds of threaded comments manually takes hours.
The Smarter Approach
Instead of cold-emailing random lists, I mine HN hiring threads for companies that match my tech stack:
- Filter by technology — Python, data pipelines, automation, remote
- Look for direct contact info — many founders include personal emails in HN posts
- Send one highly-personalized message — reference their specific post, offer a concrete deliverable
- Follow up once after 3 days — then move on
The conversion rate is low (1-3%), but the lead quality is much higher than spray-and-pray cold email.
What I Built
I built HN Startup Hunter to speed this up — a free tool that scrapes and indexes HN hiring threads. Enter your skills, filter by stack/timezone/remote, get a ranked list.
Free tier: 20 results. Pro (/month): full results + CSV export with emails.
The Done-For-You Option
If you want a custom research report — I run the scraper with your requirements and deliver 20-50 relevant companies with contact info and stack notes.
5, delivered in 24 hours. → Order here
What is working for your client acquisition right now? Always curious what other freelancers are testing.
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