Ask HN: Beginning freelance web developer: no clients - portfolio?

A short introduction: I'm a programmer with appr. 8 years of experience mainly in desktop C/C++ apps, currently trying to become freelance web developer. 3 months ago I started my intensive (at least to my standards) study of web development with the goal to become "free" and work from home, with my own schedule, etc... Since I'm constantly reading that a freelance web developer without online portfolio of websites/apps developed for previous clients is a big No-No, I was wondering how to get away with this chicken-and-egg problem of having no clients <-> having no projects done for clients. My plan so far is to deploy my websites/projects that I'm currently developing (and will develop) to my personal site and use them as a "fake" projects with the idea that they are actually "real-world". Let me explain a bit about what projects I'm planning to develop: 1. E-Commerce site * Features: product catalog (departments, categories), product attributes and images, product reviews and