I'm a web developer who fields many freelancing requests.
When I receive a request that I can't fulfill, or the budget is below my standard rate, I send them to Squarespace. Most people find that they are super happy with that. It's great for small businesses.
For non-business matters and art projects, there's also Cargo Collective, which provides attractive tools that your family members might be interested in. It's been around a long time and is a great platform with free and paid options.
Edit: You can also ask the question, do you need a website? Maybe a Flickr account is good enough.
For anyone trying to find work, I've found the best way is real life networking. Find your local relevant network (ie digital, web, creative - keep it broad), go to events. The other way is mass emailing, as described in The Freelance Manifesto (it's targeted at motion designers but lots of it is relevant to others). Introduce yourself, tell them what you do, show your portfolio and suggest meeting/chatting. This is how I get all my work and it's great.
In terms of managing work, that's just down to organisation. I have all the folders organised on my computer so I know what work is in progress and what's done. I contact my clients via email/phone, or Slack if they use it too. I only tend to have a couple of jobs on the go at a time so it's never too much to manage, but I guess some sort of spreadsheet would help, or something like Mindly or the millions of other project management platforms out there. The difficulty of having all clients in one place with an IM, file manager etc is that clients don't all use the same thing. Especially actual clients that pay; they're not looking on Upwork.
I hear you - online work even feels "toxic" to me, having been deep within it for 7 or so years.
A few other options besides "back" to a 9-5:
Read "The E-Myth Revisited" if you haven't already. It's a bad title, but it's all about how people get burnt out - online or off - through misunderstanding what work is.
Your skills should have gone up immeasurably in 5 years. So you should be in an opportunity to pivot into a much more rewarding freelance field. Eg. a store, forum or site based around a passion.
You might benefit from partnering up with someone who likes the parts you no longer like to do.
Working part time can be an option. Sometimes freelancing is so-so in isolation, but great in comparison to taking orders from others.
etc etc
Use a service like Harvest to time track. It allows both you AND the client to understand where the money's going.
In my opinion, flat rate billing is an invitation to problems. What if the client needs more revisions than your flate rate allowed for? What if the project runs over by 300%? 500%? Many freelancers end up destroying client relationships over this kind of stuff, branding the client a grinder or user, when in actuality it was their billing process that created the problem by not being flexible to client needs.
If you are using Paypal to request the funds and getting bumped up to higher surcharges, this would allow you to send invoices without charging you extra.
Plus, it makes nicer invoices lol.
Usually, you want to look for "open-source" alternatives to closed (proprietary) software. It's not a perfect overlap: Some closed software can be free to use (ex: Unity Game Engine), and some open-source software only offer paid 'builds' (executable software) to help found development (Often in music, with tools like Vital or Ardour).
I don't want to promote any specific site, but honestly alternativeto is a good resource. It's not only "free" programs, but good general recommendations. If you want mine, honestly, it completly depends on what you want to do. Looking at doing art/creative work? Blender, Krita and Inkscape are part of my own toolset. Administrative work? You can use the LibreOffice suite, buuut MS Office is arguably worth it, especially if you want to be "plug and play" with your clients. So it really depends on a lot of things.
At the end of the day, freelancing is a matter of skills, not software. Even if you can't afford Photoshop, it doesn't change that Krita won't "magically" make artworks for you. Neither would PS. You can learn Python on your own, for free, but you don't just "learn to program", you usually need an end goal. Do you want to make games? diagram through programming? generative art? You can use LibreOffice Writer instead of Word, but what are you going to write? Is it interesting for your future clients? There's no program, paid or free, that magically make money.
You need to figure out what your day rate is, then adjust it accordingly. (Here's where a sentence on how I'm sad they're not teaching you this in your professional development modules @ Uni.)
Creative freelancers like myself can figure out their day rate by estimating what their salary would be if they were full-time at a studio/agency - then multiplying it by 3. For an entry level graphic designer in PA, the average salary is $36,000 p.a. You haven't graduated yet, so let's say $30,000.
$30,000 divided by 52 (weeks) = $577 (rounded up)
$577 divided by 40 (hours) = $14.50
$14.50 multiplied by 3 = $43.50
So your day rate (for 8 hours) is $116.
You estimate the time it will take you to develop & design the work for your client, & format it however they need for print, as well as any time to cover correspondence & client meetings. I'd estimate each part of the project (i.e. design itself, 1 round of amends, formatting for poster, formatting for album album, etc) separately: it's a real fucking pain in the ass to format for print vs apparel, so remember to keep that in mind.
If you feel uncomfortable charging them at your full day rate, you can knock 50% (or whatever) off -- but remember when you are invoicing them to list your full day rate with a -xx% deducted from the total.
I say this, because it's essential that you value the work you do, and you get into the habit of not apologising to clients for charging them for your labour. Creative work can be undervalued because people don't understand the research and training that goes into developing your own unique practise.
Hope this is helpful!
I use Wave. One system for invoicing and accounting.
It has decent looking schedulable invoices, integrated online payments with Stripe, a helpful app (it's new and they're still adding features but it seems good so far), receipts, etc. The dashboard shows you your income over time so you can keep track easily (especially if you have your accounts you use for expenses hooked up– you'd be able to see your real profit). It's free and has ads.
I said this for years before it finally “clicked” for me.
Check out Jekyll. It’s basically plain text with styling in Markdown. Tons of free templates available, and you can host for free on GitHub by simply changing where your personal domain points to.
DM if you want to know more or need some help.
I read eventy billion reviews before buying this one and I really like it—it’s cheap, easy to use, and does what it needs to do.
I have one of the aforementioned bra-like ones, too. I don’t use it while I’m working, but it’s good for days when I won’t be home and don’t want to look like Winston Churchill by the end of the day. ETA: if you have a bust, this style does, indeed, gather it. So, a nice bonus if you’re into bust-gathering.
Honestly...I don't.
Until I'm at the point where I have a consistent stream of referrals and organic leads from search engines, my free time (within reason) becomes prospecting time.
In many ways, prospecting is more important than client work. If you end up finishing with a fantastic project, but then are left with a barren period of time afterwards, you run the risk of screwing with your finances (and subsequently your mental health).
Just got done reading Zero to One by Peter Thiel, and there was a really fantastic quote in there that rings true for freelancing:
> If you've invented something new but you haven't invented an effective way to sell it, you have a bad business - no matter how good the product.
I use Wave for invoicing/payment/bookkeeping. It's good for my uses (wanted a free tracking app, since my freelance is a supplement to my day job). Their invoicing is handled through Stripe, which is dead-simple, and their report generating is pretty handy.
I was in a similar situation to yours this year for taxes—made enough to need to reliably track income by customer (to verify 1099-MISCs received), and had business expenses that would need to be written off—and Wave handled it all nicely.
It's very common on platforms like upwork.com. They have a built in process (I'm sure with a download) that grabs a screenshot every 10 minutes.
Outside of upwork.com, or perhaps other similar 'marketplaces', it's far less frequent, in my experience.
I've used Harvest to handle billing, invoice, client management, time management, etc.... Pretty easy and free to use for 1 person, 4 clients, 2 projects after that it starts at $12/mo for unlimited use.
If you're looking for a Craigslist-to-Email solution, sign up for IFTTT. After you've got an account setup, use something like this channel to automatically monitor Craigslist for stuff that you want forwarded to you via email. There are tons of recipes on that page which should help set it up.
Hope this helps!
Get The Non-Designer's Design Book by Robin Williams (not that Robin Williams). It's short. Read it. Then review it as you work on projects.
Seriously, this book teaches you design basics that will make your work so much better and gives you the vocabulary and tools to analyze design so you can continue improving.
ETA For color, play around on Adobe Color (used to be Kuler.com and I think that URL still works). You can see different kinds of color combos, pull color from photos, and look at color palettes other people generated.
I feel your pain! The best one I have found is TickTick - it's fast, cheap, feature-packed for individuals, and easy to use. It integrates with your calendar and you can link it with other apps through Zapier if you want to get all fancypants with it.
He also gives out spectacular advice at doubleyourfreelancing.com. Was introduced by David Kadvey of Design for Hackers.
(I'm not affiliated with either in any way. I'm just a fan of both.)
I am pretty sure /u/luckyisgood isn't the author of this post. I think it is more likely that they found this on Hacker News (the comments there are also interesting) or somewhere else.
Get YNAB. I think they still have the old version where you only pay once and get to use the software forever. If they don't, then get the monthly version.
You should be thinking why one more expense when I'm talking about quitting, but this app will help you budget your money in categories and you'll know exactly how long your savings will last. Also you'll be able to plan where every dollar goes.
When you have that, then you can take a more informed decision about quitting. If you have to talk to your parents it's better to show them the budgeting plan than just giving them estimates. I mean, they'll see you are organized and have thought this through.
If you discard my idea of getting that app, at least go and read the rules and get some alternative app that does the same.
You said your instinct is telling you to quit, well I think you are answering your own question there.
I think we should always follow our instincts, just take your time and prepare for quitting the best you can. Don't do it on a whim.
Don't stay if you're being miserable. You could get accustomed to it and your self esteem could be damaged, and it doesn't have a price.
If you can't get jobs because you lack experience, well, you could get a similar job to the one you have now but where you feel comfortable.
From what I read you are a young guy or girl, and you already have savings. That speaks very good of you, not all of us had savings and a job while studying.
I think you'll take the best decision.
> should I upgrade to a Business account?
Why not open a new business account instead?
> Can I have multiple PayPal accounts?
> Yes. You can have one Consumer account and one Business account. You can add more email addresses, debit or credit cards, and bank accounts to your account, but each account must have its own email address and financial information. You can also upgrade your Consumer account to a Business account.
That way your finances are separate - your income (and maybe some business related stuff) are in the business account, while you ebay shopping are in the personal account.
It also helps as a sort of book-keeping thing. You can do invoicing, and at the end of the year you can just export all the business transactions for that year and be done with it instead of needing to go over that list to remove any, say, "sexual paraphernalia" that doesn't belong on your tax report.
More important is link building to gain "page rank" for search terms and also the traffic from people clicking those links. It's not an easy topic, because it is different for each business and industry. But while the web site grows over time and people link to any quality content it provides, SEO is important as well.
Just doing things correctly can see a moderate boost in traffic compared to not doing any SEO at all. A real SEO campaign will have goals that are tracked and worked towards over a period of months or years.
It sounds like you are a solo developer, so I strongly suggest to just pay for an SEO campaign after reading reviews of companies that offer SEO services. It's not something that a one person show can typically deliver in addition to developing web sites, finding clients, and doing the small business legwork.
To start learning maybe try this one and then search for more articles, guides tutorials and see what you can make of it: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
As part of this whole ranking game, you also should be attempting to satisfy the other requirements, such as the guidelines found at the google page speed tool: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/
Besides that, just know that you are competing with other web sites for the same or similar search terms. You can sign up for a google adwords account without buying any ads, and use their search term tool to discover approximate search volume (value of the search term) as well as competition on the search term (by way of price of buying ads) to get an idea of how popular a term is and how hard it will be to compete on that term in search rankings.
These are just a brief overview of what you're getting into with traffic building services. Good luck!
FreeAgent, or a similar app like Quickbooks or Freshbooks. I've been using online accounting apps for nearly ten years, and they're fantastic - Saves me about three days a month on invoicing, expenses, and financial admin, and makes tax prep much easier. I used to use a spreadsheet and document invoices, but FreeAgent automates all of it - Honestly, you'll wonder how you did without it.
All the online accounting apps have similar functionality, but FreeAgent is well tailored for UK based freelancers.
If you're outside of the EU, you can use wave. The accounting software is free, but transactions aren't althogh the price is fair IMO and, as already pointed out, you shouldn't trust a company claiming to be "free" in such matters.
Another solution could be Cognito Forms, you'll need a stripe account ad a little patience for building the form.
I use this to send invoices, it's free: Wave
It is kind of like Freshbooks, except instead of paying a monthly fee they do a % of the credit card charge. It wound up being the same as Stripe, and they can just pay with their credit card.
It is way more professional looking, and then I have the follow up feature from the invoices and everything - because I hate pestering people for money, or they think they paid me and they didn't... If it's automated there's no arguing.
I plan to switch to Freshbooks when I can pay for the highest tier, but for now I like the free (at least no monthly fee) options.
Are you looking for a list of tools or parts? If you're going to pack around some parts, I'd go with a basic video card, ethernet card, IDE & SATA hard drives, a couple of the more common types of RAM, a DVD burner, case fan, ATX power supplies, and maybe spare power jacks for popular laptop models and a handful of capacitors - though those last two can both be pretty specific in terms of models and voltages.
As for tools, in addition to what you've listed:
needle-nose pliers
small light/magnifier
power supply testers are handy
If you're taking a soldering iron, don't forget desoldering stuffs.
tubes of heatsink compound
Soft-bristled 1in paintbrush and cans of air
USB wireless dongle might come in handy
get a pill box with multiple comparements - handy when taking apart laptops with 37,000 screws of various lengths
> (Do most professional developers out there hand-craft or use dreamweaver? )
Dreamweaver is a joke. Most professional developers use libraries to help implement something like a dialog box. jQuery UI or Bootstrap JS or similar.
> How does one master CSS!
You practice. Everyone started somewhere, and so must you.
I would generally strongly suggest that you find an existing project and modify it. It's much easier to learn the basics (IMO) when you're provided with context and standards. Its easier to learn how to style an element when you're already presented with a styled element and you only need to tweak it (as opposed to creating it all from scratch yourself).
> How can a back-end developer learn to think like a front-end developer?
Here's the thing that I've noticed the most: there isn't really a difference in how they think (generally speaking). From a technical standpoint, they're the same. The way they work are differences in ecosystems and technologies.
The outward manifestations are just personal preferences. Some people are drawn to the visual/UI aspects of front-end. Some people are drawn to the uniformity and utility of back-end. The thought processes are typically the same.
I used to use Thunderbird by Mozilla (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/features/) a little while back to manage my emails. I like it a lot and offered a lot of options, including multiple accounts similar to Gmail. I switched back to Gmail when Inbox by Google came about.
Here is a quick tutorial I found that may help you with adding multiple accounts to Thunderbird. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-set-up-mozilla-thunderbird-3-multiple-email/
I would suggest you check out Stripe. You can create "managed accounts" for your users which operate like real stripe accounts but are mostly invisible. This would let user B in your example accept payments from user A directly. The money goes into a master stripe account and can be dispersed to the managed accounts after (minimum) 24-48 hours or something like that.
Edit: I think this is pretty close to what your plan is now but Stripe just supports this more directly than paypal - they hold all the CC information and they're accepting the "hold the scary db" risk for you.
When I signed up for Paypal in 2004, I chose business simply because it seemed more "professional" and there was no mention of any extra costs or % per transaction.
In the past decade, I've used this one account for business use from multiple companies, personal use, and as sort of a "slush fund", for example Uber rides and web stuff for which I would rather paypal than use a credit card.
Here's a description of the differences between account types.
If you want to take it to next level it's good idea to build longer term relationship with your clients. Best types of clients are who give you work regularly. Finding new clients costs lot of time and is not always great experience. You can find clients also on other places (Freelancer etc, but it's pretty similar) or also on https://www.reddit.com/r/HireaWriter/ (or similar). Depending on where you live you can try also to find local clients (https://www.craigslist.org/ or similar).
You should read a book on basic business bookkeeping, or consult with a bookkeeper.
I use OnTheJob (Mac only) to track my time & issue invoices. It or similar software will be helpful. There's lots of web apps out there now that do the same thing.
When you want advance payment, you should invoice your client specifically for a retainer. You should generally also have given them an itemized estimate at that point.
At the end of the job, you issue an invoice detailing the work done (ie. explain what they're paying for: general job areas such as design, production, etc. is sufficient, along with time spent, and any expenses), and apply a positive credit for the amount of the retainer, reducing the total invoice to the amount outstanding.
You should also speak to a bookkeeper or accountant about what you need to do to be legit regarding your taxes.
I've heard people say good things about Stripe, but I'm gonna use Braintree, b/c it looks better to me, for these reasons...
I just read this a week ago and it might help you:
There are three stories you should know cold:
I have a very small program at the moment, so I use Wave Accounting. It is really easy and straightforward. It's also free. It seems to be a really good choice for people just starting out and who don't have a ton of transactions.
I'm also in Canada and I charge all my clients in their currency (including AUD).
Look into transferwise (wise.com) it's a huge currency rate saver and I love it. I don't put any conversion rates on the invoice
Yeah. I knew what to expect. First time I didn't pass the first interview process. Not because I am failed with it, just because I was too busy on other projects. So getting into TopTal was not my priority. So I didn't schedule it properly. At second try, I am failed with screen sharing programming tasks solving. 2 hours for solving some algorithm challenges. Such tasks are not common in web-development, so I didn't finish the task in required time. At the third try, I spend several days in https://www.codewars.com/ before going into the process. I think it helped me.
The Nusii folks have a bunch of free resources on doing really killer proposals (and you figure they would know since that's what their service does).
Consider becoming proficient in a landing page creator like Instapage or Leadpages.
I have a full-time gig, but if I got laid off today I think I could make money next week just by developing beautiful, conversion-focused landing page for people struggling with these tools. Mastering their drag-and-drop type of functionality is much easier than learning a programming language, but still too demanding for the average business owner to invest the time in it.
Learning to customized wordpress themes certainly has a higher ceiling, but if you just want to take on a couple project to pay the mortgage, I think this is a step in the right direction.
Check out: DocuSign RightSignature [EchoSign](www.echosign.com/)
These are the few reputable places I've found when looking for electronic contracting for my webdev biz. I went with DocuSign because you can request payment (paypal, etc) when requesting signing (for deposits and whatnot). Just started using it though so I can't give you my impressions of it yet.
At the last 2 companies I have worked for we have hired consulting firms to help us migrate our monolith application to AWS...and we spent a lot of money doing so. So there is money to be made and services to sell. I would recommend getting a certification through Amazon, https://aws.amazon.com/certification/our-certifications/ . Once you have a certification in one of the areas which Amazon certifies, then you could start marketing yourself to small to medium sized companies that are starting to have scaling issues. Larger companies will more likely go with a firm since it can be a large level of effort and requires many people.
I have several projects and now rolling out a big bespoke CMS with mobile apps.
Here is my overview from oDesk
I was thinking to make a web site like this guy http://zef.io and put my stuff there, may be a bit more descriptions.
Or may be I should do a more commercial web site, more like a consulting company?
Another direction was to develop my existing cool language learning project - make mobile apps, make it free, promote it on forums etc. I am sure it will be a success, but it will take time.
The other question - should I blog, even I am not an IT scientist, but I did few useful hacks for myself.
My feeling now a freelance dev should have free community projects in the portfolio, so that hiring manager can check the code, reputation etc.
But all these things take time, which is taken from learning new tools, doing the actual work etc. So I have to plan wisely.
What do you say? :)
edit: updated link
/r/bitcoin and The bitcoin project in general would really love to have you, I'm sure.
The more C++ devs they have, the better. The core code for Bitcoin is all written in C++, and most altcoins are also written in the same language with slight variations.
It's open source, and you can find more info on getting started here: https://bitcoin.org/en/development
It's also a pretty popular project, in the sense that most people have heard of Bitcoin, and saying you worked on the Bitcoin source code as a developer should be a good highlight to a portfolio/resume.
Also if you need a more simplistic introduction to bitcoin, there is always: http://bitcoinintroduction.com/
I've used Billings in the past, before it went subscription based. I no longer use it though, as I was looking to switch to something more robust.
To fill my needs, I made the switch to Pancake, which not only has an awesome invoicing system, that allows multiple payments and file-handover upon payment, but also includes many more incredible features. The features include proposal creation, time-tracking, project expenses, and project management.
Pancake is however, web based and not a mac app.
Right.
I did what the other guy in here told me to do and looked it up on odesk and some other sites.
Odesk shows A HUGE LOAD of more PHP jobs in comparison to ruby and python (~10x more). In comparison to Java, which I also have in mind, it's ~3.7x more. Some numbers from a simple search in odesk:
Another interesting, but diverging one, is http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=php%2C+python%2C+ruby&l=
I'll probably just follow on PHP.
I'm studying HTML/CSS/JavaScript on the side too. This is a must for all I could tell. Even though I'd like more back-end centric jobs. I'm also looking at AngularJS. But I should look at JQuery too.
I am unemployed for a good two months now - on my way to self-employment. Cognitive dissonance is the worst we can do to ourselves ( http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/articles/stop-lying.html ) I have to say, that first I thought, I got a lot more time on my hands - I can finally be productive! I were wrong. We make excuses to procrastinate and lie to ourself. Finally - after two months, I found something to become motivated again. I try to reward myself with the results I get from designing and developing. Even after a project, I think I would be disgusted out by even beginning it. After some progress I feel like I finally accomplished something again. I also wrote an article about this topic ( https://medium.com/p/6cffb7458929 ). No matter what you do - find projects, only if they are sideprojects where you can prove yourself to accomplish something. For me it is the greatest motivation - to see my work being admired by others or maybe even myself.
I agree with the other comments. If you aren't slightly uncomfortable with your price…you're selling yourself short.
Here's a really quick way of figuring out an hourly rate. Take whatever you would make in salary if you had a full time job…and take away the last 3 zeros.
If you could make $50,000 per year, charge $50 an hour.
Here's a great salary calculator.
If you must have auto wordpress hosting, bluehost is pretty popular for that.
But honestly, installing it yourself is not hard. You download a zip file, extract it to the /var/www directory, edit the wp-settings.php file, and that's basically it. I'd be willing to help you out a bit if you decide to go this route. It's honestly better in the long run.
Also, if you do it manually, you can get a better server. If you go with an auto wordpress host, you'll be sharing the server with several other people. I have been using DigitalOcean for about a year and a half now, and cannot recommend it enough. The plans start out with 1TB of bandwidth, so you won't need to worry about traffic surges for a long time. If you do get a traffic surge, it's super easy to scale up your servers performance, and scale it back down once the surge is over.
I use a combination of Trello boards and Git Issues. I rarely have long term support clients, though.
There seem to be some free ones out there that you can demo.
YesWare does a lot of things. But the feature I'm finding most useful (and it's included in the free version) allows you to select from a number of scripted responses, so you don't have to keep typing the same e-mails over and over. Just select a response. Gmail has a feature that does this but it doesn't work as good.
There are a few really good tools out there to help freelancers separate their business related expenses from their personal ones. You can find one here: https://www.xero.com/us/taxtouch/ Intuit also has one
Payoneer switched many users to using Choice Bank issued cards and told us this is going to be a new way payoneer will be operating. It was official message from Payoneer, that we're being moved to Choice Pay, their "new brand"... as for why this scam was pulled only on some users it's probably best to ask Payoneer themselve because they send us the emails and the cards...
https://www.payoneer.com/campaign/payoneer-firstchoicepay-faqs/
Now we can't access our money because Choice Bank has gone BANKRUPT, Payoneer is closing this "brand" and also Payoneer told us we should get our money ourselves, because first they told us what nice business partner it is and how much better the cards will be, then they claimed that there is no problem and we'll be getting money very soon, and now they claim that they have nothing to do with them. So in the end, Payoneer can't extract any money out of Choice Bank and told the users that we should call/sue/beg/whatever the bank THEY'RE USING - ourselves, while we don't even have accounts there.
>i have had payoneer for a while, and never had a problem with it.
Yes, probably because you haven't been moved to new "version" of thieir system called First Choide Pay. But taking into account how the FCB situation was handled i wouldn't be so sure that one day (probably sooner than later) your money won't be locked too. And you'll be forced to deal with some bank in some remote part of the world, where there are no regulation to protect customers. By a company that is REFUSING to tell its users where it has its HQ, which is fishy anyway... that company isn't telling anyone where it is registered.
The app you're looking for is Wave. https://www.waveapps.com/
Waze is a traffic app.
Wave is free. It charges you 2.9% plus .30 per transaction if you process a credit card payment through them. A flat 1% if the client elects to pay using ACH bank transfer (some clients absolutely love this).
​
I use it myself. It's very easy. I never notice the cost since it comes out of the client's end from my perspective.
​
You aren't trapped into monthly billing, the invoices look professional, and best of all everything works over email. You create the invoice, Wave emails the client, client pays, Wave puts the money in your bank account.
Doesn't matter to Wave if you send one invoice a year, or invoice clients every day.
Wave also allows you to run credit cards. The client can provide you with the information, you run the card, Wave deposits the money into your bank account.
​
It's good practice to keep all the client's billing information, but you don't need to. Wave only needs the client's email.
​
Also, you should get paid up front. Or do staggered payments. Half up front, half on completion or something like that. There's no point in having to chase someone for money you've worked for.
​
Definitely check out Wave (https://www.waveapps.com/) they have an iOS and Android app as well that is very clean.
They also have an option to allow for payments to be made through them (they take a small fee if done this way) which makes you look professional, makes it very easy for clients to pay, and you can track paid/unpaid invoices in their dash.
Reference: Me. I use Wave for all my web development freelance work.
It sounds like you should really try to start at the bare minimum. Probably recommend Wave Apps, which is free and has the following: * Able to send basic invoices * Transactions auto-tracked (as much as can be) * Able to accept CC's & some other payment methods, such as Stripe * Also, some good reports so you can see how much more $$ you're making from saving time & streamlining.
Other alternatives, as some folks mentioned, are good, modern, cloud-based options, with good support communities and plenty of free Youtube videos to learn from, include Freshbooks (which also has a very basic free level), and Quickbooks Self-Employed, that's only $10 / month or less. ...Xero, might also be good, but is likely to have a bit more than you need.
One other thing about Wave, it's really a great place to start out, and since it's free and no subscription, etc., you can get a feeling for how to handle the process. It could very well have everything you'd need, certainly at a basic level:
I used to use this at a design firm I worked for, roughly 15 people. It's the best! I would get it now but not at the point to have so many monthly plans, but this is the next step.
To add to this time management/invoicing, I would highly recommend WaveApps It's an online invoice management service. I love it because now all of my clients pay through Credit Card and the payment goes through stripe, automatically into my bank account.
The invoices also look very professional and are easy to setup and configure.
No one said it was an exam, I was correcting the false assumption that they always side with the buyer. They side with the buyer for physical goods, not for digital goods. https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/security/seller-protection-faq
> > What are the transaction eligibility requirements?
> To be eligible for Seller Protection, you'll need to meet each of the following requirements:
> [blah blah]
> 3. The item must be a physical, tangible good that can be shipped.
> > What types of transactions are covered?
> All transactions for tangible goods that were paid for with PayPal are eligible for coverage if they meet the requirements for US sellers-except those processed through Virtual Terminal or PayPal Direct Payment. Read the PayPal User Agreement for our complete terms of coverage.
> > What's the difference between tangible and intangible goods?
> A tangible good can be held and shipped (CD, mobile phone). > An intangible good can't be held or shipped in a box (MP3, ringtone).
> > Why doesn't Seller Protection cover deliveries made in person, or intangible goods (such as digital goods or services)?
> One of the most important requirements for coverage under Seller Protection is proof of shipment or delivery. Since deliveries made in person and sales of intangible goods do not have verifiable shipping documentation, we cannot currently extend protection for these types of transactions.
Yeah, I definitely think you should take some time off. I felt the same way a few years ago and I was living this very passive life, working day in, day out, like I was on this eternal merry go round. So I decided to move countries and put myself in a new culture.
It was honestly so refreshing and amazing starting again. It's like my life was a bunch of tangled cables and then I pulled out the power plug out from the source and started over. I have now moved back to my home country after 4 years. But I feel a lot better.
The other thing I have found helpful is meditation (mindfulness). Not like religious stuff. Just being aware of your emotions and the stories I tell myself. Both https://www.headspace.com/ https://wakingup.com/ are good. Headspace has a 10 part free trial, which was super helpful for me.
Don't be afraid of counselling either, even just for one session. As the person said above. There may be more going on under the hood, that even you aren't aware of. It was for me.
No linux typically runs better on older hardware than Windows, etc because it is so light. There is a linux subreddit. Definitely check it out.
Check out Ubuntu or Mint Linux, those two are the most recommended to start with. You can download them at http://distrowatch.com/
It's worth whatever you can sell to people. I've seen people pay top dollar for mediocre work because of who sold it or how it was sold. People buy value, so if you can create a massive perceived value, you can charge a lot for it. It is difficult to tell you how much to charge because your ability to sell at a particular price point is going to, probably, be more important than your skill level. You seem anxious or hesitant... so it makes me question that you'd be confident in a sales environment, especially if you feel you were charging too much.
Two way to fix this:
For motivation and inspiration: https://dribbble.com/
No worries, it really comes down to whatever you want to do the job. I do free work for organizations that I want to help, so I can see offering a discount because you like these people.
I am not sure of any other companies doing it, many would at least have referral programs. Call up your vendor of choice and see what they offer.
2.1 If you wanted to do the VPS route, get something like one of these: https://www.linode.com/pricing and get it all setup to host these sites. You'll only pay $10-20/mo to start, and you can charge each of the sites $25-50/mo for it. Again, you can roll in monthly backups etc.
No problem!
I'm on Upwork and am having great success. I tried Freelancer, but the clients seemed unwilling to pay for quality. Upwork has a lot of that too, so make sure you are interviewing potential clients and don't be afraid to say no. Hubspot just released Hubstaff as another option that claims to have no fees. Just signed up so no feedback yet other than their profiles are very simple, but Hubspot generally knows what they're doing. https://talent.hubstaff.com/
Have you looked into Box.com? I know they allow you to block downloads when sharing a file, embed the file in iFrame, set custom links, require password, expire the download link, and more. Upgraded accounts even allow you to Lock the file so it can't be accidentally changed by you.
I don't know how well they would "show" a database file, but there might be a solution there.
But... to echo others, be sure to always give your clients the best options and then let them decide. If they still choose the expensive one, knowing that the less expensive one would still work, you did the right thing and everyone is happy.
Wordpress can be made to run quite smoothly if you properly set up caching, judiciously install well-made plugins, etc. It's not always the best tool for every job but it will do the trick for a lot of clients, it's actively growing, and there's plenty of demand for WP devs today.
Another note on your third question. Check out Yeoman. It's a scaffolding generator that actually builds out those standard folder structures for you depending on the type of project you are embarking upon.
One of the first things you need to do is build a portfolio of work. Clients are looking for good evidence you can do what you say you can. Depending on your freelance field, your portfolio could be:
Writer - Links to published work.
Designer - Previous work you've completed for clients.
Developer - Personal or paid projects.
If you don't have any previous work, you may need to offer to do some work pro bono, or complete some personal projects to have something to share. When I started as a freelance writer, I had around 100 articles I had written or published for free, and used that as the basis of a portfolio. Once you start getting paying work, you can start including links to that content (assuming you get the client's permission).
I wrote a guide to creating a freelance portfolio website, you might find it useful.
The Principles of Successful Freelancing
The Business Side of Creativity
I know of others, but because I do development and design, a lot of them have "design" in the title. Principles are universal, though, no matter what the discipline - be a smart businessperson.
tl;dr : Treehouse will get you started, but you need to have the drive to finish
It depends entirely upon what you mean by "gaining the skills to freelance". Treehouse has some business tutorials that would give you a pretty good start on how to start a business. You could complete all of the tutorials in a day, so I'd highly recommend checking them out during the two-week free trial.
If you're referring to picking up enough "hard skills" in web development, it's going to depend entirely upon you. I'd wager that the Treehouse wordpress tutorials could get you far enough to build some simple wordpress sites, but you're not going to get much further unless you push yourself with personal projects.
At the moment, it's free for unlimited members.
I'm assuming the 10,000 message thing means when you do a search on the site, it will only go back as far as the last 10,000 messages written on the site. I don't know if this is 10,000 in total for your setup, per conversation, or per individual though.
5 external integrations means you can integrate up to 5, third party pieces of software into your setup. For example, you could integrate Trello and Bitbucket, and you will have 3 left.
A full list of software you can integrate is here: https://slack.com/integrations
I've done the freelancer+digitalnomad thing.
The easiest and cheapest solution I've found is to get a SkypeIn number. I think it's just called a Skype Online Number these days. You can set up voicemail and call-forwarding to a local mobile in your location.
Not sure how much it costs but it's obviously low enough for me to forget.
Start by building a folder on your computer of all the different literary styles you have a lot of or know are excellent portfolio pieces. Some could be creative, some could be technical, some could be editorial. Never stop adding to this list; it's your portfolio.
Now, for each potential client, really find out about their company. Taylor your final presentation of your portfolio to their needs. Always send a PDF. Let's say the company sells sports equipment and they need someone to write really good blurbs about each product for their packaging. Surely, you've got some example of a highly physical activity being described in writing. Let's say you find out the CEO of the company really likes golfing or the Kentucky derby. If you don't already have a piece, go to a tournament (chances are if you write it anyways, someone else down the road may like it) or go to the derby and describe how decadent and depraved it is.
Speaking of sports equipment, there are plenty of writing assignments on Amazon M Turk that will help to stay busy writing each day and make you a little change to start. It's a good way to make some sort of trickle income and eventually requesters will continue to hire you based on your writing for larger, more well-paid assignments. Give it a shot.
I used to use Harvest, but now I have switched to TimeCamp. The free version is good enough for me, but I might upgrade someday.
I really do love Harvest, but like /u/springer70 I would always forget to start/stop the time. I find it's such a hassle. TimeCamp monitors what you are doing and tracks it automatically. For example, if you are working with a document with "Project01" in the title, it will automatically start tracking time for the project called "Project01."
I had to change the way I worked a bit, by making sure the task I am working on has the project name in the title, but it's not a huge change. And at the end of the day, I just go through the visual schedule to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Hope this helps!
Sign up for an online scheduling tool (Calendly came up first on Google but I've never used them myself), and send the link to your clients so they can book calls in advance. Be clear that you won't be taking unscheduled Skype calls any more. And, as u/twelvis said, a retainer arrangement is win-win for everyone as far as getting the most value and reliability for time spent.
I have had some good experience with Harvest (https://www.getharvest.com/). They have basic invoicing, recurring billing, retainers, estimation-to-invoice, and integrated time tracking. For their paid version, they can also connect to Quickbooks for taxes and do projection on spending and income.
You can also set yourself up as a "Worker" and set your hourly rate or different billing methods. So if you do time keeping with the app, the invoices will automatically be created for you and can be sent to the client based on your rate.
Payment options are PayPal(business or personal) and Stripe.
Free full features for 30 days then limited to 5 clients but still free invoicing. Right now, its about $126/year for a single person with unlimited clients, projects, and invoices. You pay just $108/year for additional people if you only need 2. They do have tiered pricing for different size teams.
Been using Harvest since the beginning of 2014, and really happy with it. The first pay level works fine for me, and for the first time, both sending estimates and invoicing clients was a breeze. I'm a big fan of Harvest
I use Google Apps for work. It's about $5/mo per person.
People I know who have switched off of Google Apps speak very highly of FastMail but I haven't tried it.
I use http://www.manictime.com/ and it's great. Not free but a one time payment only. It tracks what applications I'm using and opened files/websites. Then you can automatically create tags based on keywords.
There is also a custom timeline that I use to track what files have been edited and as they are all in folders specific to projects, I get a clear idea of the time spent on each project.
Firstly, I'd definitely recommend creating tab groups so you can easily swap from project to project. If you use chrome:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-bundler/ooajenhhhbdbcolenhmmkgmkcocfdahd?hl=en
Otherwise, thebru had some good suggestions; however, instead of a pen/paper approach to the daily tasks, I'd recommend asana.
+1 for IFTTT. I've been using it for years, for all kinds of things. Some of my favorites actually were unexpected, and found by just browsing recipes (https://ifttt.com/recipes/hot).
Like everyone else is saying, you probably won't have enough clients for it to be an issue. I generally have 3-4 active clients. Sometimes dormant clients come back and it gets stressful for me to work them back into my schedule, but it has its way of evening out.
I manage all projects with one Trello board. That's going to be one of the best tools for managing the jobs.
Check out Trello. https://trello.com/
They allow you to create public boards that anyone with the link can view the board. Only people that are added to the board are able to edit the board. I think that would work well for what you are describing.
Your first assumption should be "They were busy with this trade show and paying me got lost in the shuffle." It may be true. It may not be true. The truth of it is not important at this stage. The important part is that it is the best position from which to try to ask for your pay without this automatically turning into drama.
So, you contact them and say something like "Hey, I delivered and we agreed on X and I haven't been paid. Now that the trade show is over and you have a minute to breathe, please take care of this."
Maybe they will pay you promptly. Maybe they will tell you the payment procedure and that it will take X amount of time, yadda (it is shocking how long it can take to get paid as a freelancer). Maybe they will be dicks about it, at which point you can start with whatever backup plan you have to give them bad reviews or whatever.
"Getting to Yes" is a great book. It is short and research based. It was one of two required texts for a college class I took on "Negotiation and Conflict Management." If you are going to freelance, learning a little something about negotiating would be a good idea.
Best.
Get a copy of "Getting to Yes." It is research based and a quick read. It may help you think up terms that will be worth something to you that don't cost your client, like promo-ing you and your work. If they can get you additional exposure, that might be valuable to you without costing them anything.
But, also, watch this:
I can recommend the chapter on saying NO from B. Martin's "The Clean Coder". It's written in the context of being an employee, but it applies just as well to being a freelancer.
Personally, learning this and putting it into action was one of the best things ever.
Hi lagertha281, you say in your post that you want to 'start your own digital agency'. In my own experience, this simply isn't possible if you keep the freelancer mindset. Running an agency, however small, takes a different approach to freelancing - you will have higher overheads, need to hire staff or contractors, set up a marketing / sales pipeline to keep work coming in, etc.
If you really want this to succeed, then think of it as starting a new business, not as extending your freelance work. Design a system / process and a product (eg. small business websites for $5k) that you deliver.
There is too much to write here in a comment but 2 great books that should see you in the right direction are:
Build to Sell (http://www.builttosell.com/)
The E-Myth Revisited
Buy both, go away for a weekend, study them and think through your plans for the future.
[I speak from experience in that I tried it the other way first, and ended up with 10 contractors and a life that was about to implode at any given moment :)]
Ha! Good for you.
His behavior falls right in line with everything you've described. And that's why you don't want these people on your client roster. Even if you finished the job and he was "happy" (whatever that looks like for a Negative Nancy), he would not leave reviews online, refer other clients to you, or want to handle larger jobs with you. Furthermore the dynamic would have been set already and he would expect any additional work to go accordingly.
Try to only pick clients that are so excited about you that you just know they will be leaving great reviews, referring others, and possibly going for long-term work. It doesn't take too many of these to get off the hamster wheel and to start growing.
Great job on sticking to your guns. You had to forgo some money in the short-term but your decision will make you more money in the long term.
One other book I'd recommend is the The E-Myth Revisited. The author drives home the distinction between working IN your business vs working ON your business. The former is what most small business owners do and that's what leads to life on the hamster wheel. The latter is about building the processes that will allow your business to grow.
You should undertake some fun side-projects that once done can become part of your portfolio as well as promotional content. For instance, I get emails about this free app I put on the Google Play Store : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.PMCLLC.CityCFDVR&hl=en
Granted , it's very niche, but hopefully at some point it will land me a nice contract. I have my email displayed inside the app.
I use a regular excel file. I didn't start with a template or anything, just kept adding sheets and formulas till it was exactly the way I wanted it. The last major edit was about 2 years ago. If you're good with excel (or google sheets) then I'd recommend doing the same.
You might try searching for excel templates inside excel. Open up excel, go to file->new and type in "income" or "revenue" in the search box in the right panel
An alternate way would be to use a free app to track things. I use expense manager on android to track my expenses, but you could just as easily use it to track income.
ACA makes it very easy. There is an annual enrollment period that has passed, if you are recently unemployed you can join anytime. https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage-outside-open-enrollment/special-enrollment-period/
This isn't specifically design (I'm a writer and content editor) but I found Trello too complicated and, like you, ended up just not using it. So I use Workflowy.
I LOVE Workflowy. It's a simple bullet point list, so it's really easy to just add a new bullet point every time there's a new task (deliverables, updates to previous jobs, comments I need to incorporate, invoices I need to chase, etc etc).
The way mine is set up, top level bullets are clients, second level are projects and third level are jobs/tasks/comments relating to that project. You can also use hashtags (I tend to use things like #awaiting, #next, #due). Also it's free - or, at least, I've never felt the need to pay for the Pro version.
I was in a similar position a few years ago when I first started until I read The Freelance Manifesto. It's written by a motion designer but it would still apply to what you do.
> I am in school for Computer Science
Nice! I was a Comp Sci major too.
When I got out of college many moons ago I had a hard time finding a programming job.
> How proficient should I be before I attempt to do a job for someone?
This is kind of depressing to say but you don't have to be masterfully proficient. All you need is to have just enough knowledge to address the problem your client has.
The quickest way to getting in the door is to find some local user groups.
I'm not sure where you live but in my area we have user groups for Ruby/Rails, PHP, JavaScript, and iOS programming.
This way you can measure your skill against actual professionals plus you get to start networking to find a job.
Don't believe this will work? This was me pouring my heart out to a local Ruby group 4 years ago. I now run my own freelancing business that makes well over 6 figures.
Code ownership is a very difficult and complex topic anyways - I'm not an expert in it, my point is mostly about protecting yourself should a legal situation arise. My IP lawyer drew up a contract I use with clients that protects me in these situations.
Because the IP can cover different aspects of the code (the problem solving, the final end result that the code has created, an algorithm that accomplishes a task, etc.). No one is going to sue you for writing another "Hello World" function; and it can also be very difficult to argue in court whether software is patentable or copyrightable. But this is also why open-source licenses are so important, why it was such a big deal when ReactJS went with an MIT license.
If you google "software development code ownership" you'll find a lot of articles mostly about why it's better to create these definitions upfront in your contract, mostly to avoid potentially expensive legal situations.
Hacker News had a list of places where you could say you were looking for work. I haven't tried any of them but they look to have filtered out the usual recommendations of ODesk and Elance.
Look up "You Need A Budget"- there's a book, but it's primarily a subscription-based budgeting service, www.youneedabudget.com. I used to be rubbish with money, and I've gotten so much better in no small part to working with their methods. They also have videos about how to budget for certain things/lifestyles (there's a 3-4 part series purely on budgeting for freelance life). I'm not your typical freelancer, I'm a project manager essentially in a primarily freelance industry, but I have a lot of the same struggles. Good luck- you got this!
If you can, take the course of Andrew Ng on coursera. It is, if not the best, a very good introduction.
In parallel, you might want to brush up your Calculus, especially multi-variate analysis.
You'll see that Machine Learning is not so math-heavy, but you will need good intuition, curiosity, the willingness to try different stuff and explore data methodologically.
Yes, I have dealt with this type of human previously. I tend to do as much as humanly possible to stay away from them, but I understand that's not always possible.
First, put the ball completely in their court. Switch your system to completely rely on the client setting up the appointment.
I highly recommend using (Calendly) https://calendly.com/ your clients can schedule with you when you're available. It's an easy way to automate and organize your scheduling.
After that, you will simply be able to ask them, "If you needed help, why didn't you schedule an appointment?"
Lastly, do as much as you can to avoid these types. Typically more issues than these will arise from them.
If I was you I would built a website first because anyway my clients need a place to know more about me. Btw me and my team are working on a website (https://tesse.io/) which connect people with global experts. We've just launched it at the beginning of March and the number of participants using Tesse is growing well and coming from all over the world. There is no difficulty preventing you from experiencing our site and it’s totally free, log in very quickly and easily. I suggest this because in here you can find your client base as well as get to know more by people and you can also raise your reputation because we have a review system which only paid customers can do so the review point is reliable. You can check this articles for more information: https://medium.com/@laurafillbertt/how-can-people-interact-with-their-search-results-a9448168fe68
I would honestly use Invoice Ninja. You can set them up with a customer portal where they can securely enter in payment information, keep track of invoices/projects/quotes, and keep track of payments. You would set up a payment service with, say, Stripe and they can pay you that way.
Check them out yourself. Setting up an account is free or you can self host.
It's probably a scam. I would inform the client I do not use Stripe but he is welcome to pay by wire transfer at his cost if he cannot use PayPal. I would also offer Zelle as an alternative (that's actually my first choice, always), but if he is having foreign-based payment problems, that is not likely to fly.
Stripe uses the given credit card issuers' dispute process, and doesn't get involved to the extent that PayPal does. If a scammer has a credit card that is likely to find in their favor after they get some free work done, it's probably worth a try compared to PayPal.