Any tips on how to start freelancing?
Today I realize that I only need to make $30 a day to be able to pay all my bills ( i live in a small town in Brazil ).
I thinking about starting freelancing so I can have more time to work on my side projects.
I currently work as a Full-stack developer (PHP/Javascript) and I know a lot about WordPress, and I know some mobile development and even released a couple of iOS apps made with Swift, so I pretty "advanced" I think when it comes to programming, yet every time I tried to use sites like Upwork I can never get clients.
Does anyone here has been able to successfully freelance? And have any tips on how to get the first clients.
Forget about going outbound; go inbound instead. What this means is: instead of desperately looking for clients, get clients to find you instead. If you're using sites like Upwork, you're essentially participating in a race to the bottom (with certain exceptions of course), since as a new developer you're competing essentially against the rest of the wold, on price!
During my freelancing and contracting career (did this for around 6 years), every single one of my clients approached me. Now, it takes some initial investment from your side, but when done well, the rewards are immense and you'll be looking at making way more money then you would if you were chasing clients.
What worked very well in my case was creating simple, but high quality and good looking products and sell them on marketplaces like ThemeForest and CodeCanyon. This in turn lead to numerous of clients reaching out for work over the years, essentially allowing me to cherry pick who to work for. This resulted in several 6 figure projects and numerous 5 figure ones over the years. Additionally, the product portfolio itself is still making me money, even though I don't actively maintain it anymore (still bringing in around $1,500 per month at the moment.
If have seen others have the same results with releasing open source projects on Github which lead to numerous inbound requests for freelance/contract work.
Another option would be to create something awesome (doesn't have to be complex or fully features, as long as it looks good and displays your skills to the outside world) and look for other places to promote it (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) or reach out to bloggers who serve your target audience and see if you can make a deal with them.
Either way inbound beats outbound :)
Cool idea, would you mind sharing your codecanyon page?
Sure! This is my Envato portfolio
Thanks for the inside Mattijs,
I think that creating products and selling it on Codecanyon and Chupamobile is a really good idea, in fact, I have done this in the past the product that i released there https://codecanyon.net/item/true-or-false-quiz-made-with-corona-sdk/9491874
Has sold like 60 times, and I did get some request to do freelancing for it ( at the time a refused mainly because the 2 people who contacted me wanted to pay very little for the job, less than what a make in my regular job )
My best freelance job so far came from Chupamobile, the guy bought my code there and wanted me to do some modifications to it, and paid me a pretty awesome rate $50/h.
I will ditch Upwork and try to focus on that, its been like 2 years since I released my last code on those marketplaces.
Do you mind sharing what are you working on mobile or web apps?
Good on ya for heading in the right direction! I am not entirely sure CodeCanyon or Themeforest are still the best venues for this approach (since I haven't released anything in a few years), but it still might be worth a shot. Aim for a product in categories are currently popular/trending. This is my Envato portfolio. Good luck!
Nice portfolio man
Wow man, congratulations on the sales!
And thanks for the advice!
Hi aldo,i'am a freelancer too. I make around $2.000-3.000/month from only 2 client,and my living expense just about $500/month. To start freelancing,just don't wait for client,you need to find it. Build a portfolio website,and put your contact in front page,then spare your time 1hour/day to call potential client,you will learn how to sell your service. I don't need freelance job marketplace like upwork and freelancer,but you can try to post on them. Good luck
That's pretty much it.
Build a portfolio, and then call potential clients to offer your services. Forget sites like upwork, they're mostly a race to the bottom for barely-skilled workers.
A good way to build your portfolio is to ask people you already know if they need your services. Offer them a discount or even do it for free. The goal here is to have something you can show potential clients, not to make a lot of money.
I would also suggest sticking to an industry / niche so that you understand your target client better over time. If every project you do is in a totally different niche, it will be harder to build expertise.
Over time you should aim to have a few valuable clients with repeat business rather than a high turnover of new clients with one-off projects.
Here's an interview I did on starting to freelance: https://simpleinvoices.io/blog/lead-generation
Good advice here. I have been freelancing for > 15 years. I'll add: Build a reputation and a body of work and the work will come to you. Doing great work and being great to work with is the best marketing.
What exactly do you mean by "build a reputation and a body of work"? I think that could take a lot of forms.
I'm referring to a building a group of past clients that are pleased with your work so you have repeat work, referrals and case-studies. A reputation can also come from being a "thought leader" (sorry) in a field through publishing useful content and/or solving big problems publicly.
Agreed. You want clients to choose to work with you.
agree with you,but we need deliver high quality work for clients to get valuable clients with repeat business.
Where do you find those $2-3k clients?
Do you send them email? How do you pitch them?
@countd @jrenzi my target client is small business owner,and in my country they rarely check email,but they very active on social media and messaging app. So i just search their contact (whatsapp or telegram) or their social media (instagram),and send them message. I just say i can help them to solve their problem with custom software,if they interested they will explain what they need. Just don't give up in first month of finding client,enjoy the process
This is actually a simple but great tip. I’m having the same issue with company’s emails. Do you send the message throw every channel or just use social media? I mean, do you send both email and WhatsApp message or is it too much?
Depend on situation. I will start searching their phone number on social media,then i will send them message on whatsapp.
If they don't have any phone number in their profile,i will send personal message on social media or email. But i prefer conversation via whatsapp,because they will reply faster. Hope that help
Thanks for the tip. I guess it works better with small clients, since I haven’t seen much web agencies listing their WhatsApp. At least that’s my target customer.
I’ll start applying this strategy both for frontend jobs and side projects on Monday!
Yup,good luck👍
Got It. Thanks for sharing.
you're welcome
Hey Natagon, would you mind sharing the steps of the process you used to find your potential clients and sell to them?
If you don't already have one, create a portfolio site. Don't waste a whole lot of time on it. Pick a premade template, get your iOS apps and any other end-user friendly software you've created on there.
Once a month, HN (and Indie Hackers!) have a freelancing thread. I'd recommend making a monthly reminder to post on them. Once you have a post written up, it takes a minute each month.
While they might not lead to work immediately, you'll start getting a trickle of good leads. In addition, technology-specific Slacks and Discords are a solid place to pick up work.
There's an unfortunate stigma in the US against hiring overseas developers. I'd make sure your English is impeccable and emphasize the overlap in timezone.
Good luck!
Thanks Phil, i definetly need to build a portfolio, but i always postpone that.
Just blogged this week about building a freelance portfolio, so this might help: https://freetrain.co/freelance-portfolio/
What's your rate? Would you charge per project or per hour? I may have a job converting HTML to a WordPress website. It's something I could outsource.
Hello Poehah in the past I have always charged by the project since I found easier to calculate.
I don't really know how much to charge for a project like that, I was going for a 40$/h on Upwork, but I did not get any jobs so I can't really use that.
How much do you normally pay for that type of job?
Also when you get jobs to convert HTML to WordPress do you create a Theme Settings Panel or you just create a plain WordPress theme that has to be changed in code?
When I do WordPress jobs I charge by project when it’s the typical theme conversion. Y try to set up a formula similar to psd2html.com order page but with lower rates.
Otherwise if the job requires customizations where you don’t know exactly how much it will take, I go with a $25 per hour rate.
I don't create a theme settings panel. I do however use ACF or CMB2 to create options specific to a page. Sometimes, I may also use a page builder to allow clients to insert more content than just some text.
I'm a one-man-band myself so $40 per hour might be a bit too expensive if I also want to make a profit. However, it depends on how long the job takes for you :-) I'd probably want a per-project quote so I know beforehand what it will cost.
Do you have a portfolio online?
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Thanks for the info! I'll be in touch once I have the go-ahead for the project. The client is still deciding at this point.
Some ideas for getting people to choose you for freelance work: Create a nicely presented WordPress site/blog with your projects / write some technical blogs. For your freelance advertising ask nicely for somebody to proof-read the English because having good writing can make you seem more legit. When i was new to freelancing without a reputation i got more work for front-end/design because it doesn't require them giving access to the back-end, which not a lot of people have the trust for.
Fala @adoliveira, tudo bom? 😃
I've been consulting/freelancing my whole career (even when I'm working full time) and it's definitely the best thing I did in terms of financial freedom and forcing me to keep updating my skills.
I agree with @chillyorange about going inbound, but I'm a little bit bias being a marketer 😝 - but when you're just starting maybe this is not quick enough for you so I would still "go out" and do some networking and trying to get clients by reaching out to them.
My advice on the long-term is:
Specialize in some industry, niche or technology, which is going to make things much more easier for you when it comes the time to "convert" the prospect to a client.
Build/Contribute/Join some project that you're proud to show. This will serve as your portfolio and validation tool.
The important part here is to have other contributors working with you on this, so you can also use them as a reference when requested.
Hope that helps.
abs
Have you yourself specialized in a particular industry? I see a lot of advice to do this but haven't encountered any developers who have successfully gone through the process of going from being a generalist to being a specialist in a particular industry.
(I've seen plenty of developers successfully specialize in a technology though.)
Hey @jasonswett, I don't consider myself a developer anymore since I shift my focus to marketing almost 8 years ago.
But to answer your questions, I didn't specialize myself exclusively on an industry, but rather on a part of marketing which is the acquisition part, going even deeper with my focus on SEM (SEO+SEA).
We recently got together with Rob from Nation1099 and write an ebook on how to land more clients. You can download it here https://colibro.com/freelancing-career-starter-kit/
Maybe our side project, FreeTrain.co, can help. We’re creating a community to help people love freelancing, from when they’re just thinking about freelancing - like you - through to managing finances, finding clients and running a professional freelance business.
Our intro course has just launched and is free, so take a look: https://FreeTrain.co