I think the problem is that you're looking at yourself as an expense. What if you marketed yourself as a money multiplier? Someone who can take the money clients invest in you and create a positive ROI?
A huge amount of people who want what you have to offer aren't actively looking for "X Developers". I'm working on a $200/hr, 6 month contract now for a client that wasn't even looking for custom software.
I'm really against the marketplace / elance / odesk model. Go into the world, talk to business owners, discover their problems, and then see if there's any overlap between your abilities to solve their problems and their pains.
A huge amount of people who want what you have to offer aren't actively looking for "X Developers". I'm working on a $200/hr, 6 month contract now for a client that wasn't even looking for custom software.
I'm really against the marketplace / elance / odesk model. Go into the world, talk to business owners, discover their problems, and then see if there's any overlap between your abilities to solve their problems and their pains.
Check out the bottom of this post (http://planscope.io/blog/my-most-effective-newsletter-to-dat...) for a real life conversation I had at a networking mixer that landed me the contract I described above.