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

• presentation is based on my own experience and that of my friends, tons of blog posts and books out there about this subject
• started freelancing when i was 21, because i wanted to live in berlin and didn't like hierarchies (jobs)
• started without savings, without knowing anyone in the business

lived in Berlin, Lisbon and Buenos Aires

• important for me was the freedom from schedule, freedom from location and the possibility to make more money for fewer hours work
• made most of my work-related choices based on these criteria
• lived in berlin, lisbon, buenos aires and travelled a lot while always working for german clients

worked for clients in Berlin, Hamburg, Zurich and London

• because always worked "remote" was not limited to clients in berlin

this was my first job

• started directly after studying, so was first time i had to make a living entirely on my own
• was used having no money, so the lack of income was not an issue

Money

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

• your job is what you do to pay rent, and finance your hobbies or passion.
• first thing is your budget: need to know your financial needs, because work decisions are dependant of that
• absolut knowledge of how much money you spend each months
• this is your goal, and it needs to be reached every month
• I usually tried to work in a quarterly goal, because one month is just not enough time to work with.

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

• In our culture, talking about income is a big taboo.
• but do it anyway. it's super important on so many levels.
• it helps you to see if you are chargin enough and how your skill are valued on the market.
• it also helps you and your friends when dealing with clients who don't pay.
• as a freelancer you have very little power if someone doesn't want to pay. taking legal action is technically possible but i never understood the system and don't know anyone who tried it. but i a city, you and your friends might end up working for the same companies, so it's the only safety net you have, spreading your knowledge about crappy clients.

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

• these criteria will only depend on yourself. some aspects to consider are:
• lifestyle choices: do you want to work at their office or be free to move around as you wish?
• level on involvement on the client side that you want.
• short term vs long-term commitments
• your capacity for dealing with stress
• your strengh in negotiating dificult situations

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?

• someone asked me if it's better to present themselves as small companies, or as single people with just have a page with their name and email address. I don't really have any suggestion on what works better.
• i think if you work on your own, it doesn't matter. in the end people hire you.

Me. no.

• Me and no are both words that we need to define the border between us and other people.
• me is where I end, and it defines my needs and my wishes.
• no is where other people end, and it defines what is acceptable for other people to ask of me.
• learn to use them. letting clients walk all over you is bad for you and bad for your business. saying yes to all of your clients whishes is only ok as long as they pay you for it and they understand the change in scope and deadlines.

Never admit you're wrong

• this is something to take with a grain of salt.
• it's not good for you to walk into a conflict situation being the weekest person, because that is going to get you beaten up.
• if you start with the mindset that you will not admit you're wrong and not apologise, you force yourself to enter the conflict in a position of power. What you then do with it is based on what your goal is for the resolution of the conflict. This, obviously, you should decide before picking up the phone.
• don't be an asshole either. obviously when you fuck up, it's good practice to say your sorry.

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

• when I started looking for work I was 21, and 21 year old girls are rarelly taken seriously in the tech job market. I figured, 24 sounded way more professional, so i was 24 for quite a few years. Now i'm trying to stay 29 for at least 5 more years, but I guess it's a different problem ;)

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

• here, i have to admit i never had a contract. This was the aspect of my business that i procrastinated for 8 years. But do it right, set up a standard contract.
• probably the best way to get that done is to pay a lawyer to do it for you.
• as a safeguard if you don't have one, get everything by writing. After every skype call with clients I will ask them to send an email to confirm what we agreed on.

insurance is important

• obviously my experience here is limited to europe, in particular germany and switerland.
• broadly what you need here is health insurance (mandatory), accident insurance, daily allowance cover, a pension plan and disability insurance.
• when you're employed (in europe) all of this is taken care of by your company. but you're doing it on your own, you gotta take care of this on your own.
• if that sounds scary and complicated, don't worry. there's people whose job it is to organise insurance for other people. and it's free for you because they get payed by the insurance companies. just find someone who doesn't have exclusivity contracts.

taxes are bad

• taxes hurst. save the money, don't get in trouble.
• also, get an accountant.
• if you can, get yourself an awesome accountant like the one I had. She worked for many small tech companies and freelancers, which is cool cause she didn't need you to explain what that "github" invoice is for.

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.

• you just gotta know where to look.

get yourself an shared office

• this is pretty self-explanatory. it really helps to work surrounded with people. it will help with creating a break between work-life and private life, will give you a group of people to network with, give you friends...
• shared offices come in all shapes and sizes, i have personnally worked at about 10 different ones, in different cities.

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

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