What if you simply found a few projects people are working on and consulted for them until they got their MVP to market and iteratively improve the product market fit until they have a revenue stream that allows them to pay you for the work you've done? Then you can use that income to do it again for some new projects and get a good reputation built up. I believe you need to initially build a reputation in order to have something to attract clients. It's something I'm doing currently on the side. I both want to see my friends become successful and I also believe if my skills can help them achieve their goals it will validate my strategy. I have about 3 years of pre-sales engineering experience and lots of software development experience so I'm not far off from where you are it sounds like. Best wishes, I hope you find a nice groove :)