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