Wednesday – December 16

Many people today are thinking of changing their work modality to freelancing for multiple reasons one of the perks is that they do not have to leave home, or don’t have to meet schedules or some other reasons. But this way of working is nothing more than just deciding to freelance and everything will be fine. That is why according to my experience, today I have brought some tips that I compiled in my time as a freelancer which can help you to take off your career as a freelance and not die trying.

1. Define, in the beginning, the amount to be charged per hour. It is important to define the value of your time before starting, in this way when a client asks you how much their work will cost, you know to make it clear that you will charge X amount of hours at Y price and based on their requirements and your expertise an estimate of the hours it will take. And always remember that you are charging for your skill not based on the client’s budget. Be aware of your expenses and fixed costs, as utilities and so on, in by doing so you secure you won’t go broke.

2. Always ask for a deposit. It is quite usual for some clients to decide halfway through the development that they no longer want to finish the project or if for some other reason they stop paying you and by doing so, your time will have been wasted. For this reason, you should always have an advance Deposit to start and go asking for payment each week with any of the deliverables, this way you guarantee that there will be transparency on both sides. I personally always asked for half at the beginning and the other at the end and a little trick that I started to implement was that after some amount of days, the software I was doing stopped working completely. By doing this I ensure that I never deliver anything 100% functional except if pay in full for the work (this only applies to freelance developers).

3. Keep a schedule Working from home has many advantages, but it also has a great disadvantage. Is this where many people find it difficult to start working from the comfort of their home because most have the idea that we are only at home to rest. So the best thing to do is to create a schedule and stick to it rigidly so that you always turn in your work on time. e that I never deliver anything 100% functional except if pay in full for the work (this only applies to freelance developers).

4. Create an engaging portfolio The best way to sell yourself as a freelancer is to let your work speak for you so when in times where you do not have any work or any pending use it to do something related to your work as a freelancer, including software, a drawing, music, etc. This will be quite useful whenever a new client comes to you and asks what you can do, then you can have something to show what you have created during your free time and present that yourself as someone who takes his job very seriously.

5. Don’t be an apprentice to every master of nothing or Jack of all trades Concentrate on a single technology or technique to do your work since this way you can do your job and always do an excellent and more efficient job. You must bear in mind that the work as a Freelancer can be temporary. You may at some point or get tired of going on your own, or hopefully, you get so much work that you stop being a freelancer, and you begin to hire people and become a company, from which you may be running away, but at the end of the day, businesses build a little more trust than freelancers. It is only a matter of perception or name, nowadays many companies hire remote workers, so what is the difference between being a Freelance and Remote work? That is for another chapter that I will give you shortly. We can keep you posted by subscribing to our mailing list. This blog is dedicated to my dear associate Daxara, she did not die or anything but she had her birthday and this is my gift to her <3

Andrés Maldonado – Systems Engineer