megaduck

My co-founder and I are a couple of Ruby/Java coders with a broad range of expertise. We need to pay the bills while getting our product off the ground, so we're looking at doing some contract work.

We're experienced in the IT/coding realm but n00bs at the consulting thing, so here's some questions for people who have done this before:

1. What's the best way to start drumming up consulting gigs? Craigslist? Google ads? Cold calling?

2. What kind of rates are reasonable for a strong 2-person coding team with enterprise experience?

3. Are there any special pitfalls for bootstrappers that we should be aware of? We'll be trying to juggle product development with any other work that we do. Any time management tips? Legal things that we should watch out for?

I know we're not the only bootstrappers out there, so there's probably a lot of HNers with the same questions. Any advice that you give will be deeply appreciated.

And if anyone needs work done on Java/Ruby integration or full-text search, shoot me an email. :)