Whether you’ve heard a little about freelancing and are curious to know more, or you already know that you want to be an online freelancer, but aren’t sure where to start, you’ve come to the right place! This article will explain to you everything you need to know about freelancing and how to be a freelancer.
So first, let us define the basic understanding of the term freelancer and freelancing.
Any individual working for multiple clients or companies at the same time without being permanently employed by anyone of them is known as an individual freelancer. The working freelancers are termed as “doing freelancing” or “Freelancing”.
Individual freelancers prefer to work from home, but freelancing isn’t only confined to working from home or working as an individual. A group of freelancers with a diverse set of skills can join hands to form a team that can work for multiple clients or companies at the same time without any member of the team being employed either by co-freelancers or by any client permanently.
Often such a team of freelancers, when they expand, hire under them, forming a company with the original set of freelancers owning the company. They focus on building clients and employees get the bulk of the tasks done for the owners.
The best part of being a freelancer is, it focuses your expertise and not on your gender or location. It gives you freedom of time, freedom of place, freedom to choose clients, and, most important of all the freedom to work in the right choice of technologies.
Upwork (previously oDesk and Elance) is the largest marketplace where clients share their requirements as projects and hire freelancers or companies known as agencies in Upwork.
Freelancers can create their profiles based on their subject of expertise. The profile is screened rigorously by the Upwork team to maintain the quality of the marketplace comprising of individual freelancers and agencies within the Upwork ecosystem.
The process to get your Upwork profile approved is getting tougher day by day. Some may see it is an opportunity for seasoned freelancers. The rigorous approval process also helps clients reduce meaningless proposals that lead to more issues as the project commences.
Once your profile is approved, the use of Upwork connects. One can only write a proposal to a certain number of projects each month though it may sound limiting the use of the site. However, if you use them wisely, they are enough for any individual or agency. Connects aren’t needed for recurring clients or if a client has invited you for a project.
Upwork is bread and butter for thousands of Indian freelancers who rely on Upwork and other similar freelancing sites to get clients and projects to make a living.
In college, I had a very keen interest in programming. I was always looking to get involved in a real project instead of doing the library management system or student management system.
Gaming is something every college student aspires to build one, and so was I. I always had a keen interest to be part of it and also found some opportunities back then. Here is an old certificate from my archives.
It gave me the much-needed boost to work online, which lead me to RentACoder (a freelancing site back then and is now acquired and merged with Freelancer.com).
Back then, I did a few homework help types of projects in C and C++, and this gave me my first hands-on freelancing.
After college, I was doing a job but couldn’t find time to work for clients. So I started the Go4Expert Programming forum—one of the main reasons why I tell every college student to start freelancing.
Individual freelancers should work from home, and there are many reasons for doing it. Here are some of the common reasons I see an advantage for individual freelancers to work from home:
I am of the view every freelancer should start working from home and try to be on the outsourcing model till it is possible to keep outsourcing. As things begin to grow and get beyond a certain point, one can always look to get an office space to build an in-house team.
No point working day in and out, and at the end of a year, get a slight increment in salary with a note there is a scope for improvement.
As an individual, there is no denying fact there will always be scope for improvement, but have you ever wondered why the same extent of improvement doesn’t apply to salary?
So here are some of the critical points which I think one should consider in favor of being a freelancer and consider freelancing.
I don’t like to paint a very rosy picture of freelancing. There are two sides to every coin, and freelancing is no different. Though the advantages of freelancing will always outweigh the disadvantages, it is good to know the weaknesses of freelancing as well.
The major disadvantages of being a freelancer are for working from home.
So if the work from home isn’t working for you, move out to a different place as a workplace. It can mean the working hours are well defined, and one can build the needed discipline to be a freelancer.
If you don’t have a dedicated place for working, take office space on a sharing basis to have someone to talk, save on rent amount and yet be a lot more productive by working for a fixed number of hours.
Finally, the big question that needs an answer is:
Every individual is unique and different. So one solution fits all may not work. Even for the same individual, the same solution that has worked in the past may not work now.
Working from home has worked really well for me in the past when I am a developer, but it doesn’t work to a large extent as a writer or blogger. The same may be right for others for development where they aren’t as productive when kids are around them.
Similarly, if there isn’t a regular source for clients, one can get into what I call the negative cycle of freelancing. To get new clients, one has to dedicate some time to make a move to new technology or niche, which can be tough being able to meet the daily day to day expenses.
For some, finding new clients can be a difficult task and for others saying no.
But one thing is for sure; freelancing is worth giving a try. I don’t think any blogger is sitting on his desk writing on what has worked for them can decide if freelancing is right for you or not. Take the encouragement from others, but your situation is and will be different than mine.
You may treat some situations differently like: It may so happen you are best when there is no option to look back, whereas I am best when I have a second option open. So for me starting as part-time freelancer and blogger was the better choice, but it may not be for you.
Should you burn the bridges and quit the job to try freelancing or you want to leave the gates open for a job and try freelancing; It is best to experiment with what works for you and how.
The most crucial aspect of all is to try freelancing and see if it is right for you or not. More often than not, it will.
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