What a freelance programmer needs to know. Mastering freelancing from scratch: where to start and in what direction to move
This article is an adapted translation (with abbreviations) of a chapter from the book "The Complete Software Career Guide". Its author, John Sonmez, writes it and posts some chapters on his website.
I once worked in an office on a standard 8-hour schedule, and periodically thought about starting my own business... or becoming a freelancer, being my own boss. I imagined how I would travel the world, work on a flexible schedule and earn a lot of money from lucrative contracts. But I constantly caught myself thinking that I had no idea how to do this. I thought about what exactly needs to be taken into account and what steps to take, to still become a freelancer and work for yourself?
Permanent employment gives you a stable salary and an understanding of what will happen tomorrow; attempts to become a freelancer, on the contrary, will eat up all your finances at first, and this “first time” will last quite a long time. And if you take things seriously, you will be much busier than at a “regular” job. The book of which this article is a part may be a complete failure. And I’ve been writing it for several months now! In the world of startups there are no half measures. If you are not ready to go all in, as one of my mentors, Tony Robbins, says in all his seminars, you will most likely fail.
This insidious freedom of choice!
Even if you manage to leave your “safe haven”, that is, your regular job, will you be able to cope with the freedom that has washed over you? Before you answer “Of course!”, take a break and think about whether this is true. In fact, most people are completely unprepared for it. Have you ever wondered how many questions employers have already solved for you? And this, I must say, has its advantages. Even if you don’t want to wake up for work in the morning, psychologically it’s much easier to do if you must be at your workplace and perform your duties from 9 to 18. Simply because YOU HAVE TO, otherwise you will be fired.But what if the boss doesn't fire you because you are the boss? Believe me, in this case, forcing yourself to get up early in the morning and start working at home or in your office is much more difficult. After all, during this time you could play Xbox, watch TV, walk and generally use your freedom as you please! I spent a huge amount of time playing online poker, leveling up as a Loremaster in Lord of the Rings, and generally doing all sorts of nonsense. It was only the third time I managed to curb my instincts. After wasting my time, I realized that I had to make rules for myself and stick to them strictly if I didn't want to follow someone else's rules. This is a difficult lesson. I say this not at all to dissuade you, but I warn you about the danger that awaits almost anyone who for the first time decides to become his own master. After these words, someone may give up or shelve their dream. Well, someone, on the contrary, will become inspired and redouble their determination to become free. Which path to choose is your personal decision. Just don’t say later that I didn’t warn you.
What is Freelancing?
The essence of freelancing is quite simple: you are not a full-time employee, but work to order. It's like being a bounty hunter instead of a police officer chasing the same criminals. You're writing code for someone, maybe slaying a few dragons lurking within it.Let me clarify that by freelancing I mean a situation where you have not one customer, but several. If you are a contractor working for a single client who is not technically your boss, I prefer to call this activity consulting or contract work, not freelancing. Contract work is more like a full-time job.
Where to begin?
This is the very question to which I did not find an answer. When I was a full-time employee, the idea of becoming a freelancer and working for clients seemed tempting but very uncertain. When you work for someone else for too long, you start to feel like a lion in a zoo. Every day you go to your feeder to get food. You have a good, comfortable enclosure, and you clearly understand the boundaries. The ability to independently obtain food becomes dulled. Well, a lion that was born in captivity does not have these skills a priori. There is only this weak, suppressed, barely discernible instinct that sometimes tells him: “It’s time to hunt... Come on!” How can we hear this animal instinct, respond to it, and learn to earn our own bread? There are two ways: simple and complex.1. The hard way
The hard way means:- get out of your usual environment and start looking for clients;
- at first agree to low wages;
- hone your self-selling skills;
- put on impenetrable armor;
- ...and work hard all the time.
Contact anyone who may be potentially interested in your services or who can recommend such people. Make it clear that you are serious and offer some specific benefits to those who might hire you. Once you have exhausted the list of existing connections, you should start looking for new ones on your own. You may want to consider purchasing a list of small businesses in your area through a dedicated service like Experian. You can also hire someone to compile a list of businesses in your area for you, or do the research yourself. Call, send emails, and continue to perfect your pitch. You have to be very lucky to get a client this way, but if you are persistent and determined, you will succeed. As soon as you understand that a sufficient number of customers are satisfied with your work, connect word of mouth and direct your business in the right direction, in the future this will have a beneficial effect on your business. At the same time, you can connect with other freelancers you know and invite them to take on clients they don't currently have the opportunity to take on that they can refer to you. Perhaps offer them some kind of reward for this. While I don't particularly recommend this option, you can also gain some experience and find long-term clients by using a service like Upwork or advertising your services on Craigslist. But here you need to understand that the competition will be tough and, most likely, your hourly rate will be low.
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How to behave with a potential customer Try to be as specific as possible. You must clearly understand what kind of clients you are ready to attract and what services you are ready to offer them. There is no need to focus on the technical details of your skills, unless, of course, you are talking to a fellow programmer. Talk about what exactly you will do to solve the client's problem. |
2. Well, what about the easy way?
The easy way is:- preparing a marketing strategy for selling one’s own knowledge and skills in advance, through indirect means.
Here I can advise a lot, since I followed exactly this path. Namely, I created this blog, and it has earned me a reputation as a specialist developer as well as a consultant. The easy way is not so easy because it requires advance effort. In addition, you must be exactly the specialist for whom there is demand. They will remember you, they will specifically look for you and recommend you. Now, in the short term, this “easy” path may turn out to be more difficult. It takes a lot of effort, work and time to earn a reputation. It's not at all easy to create a blog, regularly write useful posts for others, publish podcasts and do much more to create your own brand. But if you focus on this while you work at your regular job, and start doing it early, the moment you are ready to dive into the world of freelancing, clients will come looking for you. Not only will they come to you themselves, but they will also pay you more money than a specialist like you who is taking his first steps following the “difficult” path. After all, when you are trying to attract a client, you are not in the best negotiating position. But when it is not you who ask, but they offer you to do a certain job, then the ball is already in your court. You are free to voice your price and don’t have to stand on ceremony. While I was wondering how I could take the difficult path, I created a blog and discovered the easy way. The blog began to gain popularity and my reputation in the software development industry grew. I began to receive more and more letters from potential clients who wanted to work with me. To be honest, the number of job offers was so large that I had to increase my rate again and again until it reached what any beginning freelancer would consider an incredible amount, which I still maintain today.
How to set rates for your work
You can find a lot of advice online on how to set rates for freelance work. One of the most common pieces of advice today is to regularly double your bid, or at least increase it until your prospects say “No!”This advice is good, but only if you already feel pretty confident. Let's say, if you took the “easy” path. If you're just starting out, don't do this. You won't achieve anything this way. And don’t let the provision of a guarantee bother you. If you hire someone to do a job, and he doesn't do it, or does it unsatisfactorily, you will most likely ask, most likely even demand your money back? Perhaps even sue? If you are going to do business in principle, then by default you do it on the terms of a guaranteed money back. But if you voice this point, you can get additional clients due to the very fact of such an offer. For example, if you don't like my book, send it to me and get your money back. Not only this, but every product I sell comes with a one year unconditional money back guarantee. And these are mostly digital products that you can easily download and ask for your money back.
Am I being deceived? Of course they are deceiving. But more of those who buy, and the majority of those who bought, did so precisely because of such a guarantee. Of course, there may always be some wise guy who will decide to screw you if you offer a money-back guarantee, but the amount of work you get with such a guarantee will have a much greater impact on your wallet. In addition, you can always choose who to work with; do not be afraid to refuse suspicious individuals. Let’s say that thanks to the “simple path”, clients regularly come to you. You have already completed your first orders and your customers are satisfied. Now you can try doubling your rate and see what happens. However, if you, like most freelancers at the start, chose the “difficult path”, or circumstances turned out this way against your will, then I strongly recommend not to think about money, at least for the first time.
I spoke with Marcus Blankenship, a software developer turned freelance entrepreneur, about how he broke free from the corporate world. In short, be prepared to work for a small reward, at least at first. The money will come later. Only after a number of successfully completed orders and satisfied customers can you raise the rate. You don't have to double it, but you can try. I increased my bet from $50 to $100 and no one batted an eyelid.
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Then I moved to $200, and at the $300/hour mark I began to receive the first refusals. Nevertheless, there were those willing to pay this money. Even when I switched to a fee of $500 per hour (this is my current rate), I always have clients (although usually not for programming assignments, but more for coaching and consulting on project architecture). If you already have practical experience and understand the industry you work in, I can almost guarantee that one day you will be able to raise the tariff to an acceptable level. Acceptable is one that matches the quality of your services. If we assume that it is high, then the acceptable level is the one that the market can withstand. Pricing intangibles is completely subjective. I know highly paid programming consultants who bill corporate clients for $350 an hour and do nothing while others on the same team do 90% of the work and make $50 an hour or less. Skills are important, but they do not play a decisive role in determining the size of the bet. It will be played by the client’s willingness to pay multiplied by your reputation. It makes sense to look for clients who are willing to pay more. But only if your reputation is already at the proper level. Well, your skills will help you build a name and create confidence that you won’t lose your job or won’t have to pay back the money. Another important thing: At some point, it's best to move away from hourly pricing entirely and instead focus on something called "customer value-based pricing." Value-based pricing means that you price your services not on an hourly basis, but on the expected results for the client and their value. I can determine how much money a new system can save and then develop a proposal based on the result. This could possibly save the company a million dollars a year. In this case, I can value my work at $50,000 or $100,000. It can only take me 80 hours of work and thus I can earn from $625 to $1250 per hour. This is a price that no one would pay on an hourly basis, but when you look at it from a consumer-based pricing perspective, it looks like a good deal. |
And 3 mistakes that I didn’t make, although I could have. Guest post by Elena Vishnevskaya.
My name is Elena Vishnevskaya, and I am a copywriter. In the spring of 2013, I quit my stable job at a large federal company, gave up a good (and what’s more, good) salary, annual and quarterly bonuses, preferential mortgages and career prospects, and became a freelancer. I started with cheap texts - horoscopes, congratulations on the anniversary, etc. Now they order texts for FB.ru and VC, they trust me to work on large projects, and my blog about marketing and texts in instagram Several thousand people are watching.
However, before becoming an experienced copywriter, I, like all beginners, messed up. You know, there are some typical mistakes that almost all freelancers make at the beginning of their journey. It would be too presumptuous to expect me to pass them by.
So, learn from the mistakes I've made (and the ones I avoided).
Mistake No. 1. Stakhanovism
Oh, how proud I was that I could be trusted with large and urgent orders! That I can write 40 thousand characters a day. What can I write at night and on weekends? That I can do anything at all.
Until at some point I realized that I have a 12-hour working day, at nights and weekends I write a thesis, and I see my husband when he brings me a glass of tea or something stronger to the computer.
I took orders that appear on Friday at 10 pm with a deadline of 9 am on Monday. Do you know how such orders usually happen? The marketing department received a budget for content, ordered it from a copywriter, paid (most likely), and then received the result and was covered in nervous eczema in full force - the texts are no good, the budget has been spent, the director gave out an ay-luley, and there is the prospect of writing all weekend texts in your own hand, because on Monday at the planning meeting the boss is waiting for suitable content. This is how urgent orders appear - with an inflated technical specification and practically no budget.
Now I don't work fast. I don't read email on weekends, yes, seriously, I just don't open emails. I take at least a day to complete each text. Some texts take weeks to be born. It turns out better, higher quality, more expensive and more pleasant (for both me and the customer).
Just remember - if you are constantly tapping your fingers on the keys, producing unrealistic volumes, then when are you thinking?
Mistake No. 2. Setting limits for yourself
In my first cover letters and responses to orders, I wrote that I was interested in working with some topics, but not interested in others. Yes, that’s exactly what she wrote – “I’m not interested.” Friends, when you are new and start digging like this, you risk sitting on a soft sofa waiting for orders for a long time. This is the prerogative of experienced performers.
But what about those topics or types of services that you don’t know or can’t do? They need to be studied. When I realized this, I deleted all my “likes and dislikes” and started taking the orders that were there. Along the way (at night) I studied the basics of SEO, learned to write selling texts and improved my skills.
Of course, one can argue here - many colleagues have chosen a rather narrow specialization for themselves and are developing in it, achieving success. Legal copywriting, medical copywriting, etc. These are areas that require either specialized education or extensive experience. If you choose a topic in which you have neither one nor the other as your “favorite”, this is at the very least presumptuous.
The wider your boundaries, the more room for action you have.
Mistake No. 3. Not raising prices
Sorry, but this is completely overkill. But I really didn’t raise my prices for a very long time, because I thought that I didn’t have enough experience, too much modesty, and it’s somehow ugly - you write texts to the customer, you write, and then like this - my prices increased. Do you know how I raised them? I wrote SEO texts for one web studio for 50 rubles. for 1000 characters, and then after a long wait they met me halfway, and I started writing for 60. Win-win.
Then it dawned on me and I doubled the price. I started working less and earning more. And the quality of my work has improved. Therefore, the price increase turned out to be justified - the final result became better.
Prices definitely need to be raised. With every project you become cooler, more experienced, smarter. You can give your customers more. Therefore, the price increase is quite justified.
Mistake No. 4. Dumping is senseless and merciless
Another failure that probably concerns most freelancers and certainly all copywriters. When you leave a response to a project (I used the site freelance.ru to search for orders), you are dumping so that they choose you. For example, a project costs 1000 rubles, but you write that you will do it for 500.
I'll explain why this is bad.
Firstly, your colleagues (aka competitors) will hate you. Trade unionism is such a thing, copywriters divide the market, and they have to communicate with each other. It is better to be on good terms with colleagues. If you make friends with your colleagues, they recommend you to their customers or cover your rear when you suddenly cannot fulfill all orders. Everyone is talking about dumpers - it’s because of people like you that our work is priced at pennies! And they are right.
Secondly, you will never rise above 500. At least not with this customer. If he chooses you as a performer, don't even expect a pay increase. Most likely, they will try to push you into even greater dumping - because you have already demonstrated that you are ready to reduce the price.
Don’t dump and you won’t lose the respect of your customers and colleagues. The order that you received thanks to dumping is your bird in your hand, but while you are clinging to it, flocks of cranes fly past you.
Mistake #5: Keeping all your eggs in one basket
I had a customer who gave me about 80% of the work. This suited me - stable payments every 2 weeks and a clear plan. And then everything went to hell because the customer closed my project. The money just ran out. And I started to panic.
I again wanted to find that same, one single customer who would give me a lot of work and even more stability. And I made this mistake a couple more times. Until it dawned on me.
You don't have to keep all your eggs in one basket. This is a rule for investors, but it also applies to us freelancers. One big project is stable and calm, but when it ends, you will find yourself with nothing. Conduct several projects in parallel, do not disdain one-time orders - practice shows that each one-time order can become a door to ongoing cooperation, and having income distributed among several sources is always better than receiving everything from one.
Don’t be afraid of parallel projects and one-time orders - this is better than imaginary “stability” when working on one project.
And here are the top mistakes that I didn’t make (although I could have).
Mistake #1: Working on stock exchanges
In fact, this is, of course, not a mistake. Many of the famous copywriters started on stock exchanges. I was just lucky - I immediately reached direct customers and studios, so I didn’t work on stock exchanges. But the trouble with stock copywriters is that, firstly, they are not valued at all (and not only by customers, but also by colleagues or studios), and secondly, they work at low rates, are in a semi-disenfranchised position and have limited resources. its development by the rules and conditions of work on the stock exchange. Fines, bans, blocking, ratings - do you need it? Exchanges give you a feeling of security and stability, but in essence it is the same job for hire, only you have even fewer rights.
Take everything you can from the exchange - experience, portfolio, customers - and leave.
Where you can look for projects other than exchanges, read.
Mistake #2: Huge orders that were scammed
All newcomers are abandoned by customers, especially if the newcomer is looking for orders on social networks or on dubious forums. I was lucky again, the first and only time I didn’t receive payment was when I was in a hurry and wrote a bunch of texts for a project for which the customer had not yet signed a contract. The customer (studio) never signed it - and “forgave” me the unpaid texts. Despite the existing agreement between our individual entrepreneurs. Has the service been provided? No, I never sent him texts, because I only worked on prepayment. That's how they sit with me.
But now I’m talking about a different situation: when you do a lot of work, for example, you work for a week or two, send the finished material to the customer, after which he stops communicating. When there is no official agreement between you and you don’t know anything about the customer except the one-time email from which he wrote to you.
Work on an advance payment basis, do not do work “for future use” without guarantees of payment, enter into an agreement and never submit large projects before payment. Either in parts, or after payment.
Mistake #3: Saving on paid services
For me, it somehow goes without saying that you have to pay for some services. You need to buy a business account on freelance.ru, you need (if you really need it) to pay 140 rubles per month for a uniqueness verification service. You need to invest money in advertising, promotion of your Instagram page, and hosting. Therefore, I did not and will not understand those colleagues who say that they are not ready to pay anything.
Guys, these are not expenses - these are investments. My first business account was up and running within a couple of days. The expenses for Instagram promotion paid off almost immediately. A site on a beautiful domain looks more serious and is more trustworthy than one on a “crooked” free one. Moreover, it costs every penny.
Don't be greedy on yourself - invest in your promotion. This is, to some extent, so let it not be cheap.
Of course, these are not all the possible and impossible mistakes of a beginning freelancer - I described only those that I encountered myself or that I heard about so often that I simply couldn’t turn a blind eye to them. Write about your mistakes and their solutions in the comments, let's exchange experiences.
And I wish you successful work, development, cool orders and good customers!
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For whom and why?
First, let’s figure out who might be interested in all this and try to answer the simple and reasonable question “do I need it?”It’s easiest if you’ve already thought about freelancing as the main way to earn money and an alternative to traditional work. Some office workers are not satisfied with the salary in their current position, others are tired of the rhythm of life from “9 to 5 from Monday to Friday,” someone is simply an introvert who finds it difficult to be in long-term contact with people. Everyone may have their own reasons, but in general, most of them have one thing in common - the feeling that something is wrong and something needs to be changed. As for me, by the end of the second year of working at my first company, I lost all motivation to come there 5 times a week and it all got to the point where I began to seriously think about changing my profession. Fortunately, the decision to quit and start working independently helped put everything in its place and I was finally convinced that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to do. Just in the wrong place and in the wrong format. So the advice for all those who have doubts in this case is simple - try it, freelancing may be exactly what you were looking for.
If you already have an office job that you are absolutely happy with and no doubts or troubling thoughts arise about it in principle - well, I think you have few reasons to look towards freelancing. If you feel in your place working in a company, then this is probably your element and a sudden change of course can only hurt. Really, why change something that already works? The main thing is to be honest with yourself in assessing the current state of affairs.
Another category of developers who, in my opinion, should not rush into the decision to plunge headlong into freelancing are beginners without experience, students, young and green specialists. In most cases, for you, as a developer, a year of working in a company can be more useful and productive than several years of freelancing. Firstly, many companies have special internship programs aimed specifically at quickly acquiring the necessary practical knowledge. Secondly, you will be able to devote yourself and your time only to improving your programming skills, without being distracted by learning the intricacies of working with the same Upwork, searching for clients and other less important things. Thirdly, you will get a real idea of how this whole “kitchen” works from the inside: how programmers work, how they interact with each other, with managers, designers, this is truly valuable experience that should not be neglected. Well, fourthly, having at least a minimum amount of practical knowledge and a couple of works in your portfolio, starting out as a freelancer will be much easier in most cases. Thus, the transition to freelancing as the next stage of your development can be more natural and painless than starting from scratch.
What if it doesn't work out? We dispel the main myths and fears.
Suppose you still feel an irresistible desire to become a freelancer, but there are still too many “buts” that prevent you from taking the final step. I’ll try to analyze the main points that I myself or my freelance friends have encountered. I'm sure at least a few of the following points bother you:- Freelancing is unstable, I have a family/loan/mortgage/rented housing, I can’t take risks. A fair concern, but where are there no risks? Decisions without risks, as they say, lead to boring and predictable results. In truth, chances are you'll be in a less risky position after a year or two of freelancing with, say, a beefed-up Upwork profile or an established client base than after working the same amount of time at organization X (as long as it's not Google or Facebook, of course). Any organization can be unexpectedly liquidated, and its employees can be reduced or simply fired. Unfortunately, this is not a hypothetical possibility and you cannot be protected from such situations even if you work for a reputable and established company. Not long ago, this happened to several of my former colleagues, who were unilaterally and without much ceremony said goodbye through an email like “Hello! You have been laid off.” People who find themselves left behind by such a company are much more vulnerable than an independent developer who has lost one or two clients. Why do I think this? The main reason is that finding a new freelance project will still be easier and faster. At a minimum, because you are unlikely to have to go through full interviews for every position you are interested in, there will be less bureaucracy and delays in the process, and with 15 completed projects in your portfolio and a bunch of positive reviews on Upwork, few people will ask you to write a bubble sort during the interview process. Nevertheless, it is still worth preparing for the transition to “free bread”: for example, saving a certain amount in reserve and finding clients before leaving your current job; no one can prevent you from having an interview before you are fired. Whether to advertise this fact to your colleagues and superiors is up to you to decide.
- I won't be able to find a job and will have to go back to the office. Finding your very first order can actually be quite difficult, especially if we are talking about Upwork: the deadline can take weeks and even, in extreme cases, months. The situation can be aggravated by an insufficient level of skills and/or lack of live examples of your work, i.e. empty portfolio. However, this is still a surmountable obstacle; in extreme cases, you will have to improve your skills or take on a low-paid contract for the sake of the first positive review and completed project, which will fall into your profile and serve as some kind of item in your portfolio. I went through this process in 2-3 weeks and already my second contract lasted about a year and brought me a lot of profit, including making my profile much more attractive due to the hours worked during this time on Upwork. Several of my friends have overcome the same path and in the end no one was left offended, and I have not yet encountered a situation where someone ultimately did not find a job in practice. We live in the digital era, remote work is becoming normal even in much more ossified and conservative areas than software development, so I don’t think there’s any point in worrying too much about this.
- I don't know English well enough. This is true, first of all, for Upwork or any other foreign exchange. Generally speaking, if you really want to, you can find Russian-speaking clients, even on these same foreign exchanges (I had several contracts with Russian clients on Upwork). However, it is not at all necessary to deprive yourself of most of the opportunities and vacancies due to problems with the language, so if everything is really bad with English, then it is worth improving it in one way or another. Ideally, right during communication with a foreign client within the framework of an ongoing project: even after several months of active correspondence, you can make good progress in your level of proficiency, the main thing is that the person understands you, perfect pronunciation and grammar in 9 out of 10 cases is not required and most often clients understand that you are communicating in a language that is not your native language and are loyal to this. Moreover, many clients themselves may know English worse than you. Besides, knowing English has never harmed anyone (especially a programmer!) and you simply can’t think of a better incentive to force yourself to finally improve it. I started with the “standard” set - lessons at school and university, most of which, of course, were ignored. Nevertheless, this turned out to be enough to find the first orders and, in a couple of years, improve my written proficiency to a more or less acceptable level that does not cause misunderstandings.
- I work in a company and am afraid to quit... because I’m afraid that I’ll disappoint the company, my colleagues / I’m afraid that my boss will scold me / and in general, quitting is bad! This point is especially relevant for those who work in their first company and have not encountered the dismissal process before. As for me, there is nothing wrong with it, this is an absolutely natural and normal procedure, both from the bureaucratic side and from a purely human side. You have already contributed to the company and have devoted a significant portion of your time and energy to it over the past few months or even years. The employer, in turn, kindly provided you with money in exchange for your services, both parties fulfilled their part of the deal in full. According to the law, as a last resort, you may be asked to work the required 2 weeks from the date of application if everything goes official, or you may be asked orally to finish your work and complete a project, for example. Most managers are sympathetic to this process and most often the parties disagree on a good note. There is a lot of turnover in our industry, so most likely and especially no one will dissuade you from leaving, since the process of replacing departing employees with new ones has been established. If management interferes with the dismissal process, well, here is another proof that the decision to leave the company was correct. In the end, you have one life and only you have the right to decide what you do in it.
- I won't be able to work properly from home. Really, who will force me to maintain a schedule? And how can you even work when a new season of your favorite TV series has been released or the weather is so wonderful outside? Jokes aside, but for few people these issues will be resolved on their own and can become a real problem. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to give universal advice here; a lot depends only on you and your personal qualities. Try dedicating a separate work room that will serve as your home office, free of distractions. Don't want to work from home? Find a café or coworking space nearby, this can be a good alternative (or addition) to working from home. Think about your schedule, what part of it will be work, and what part will be personal life. In general, try to prepare yourself in advance for the fact that you are embarking on a new path of development, leading to high responsibility, proactivity and self-organization. In some places it will not be easy, but the result of this process will not be long in coming and will have a positive impact on both your professional skills and other areas of your life. I also recommend reading the well-known book REMOTE from 37signals, perhaps you will find something useful in it.
- What if my skills (technology stack, programming language) are not in demand as freelancers? If you work with websites or mobile applications, then you don’t have much to worry about, some things in these areas are more in demand, some less so, the average rate may also vary, but you will find a job one way or another. I think this is true for designers too. Regarding the desktop, system and low-level programming and other more highly specialized things - it’s more complicated here, I recommend studying the demand before making pivotal decisions. On Upwork, for example, there are not many such vacancies compared to web and mobile development.
Thank you for reading:) I will try to publish the next article on Habré and in my newly created blog in the near future.
UPD: I would like to add an explanation to the somewhat provocative title, which has caused indignation among some commentators. So what do I personally mean by “working for yourself”.
1) By working legally, you register yourself as an individual entrepreneur - an individual entrepreneur, which already partly hints at some differences compared to working for hire in an office.
2) You do not have a direct supervisor and a “superior-subordinate” relationship. Ideally, you are building a partnership with your clients rather than trying to find yourself in some form of subjugation.
3) When working as a freelancer, you work for yourself in the sense that you develop your own profile and portfolio. Here's a simple example: all the projects that you were involved in developing as part of your position in the company obviously belong to the company and its client, not you. I’m not sure about the legal intricacies, but I’ve heard the version that the right to develop does not remain with the performer, but belongs to the organization that hired him. But this is all boring, let’s give another example: my friend quit his job at an outsourcing company (websites primarily). In his naivety, he published the projects he worked on at the company in his portfolio on Upwork. A few days later, his former manager contacted him and hinted that this should not be done and that the projects should be deleted. Quite by chance, a clause in the contract contained a corresponding clause confirming the legality of his request. So it goes. Thus, after working for several years in such a company, a person in fact has no projects in his portfolio; all his works belong entirely to the organization in which he worked.
4) You are deprived of the “everything is for the good of the company” nonsense: let’s work on the weekend for the good of the company, let’s push ourselves and work without a salary during a difficult time for the company, let’s write an article on the company blog for the good of the company. Who needs this hypocrisy? Everyone works for themselves and their personal needs and goals; working for yourself, you don’t need to hide it.
5) You and only you are responsible for your successes and failures. You yourself will be accountable for your failure, but for your success you will also receive gratitude from the client first of all, and not your organization.
Freelancer: lifestyle or job?
Prologue
In general, hello everyone! Let me start by saying, thank you to the “chips” for their existence! In fact, sometimes your website relieves stress and lifts your spirits! I myself have been using this resource for a long time, then I decided to register, and now I’ve also decided to publish. I’m not asking you to evaluate something, like whether it’s good or bad, the motto is: “If you don’t like it, let’s move on!”
Why part 1?! Because perhaps there will be a second one, it seems logical, but not logical “maybe”. Yes, because I don’t want to load the post with “bugs”, so I’ll probably move some of it to the next post. And the topic itself, “How I became this freelancer,” implies several stages of becoming such a monster as a freelancer!
I won’t tell you who such a freelancer is here. Ask Yandex, he will google it :)))
Where did you go, what did you come to?
When I entered the institute, then the Kazan Aviation Institute, then, blah, (sorry for the “blah”), I never thought that I would be a freelancer. After graduating from college, or rather closer to graduation, I already doubted the need for my specialty (rocket engines). But at the same time, he did not despair in terms of finding a job. There is, I found, the military-industrial complex, a young specialist, a hell of a salary. Wow, great! I worked there for five years (from 2002 to 2007). Salary is normal, business trips are paid additionally. In general, cool! There was no family then, drinking parties, taverns and, in general, not exactly a riotous life, but quite fun. What else does a young man need? Crazy...crazy, I would say now.
Working in the design bureau (design bureau) and in general at the plant, I understood that I needed to grow in terms of career growth! So from a young specialist I became an engineer of one category or another... in general, I became a 1st category engineer. But, over time, so many new people appeared in the design bureau (everyone wanted to get a job in this design bureau because of the high level of salary). And these new people did not always, and even more often, did not always match their level of education to the position they held. Beginning Department of strength calculations could be a person who graduated from the Faculty of Philology. This was the norm. But not for me. Because when coordinating drawings, such “minds” only interfere, but do not contribute in any way to the development of both the enterprise and you as an individual and as a specialist.
The last straw for getting fired from where everyone was trying to get a job was when I realized that even the beginning. I can’t be at the bureau, as these places are occupied. The prospect of becoming a 1st category engineer, and then becoming a leader, did not appeal to me. Here the design bureau also rebuilt its own house, supposedly for necessary and specialized specialists. Well, I think at least everything will be fine with housing. it wasn't there. I have no more specialized education for this design bureau :)))) But, damn, I don’t have the necessary acquaintances and I don’t have the necessary connections. They built a house, distributed apartments, some managed to sell them the next day, but I remained living in rented housing. It's a shame, but okay, at least I'm not ashamed :) I quit my job and opened my own office providing cleaning services. The staff is about 30 people. Everything worked, everything started spinning. Constant service agreements with leading stores in the city.. But the crisis in 2008 made itself felt and hit me in the face. In general, I’m back at the factory, this time different. The same garbage as the previous one. I tried the taste of freedom to make money and develop in cleaning and it haunted me.
Free swimming
As a result, I worked both for “private owners” in so-called private factories and for state-owned ones. enterprises. But, either I’m so stubborn, or the system doesn’t change and everything is the same everywhere. Close-minded bosses, with at least 2-3 bosses per employee. The director himself, chief divisions, then the beginning. a neighboring unit, who for some reason considers me his subordinate, etc. There was a case when up to 5 bosses stood above me.
Directors are usually economists - misers, for whom it is more convenient to call them what they are. You say, work for a trial period, and then, if everything is fine, we will increase your salary. Great! We are working! Everything is fine as long as the probationary period lasts! Then they dump a ton of work on you (after all, you also showed your best side during the probationary period), but at the same time no one even thinks about increasing the remuneration for the work done. An unpleasant feeling appears, the desire to work for the benefit of the enterprise disappears.
Next office. We work as a team - that's her motto! Great, some innovations in the work, or rather in its organization. By the way, look carefully at your workplace before applying for a job with your “uncle.” I spent a month reading some nonsense instructions, since the admin could not come and install the computer - in principle, my working tool. Reading instructions in a team is, damn, something new, but the rest of the team had a working tool, so my team was me. I won’t describe further work in a team in this office, but it’s better as an individual player, even if in reserve for bench, but not the ball for the leaders on this team.
Another office, they invited me all the way to the Moscow region... I’m from the periphery. At the negotiation stage, the salary reached an amount that suited me. But, dammit, first there's a trial period. How. bastards, they got me with this probationary period. In the end, I say, since there is a probationary period for me, then there is also a probationary period for your company. Therefore, I’ve been working here for three months on testing, and I’m also taking a closer look at your methods of work and so on. Work also, in a team, blah. As a result, the stage of preliminary negotiations was forgotten, the level of salary must be discussed again, something must be proven. And then the director says to me, as the head of the technical department, why the hell with your GOST standards, they were in the USSR, now they are not relevant. Hello, we've arrived. As a result, I did not release the product from the factory, since there was an obvious defect and it was impossible to send it to the customer, but the director did not think so and I was fired safely. Which is why I’m glad, I just wasted my time moving around the country of Mother Russia.
By that time, I was already fulfilling individual orders. I found it, did it, and made money. No headaches, no managers, etc. While I was looking for a trace. place of work, naturally, dealt with such individual orders. After some time I discovered that, in principle, I was already working; if I earned money, that meant I was working. But I work from home...
Thus, I became lazy to look for work for my “uncle”, and peacefully began to work at home, turning into a freelancer.
That's how I became one, sort of. The pros and cons of working there, behind the fence, and here, at home, can be discussed in the comments, or I can tell you in the next part.
Well, welcome to me with the start of the first post on my favorite “Chips” :)))
