On freelancing

Some advice and anecdotes from 8 years as a freelancer

Presented by Claudine Braendle / @_nolocation currently full time employee at Amazee Labs

This is me

8 years of freelancing

lived in Berlin, Lisbon and Buenos Aires

worked for clients in Berlin, Hamburg, Zurich and London

this was my first job

Money

it's all about money, so focus on the money

focussing on the money is bad for business

your should have a list of criteria that you run the jobs you get against
this criteria (i'll talk about them later) should be inflexible. you should never take a job that doesn't pass
when you're stressed because you don't have enough income, your brain can trick you into thinking it's good idea to break the rule
This is a bit like dieting, right? You set up rules of how you should eat, but at some point you're really hungry and think that pizza really isn't that bad. once.
the problem with taking a bad job is that you can only work so much, and it will take space for the good job that will come and you'll have to cancel
And really, that's like dating :D
but, the thing is, if you have come far enough to have a good flow of incoming jobs, and you have enough experience to know what your criterias are, then you have to skills to find work when shit gets tough.
Now you think, if you have come far enough to have a good flow of incoming jobs, why would I suddenly not have work? Since I started working, there's been 2 financial crises, first the american bank one and then the european debt crisis. Both times, same thing happen, most of my clients called me to "postpone" their website relaunch.

find a way to deal with the fear and the instability

instability is something that i always had to deal with, and it's what looks like the most scary part for people with a salary.
different type of characters, know a lot of people with very stable income.
I usually chose to work a lot for a few months, and then not work that much until i ran out of money.
flexible bank accounts are important (not credit cards, that's expensive and crap)
Then what I did are crazy spreadsheets. I never learned how to do accounting or financial predictions, but i know how to use spreadsheets. Every month I spend a few hours analysing all my expanses and putting them into categories. this is also good for knowing much money you really spend instead of your idealistic assumptions. Then I have a spreadsheet that calculates the taxes and stuff i need to pay based on my income, and the last one i used to make all my current cash, expected income and expected spending go through a few hoops, so I could predict how long I could vagabond for before i had to start looking for work again. When i felt money related anxiety, i would open these, update the data and feel in control.

talk about money

don't give it away for free

there is something weird with people. when you make them websites for free or almost free because they're your friends or you like their cause, they will turn into the most annoying clients who will ask for more and more and more, because they don't understand the value of your work.
At the same time, their little jobs will be pushed to the end of the pile when real work comes in, because you need to pay rent.
everyone will end up frustrated at each other
it's really to most annoying thing. don't work for free, it will not give you shit and make you loose friends.
teach them to code instead! they won't every bug you again because they either learn to do it themselves, or they realise it's actually quite complicated and takes a long term to learn.

Prices and the market

quick and dirty way to set you daily rate

living costs * 2 / 10

where to find jobs

to find work, there's many different ways, really. I never really needed to look for work after the first few months. Usually I got stuff through referals from people i worked for or my friends.
if you're starting out have never worked for anyone and don't have any friends, make a huge list of companies or people that fit the criteria that you set yourself. Send emails and call them. Ask to meet them, even if they don't need your services right now.
there are tons of blog posts out there on how to do this efficiently. one of the tips that worked best for me was to make a huge list in a spreadsheet (this way you can track what the answers you get, like if you should call someone specific or at an other time) and work yourself through it. Start with the people you least want to work with, so if you mess up and stuttter on the phone, it won't hurt so much. By the time you get to the important people you'll have practice.
but really, just tweeting "i'm looking for jobs" and sending quick emails to agencies i knew usually did the trick for me.

Clients and Jobs

choose your jobs and choose your clients

here we're going to talk about that list of criterias

only sell one thing

where do you want to work?

short term vs long-term commitments

agencies or private sector companies?

how do you deal with stress?

Image and professionalism

freelance or one person company?

Me. no.

Never admit you're wrong

use what you can to sell yourself, and hide the rest

be dreist

this is related to the point that i made before. Dreist is a word that I really like, I think it translates to brazen, bold. Audatious?
When I started working, I had zero experience. I knew what I could do, and more importantly, I new what I could learn, and at what speed I could learn. So I told everyone I had to years of experience working with Drupal. After I got my first job, I called a friend and asked him to walk me through the building blocks. I had 3 weeks, and made a website. I probably called him a few more times, but I learned so much in that time, and I earned money doing it.
Sometimes this method will obviously not work out, because you underestimate the task. But if I hadn't done that, I would never have gotten anywhere.

take time off

Contracts and insurances

contracts are good

insurance is important

taxes are bad

Friends and networks

friends are your most valuable resources

when i started i didn't know many people in Berlin, and I didn't know any freelancer that worked the way I worked. Meeting what are now still some of my best friends was probably the reason I managed to deal with the stress and the craziness. After a while most of my friends were freelancer or worked for startups, most of them switched from one to the other once in a while. I can't count the number of times i sat in a bar and talked about stress, deadlines, expectations, money, lack of money, conflicts... Every time I didn't know who to deal with a situation, my friends where there to help with their experience.
the other aspect is jobs. The more jobs I passed on to friends, to more you get back. And you know your friend, their work ethic, how they deal with stress... So it's a win-win situation for everyone.

for every problem you have, there is someone around you who has the answer.

get yourself an shared office

networking for introverts

i don't blog, i don't tweet and i don't talk online. I never wrote in a forum and used to send bug reports to a friend of mine who would post them on drupal.org. writing a tweet takes about an hour for me, and usually the next day i feel intense shame and obsess about it. it's all really not worth the drama.
in any competitive work situation, there are always those very lound rockstars out there, and it's easy to think that because they're loud there better at their jobs, but that's bullshit. Being louder does not equal being more skilled, and the people you work with and work for will give you jobs because you fix their problems.
as an introvert you might need to learn a few skills, train your presence, force yourself in uncomfortable situations.
i can stand here and talk in front of you guys. I even kind of like doing it. But afterwards I will need to climb into my tree house and hide for a week.

Thank you

slides bit.ly/on-freelance

Tweet at @_nolocation