Open source work has helped me a ton. I'm active in the Clojure community and create open-source projects, as well as collaborate with other Clojurians every now and then, which builds credibility. My Github and references is 90% of my "sales". So once I had credibility, and my references prepared (they will always ask for references), I started contacting start-ups in the Clojurians Slack channel, and elsewhere where I found Clojure start-ups. The difference was that from the very beginning I communicated myself as a contractor, and not as a potential employee. Start-ups are pretty open to contractors, and part-time contractors, I've found. Probably because we mostly bill by the hour, and they don't have to pay any employee-related taxes on us, so they don't really lose anything with that. They pay for the work we actually do, and we get paid for the work we actually do.

I don't know if this helps at all, but feel free to hit me up for more details if you want, my contact info is on my profile :)