How to find a fractional position to pay the bills while you Indie Hack
There are (at least) three reasons why people take a fractional position:
- They want more money.
- They want more time.
- They want more skills.
I wanted all three.
I used fractional positions as a UX Designer to level-up my skills (and my portfolio), while charging a rate that I was comfortable paying taxes out of - all with a contractual limit of 20 hours a week.
I needed three things to get started:
- LinkedIn Account
- An Apollo.io account (free trial - but I eventually paid for a few months)
- An agency-esque portfolio of work (will explain more later)
For my personal LinkedIn account - I tried to optimize it for side-gigging as much as I could without freaking out my employer and began writing content on a more regular basis.
(I sorta hacked this by following some LinkedIn influencers and looking for patterns in their posts - I would then take the pattern and write it for my own audience. For example: "Bad Habits Every Entrepreneur Should Break" would then be "Bad Habits Every Designer Should Break" - and then I'd flesh it out.)
This took me from approximately 2k followers on LinkedIn to 8K (with approximately 100 new followers each day).
I updated my "Services Offered" section on LinkedIn - this got me three mini-clients ($800 for a site review, $100 for answering an email about UX questions, coaching a designer). Not exactly what I was shooting for...
I reached out to people in my network (including Followers) that were working at start-ups. I used my Apollo.io account to quickly get the right work related email addresses and cold-pitched them.
My email:
My name is Nadia and I’m the founder of PAIR UX. We provide user experience services on a simple monthly subscription model.
Because we specialize in finite projects, some of our best contacts are within the DesignOps industry (which is why I'm reaching out to you).
We work on design systems, content strategy, prototypes and user research for our subscribing design orgs - and we like to be a DesignOps-er’s secret weapon when it comes to amplifying and scaling design at their company.
I’d love to be on your radar - and please reach out if we can be of service.
Best,
Nadia
(On further research, I realized that this was a sorta crap pitch. I literally broke most of the "cold email" rules). Regardless, I sent 120 emails and had four responses to chat/learn more. One monthly contract for 10/hours a week - valued at $4,800/month.
*My best performing subject line? -> "Intro & Hello (It's a little Salesy!)" (48% open rate out of the 100... not exactly statistically significant, but still fun)
Closer, right?
I attempted to double down on LinkedIn posting - talking more about hiring, updating my profile (yet again), as a tweaked my positioning. Right about when I got to 7k followers, I started getting incoming requests from start-ups.
I started reaching out to people who KNEW founders.
I paid $100 for a 15 min consultation with a VC Studio head, so I could ask him how I could find & introduce myself to more VC Studio heads (without the $100). I reached out to friendly founders and someone added me to the YC database (?) under design resources. (That helped the most and I have NO idea who put me on it. SIGH)
--
When I was contacted by ANYONE looking for a designer, I would send them:
A link to my portfolio ( a PDF hosted on CANVA ) - I keep one MASTER portfolio - which has a list of my capabilities (not experiences) and then case studies (one project per page). I remove / add case studies based on the project I am pitching. Canva makes this crazy easy - and the link presentation is pretty nice.
(I went through a LOT of variations... finally landed on the short case study framework of: This was the problem, this is who we were solving it for and why, and what would happen if we didn't. This is the role I played and the cool stuff I learned. AND a sharp visual) -- I think this could be used across any industry/profession.
I also sent them a list of all my past clients and invited them to contact any of them. Most people never do, but I think it sounds sexier than saying "here are my carefully edited testimonials" and it also shows that my past clients like me enough to pick up the phone for my future benefit.
And I'd suggest a flat rate so neither of us would have to put up with the hassle of timesheets - I felt comfortable at $120-150/hr (based on what I knew my peers were doing/getting at the time) (I ask everyone. It's so rude...) for up to 20 hours a week.
The idea was - cancel anytime. Pay upfront. If you think I'm doing less work than you were expecting, we chat about it (has never happened). If I think I'm doing way more work than I was expecting, we can chat about it (has happened once).
I'd love to answer any questions you have about finding this type of work - especially through LinkedIn networking, or about UX / portfolios / compensation.
