inspiring tales of freelance liberation
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- 31 Responses
- kerus0
"if you work hard and smart, it will work out"
uh oh...... =o haha
- mimeartist0
I've got enough work until March... and have been going for all of 5 weeks
- kerus0
good point on the human interaction part.
im definitely a people-person eeeek..- would your future wife be at home or off at work somewhere? Could make a difference.arthur
- Great point. I met my wife at my only full-time job. She was HR :)fyoucher1
- My wife and I share an office all day, so that works well on this end, too.blaw
- my wife is at home with me, she's downstairs and I'm upstairs.arthur
- we tried sharing an office for awhile, but tpo close for comfort, not good for the marriage.arthur
- glad it works for you blaw :) my wife drove me nuts! She likes silence, i like music, etc.arthur
- Yeah, we're both sit 'quietly and work with headphones on' types. We talk at lunch. :)blaw
- nice :)arthur
- I'm definitely going to miss being around Matt all day long. And kissing my dog whenever I want to, too. :(Lifeinvector
- Meeklo0
Ride the wave of work when it comes for as long as you can, because there will be dry times so be prepared (see monday menu)
- kerus0
hehe my future wife is in nursing school, so i'm going to end up being mr. mom anyways while shes bringin home the bacon :D
- kerus0
DAY 4 - I'm still alive and fucking SWAMPED
I don't remember the last time i showered, that could be a problem.
- mtgentry0
I second Meeklo's advice. I'm a freelancer and I currently have a little too much free time on my hands. Maybe things are just slowing down because its the end of the year.
- grumpymonkey0
I've been freelancing from home for the last 8 months or so, I quit my last job on good terms to right away they fed me projects, which sounds strange, but it was a nice transition. Generally I don't work with small clients, because it is usually more of a pain in the ass to deal with, both on the money side and organizationally. Working at home can be lonely, but you have IM and QBN for that.
- monkeyshine0
Try to have a long term game plan. I exhausted myself with the stress of doing the work on my plate while simultaneously hustling for new work. For me, finding the balance is the hardest part.
Most importantly, don't take on more than you can reasonably do...it's hard to say no to the $$ but if you risk meeting a deadline you won't last.
- Quill0
In April it will be four years since I walked out of my last salary gig. It was the best thing I ever did for myself and my career. I've grown immesuarably as a professional and the scope of knowlege gained over the past few years can not be compared to how much I had learned being employeed by others.
Not to say that there are no decent salaried positions out there. I'm sure there are tons of great companys to work for. I just couldn't find any of them.
Oh, I almost forgot. Don't drop anyone on their head too hard when you quit. Everyone seems to know everyone in this industry somehow.
- Meeklo0
- I actually like Top Ramen so much, i'll have it Saturday too.capn_ron
- you are perfect for freelance then!Meeklo
- LOL @ thisthismanslife
- kerus0
so riddle me this.. how did you guys reel in your first few good completely solo clients when you started off on your own? (in other words not clients you pulled in from a former exployer).....
just cold calls and friends of friends?
this is huge and terrifying hehe- cold emailing worked for me - that and linkdup, got so many jobs from therearthur
- ah yes, good old linkdup :) thankskerus
- this was several years ago, mind you - does anyone use linkdup anymore?arthur
- woops, i thought you meant linkedin..... linkdup is a blast from the past!!kerus
- yeah, this was back in 2000. Really helped though - got lots of work.arthur
- Rand0
this year one of our clients took us to lunch and said he had a little holiday gift for us... we opened it up and it was a check for 25,000 dollars. We almost fell on the floor
- !!!! that never happens to anyone i know! how big is their account that they're dropping five-figure gifts?bigtrick
- I think it was a kind of "lifetime appreciation award"Rand
- Bloody hell. Good for you.roundabout
- Lifeinvector0
I'm going the opposite direction come January.
- what you mean?Rand
- Taking a stab at full-time. :)Lifeinvector
- really? where? were you FT at TrU?arthur
- I don't know yet, ha. Re-working my site & portfolio now. I did work full-time at TRU, yeah, but that was so long ago.Lifeinvector
- best wishes to you, brookeRand
- yeah - good luck!jevad
- phew...I though you were turning ghei..... ;)OSFA
- pssst . . . san jose . . . :Dninjasavant
- kerus0
yeah im already realizing i need to draw the line and have 100% downtime set aside.. not just checking mail, watching tv and doing a little work.. i need to completely unfrigginplug for blocks of time
that being said its very easy to kill a day doing a few hours of work, hour of personal stuff, rinse repeat, and blammo its 3am
- Lifeinvector0
It'll work as long as you make it work.
- visualplane_0
Here's my story which started out as a nightmare but turned into something great.
I've been working fulltime since college, and a couple of months ago had another offer. After giving my notice, the new place backed out which left me hanging. I was stressing but here's the good news.
I first landed one client looking for 11 websites, 2 of them being very ambitious. Then I got in touch with a previous client who is now a project manager at a educational firm. They needs tons of work, and will give me as much work as I want. With the overflow of work, i'll be outsourcing to another designer and still making a profit on top of it.
- whore!Llyod
- BTW, being in NYC really helped with the connections.visualplane_
- Yes! I'm a whore!visualplane_
- did somebody say WHORES?!?kerus
- I'm a freelance pimp. Who wants some whores? I'll give QBN discountWolfboy
- harlequino0
This thread title would make a great comic book.