20 conversations; 5~8 coffee dates; 2~4 proposals; 1 gig.

Many developers believe that conversations "just happen" for some elite breed of networked/famous/etc developer that excludes them. Sales conversations generally don't "just happen", for anyone. You write some pitches and make some calls.

I'm not saying that. I ran a software business for 14 years and made a lot of pitches. However, it can be tough to get projects that end up being seriously profitable and give you space to think and plan. Those clients take a while to find. However if you are highly specialized then obviously that clientele can be identified more easily and are less price sensitive and more focused on getting what they need.

I'd like to see some responses to this from some gurus. I have the same problem. I have a bunch of generalized skill but I feel not enough to make large $ with consulting.

I don't attribute this to impostor syndrome.

You can consult for just about everything. Being a specialist is a blessing and a curse because you will stand out more, but are likely in lower demand. Plenty of shops just do frontend web development or java development and get plenty of business. The trick is being able to hustle to get contracts.

Specialize. It doesn't have to be an esoteric domain. Something like Go server apps or Docker is enough.

With an industry that moves so ridiculously fast, how do you know what'll be in use in the few years it'll take to become good at something?

I feel like if I'd learned web development five years ago I wouldn't know anything about it today.

> I feel like if I'd learned web development five years ago I wouldn't know anything about it today.

This is a wrong assumption. Web development just gives the feeling of moving fast, it's not really the case. The foundation of web development is roughly the same as 5y ago. Most things from the http protocol, web servers, data storage, authentication, websockets etc. still works the same. Give or take a few UX and state-management tools and we're not that far into the future.

Also due to the huge investments in the web during the past decade(s) things should get slower because of legacy issues. Think fe. how long it's taking browser vendors to dump Flash or to adopt WebRTC.

You answered your own question: keep learning. There isn't enough time for mastery of any particular technology, but mastery of the flow of technical change.

Specialize is possible as someone mentioned, but I think the essential is segment.

You can still be a generalist as long as you put those skills to the service of a specific community. This could be region, vertical, domain, etc. The important part is to be clear who are you aiming at, so you can hustle and leverage the network/reference effect in there.

I was thinking a bay area network, as in "got a call from Netflix," but yes.

According to the article she was in rural Oregon at the time, and now she appears to be in Seattle.

She moved to Oregon to decompress cheaply, but was still in touch with colleagues.