I’m Shabbir Bhimani – freelancer, blogger and investor. Guiding developers to become self-employed by sharing my journey and experience.
Thank you for visiting my blog’s about page to know more about me and my blog!
I have a lovely wife and 2 kids and have been an online freelancer working from home for more than a decade now.
When I was doing a job …
I am B.Tech in Information Technology 2004 Pass out. I got a job in an on-campus interview. I still remember the first day of my job. It was on 14th June 2004 Monday.
When in college and before my first job, as I had a keen interest in programming, I was looking to get involved in some real hands-on projects which lead me to RentACoder (a freelancing site then).
Back then I did few of those homework help type of projects in C and C++ Programming that were being posted on RentAcoder.
It was my first hands on freelancing and work from home and as far as I can remember it was in 2002.
After completing the college I joined a full-time job and that is when I realized that freelancing is not something that can be done along with a full-time day job and I decided not to continue very actively with freelancing but do something where I can work in my free time.
I started researching online and finally decided that sharing my content online is one of those few things which can be done when I have free time i.e. after reaching home from my full-time job and on weekends.
At that time I thought of going for a blog but as blogging was something relatively new in 2004, I figured out that blogging is something where I constantly need to write and I was not sure if I can manage that along with my full-time job and so I decided to go with online forums.
The 9 to 5 Boredom
I was doing my job along with managing and growing my online sites as well as doing freelancing in bits and pieces but I was never satisfied with my job. Was in my third job in first 12 months. I always found a reason to switch but …
First Job was Visual Basic development and as I was inclined more towards the web because of my own websites that were started to grow. Was doing a job in a fairly large company and so thought I should be working in a small web based company.
Second Job was a web development and SEO job in a small company. I started to get the feel that no this is not the kind of work I prefer to be doing and so I started to look for a C++ Job. Remember I loved C and C++ in my college days. I started to think I should be working in an MNC.
Third Job was a C++ job in an MNC and this is when I started to feel that I have no more excuse to switch jobs and this was the time I decided I will work more towards my own online business instead of working for others.
After I decided, it took me a couple of years to finally quit my job and be a full-time freelancer, blogger, and freelancer in 2008.
How did I Quit My Job
My first job was in June 2004 and in the first year of doing a job I was in my third job already. Something somewhere was not working for me as I wanted it to be.
I was hopping from one job to other finding the perfect job for me. Had various reasons for changing my job from not right kind of technology to the right kind of company size? The list goes on and on.
The first year of my third job was really enjoyable but soon I got bored with it.
After I ran out of reasons, I decided that I will be a blogger, build more community sites and work for freelancing clients.
So after a couple of years into my third job and having a total experience of 3 years now, I was prepared to quit my job.
The plan now was to have 6 to 8 months of family expenses in my bank account so if things don’t work out the way I want in the next 6 to 8 months, I can get back to the job.
I accumulated the money and when I was about to quit, got a real big raise in my salary. Double of what I was making.
This is when I convinced myself to continue doing a job because now becoming a freelancing was being compared to what I was making instead of what I needed.
6 more months after the raise when I actually decided to say goodbye to the job.
Once you are quitting a job that is paying you handsome money, no dirty office politics, and you love the technology you are working on, it is a lot more difficult.
Finally I did it and it has been the best decision ever for my career and life.
My interview with Arnab Datta of LiveMint. Click the image to enlarge and read the paper version of the interview or you can read the online version here
My solution to PayPal India Problems in TechCrunch
What I blog About?
I share my entrepreneurship, freelancing and blogging experience as well as do the experimentation on new ways to internet marketing strategies for my web properties.
In my eBook, I have shared the exact same strategies I use in crafting my proposals to attract clients, get paid my hourly rate and ask clients for feedback.
A community of Freelancers, for Freelancers and by a Freelancer and I’ll be honored to have you as part of this community. You can unsubscribe anytime with a single click.
Follow me on twitter where I share resources and content that I read on web.
It’s very difficult to be selecting few articles and I really like all of them. So I leave it on my readers and selected those that have the most views and are enjoyed the most. You can check them out!
Working on Upwork
How to Get Your Upwork Profile Approved – Has your Upwork profile been rejected? If you don’t follow these guidelines, you are sure to get the profile rejected yet again. So, how do you get an Upwork profile approved even if it has been rejected previously?
How to Get Your First (or Next) Client on Upwork? – There can be tons of advise others can give about what works and what doesn’t. But the first client you get with your own effort on Upwork makes you believe it is not about what others achieved or said. Now you can do it too. Let me share 10 tips to get your first (or next) client on Upwork.
How I Structure My Upwork Profile – While getting the profile completed is crucial, the quality of the profile is more important. So. creating a complete profile does not only mean hitting the 100% completion mark
How I Write My Upwork Proposal That Lands Me a Job – I take proposals as an opportunity to introduce myself, highlight my expertise, and ask relevant questions to show I’m the best-suited person to get the job done.
Upwork Connects: Everything You Need to Know About Them – This article answers all Upwork Connects questions. “How Upwork Connects works?”, “How many Connects can one have?” and “Should one upgrade their membership for Connects?”.
Being a Better Freelancer
How Much Should I Charge for My Freelancing Services – This article explains the bottom-up approach to calculating the minimum hourly rate you should be charging your clients as a freelancer in order to achieve an expected monthly income.
How to Get Regular Income from Freelancing? – This article explains how to get a constant source of clients on a continuous basis and how to keep on getting new clients all the time for your web development skills.
14 Mistakes Indian Freelancers Make That Can Break Them – Over the years, I have seen freelancers write proposals that can be rejected straight away because they had some common issues. Let me just share some of the common mistakes that freelancers make so you don’t repeat the same.
Why Do Most of the New Blogs Fail To Make an Impact? – 5 of the most common reasons why most of the new blogs fail are blogging to make quick money, not original content or view, Worry too much about SEO and not about readers, Not investing enough money and reading the wrong stats.
3 Blogging Lessons I Learned from Sachin Tendulkar – You may be wondering what blogging lessons Sachin Tendulkar can teach me? As a blogger, you tend to take blogging lessons from everything you love doing or even watching. So let me share some blogging inspiration I took from Sachin Tendulkar.
How Often One Should Blog – What Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan can help us understand how often one should be blogging and publishing content.
4 Signs Why Introverts Can Be Better Bloggers? – Being introvert in the real world, does not mean being introvert online as well and so lets see why introverts can be better at blogging and content marketing.
6 Blogging Fear Among Indian Freelancers And How to Overcome Them – 6 most common fear among Indian freelancers that keeps them away to start a blog. They are the fear of English, the fear of writing, the fear of technical know-how, the fear of running out of Ideas, the fear of marketing and finally the fear of failure and how to overcome each of them.
Facebook Marketing Tips For Non-Viral Niche Websites – Millions of articles about Facebook marketing tips are online. What kind of content can go viral or what type of images can impact the viral aspect of any content? The question is what if your niche isn’t viral? What if you don’t want to create those stupid memes?
10 Personal Brand Building Hacks To Get More Clients – Personal branding is a misunderstood concept among freelancer. They consider branding is only for the big brand and companies like Coca-Cola, Google or Apple.