How do I start working as a freelancer?

To start freelancing while you already have a full-time job, you’ll have to consider the following steps:

How to start freelancing (even when working full-time)?

1. Define your business goals.
2. Find a perspective niche (and stick to it)
3. Identify target clients.
4. Set your freelance rates.
5. Create a website (and portfolio)
6. Find your first client.
7. Expand your network.
8. Balance your full-time job with your part-time freelancing side gigs.

Define your business goals

Before you start freelancing, you’ll have to be honest with yourself, and answer an important question:
* Is freelancing just a side gig? Or do you plan to expand it to a full-time business?

The answer to this question will determine your next steps, considering that you’ll either aim to balance your full-time and freelance work, OR aim to work your way out of your current job to pursue a full-time freelance career.

The answer to this question is your long-term goal. To pursue it, you’ll have to set a number of short-term goals and answer questions such as:

* What niche will you specialize in?
* What services will you offer?
* What amount do you want to be earning on a monthly basis to decide to quit your full-time job (if applicable)?

Find a perspective niche (and stick to it)

No matter whether you’re a graphic designer, copywriter, developer, or anything in between by vocation, it’d be best if you were to specialize in a particular area of work:

For example, If you’re a content writer, don’t aim to write about any topic under the sun, from Top 3 Ways to Prepare Your Garden for Spring to Taxation Laws in all 50 US States Explained.

Sure, you may start by writing various topics, to find your ideal niche, but eventually, you should pick one, and stick to it.

But, Cryptocurrency or Technology content writer always sound much better in your CV than General content writer. Moreover, they inspire more confidence in you on the part of the clients who’ll always be looking for specific, and not general content.

The same is true if you’re a graphic designer:
* consider your level of experience
* your current pool of connections
* your natural inclinations to a particular design niche

Then, make your pick — focus on delivering interface design for apps, creating new custom logos, devising layouts for books, or any other specific design work.

Identify target clients

Just like you shouldn’t aim to cover every niche in your industry, you shouldn’t aim to cater to the needs of the entire industry’s market.

Small businesses, teams, remote workers, or even other freelancers may all require the same type of service you’re looking to offer. But, you’ll need to target one or two types of clients especially.

Say you want to start a blog about everything related to working remotely. There are freelancers, teams, but also entire businesses working remotely, and they can serve as your starting point.

* Think about the age of your desired readers. Perhaps you’re a Millennial, so you can write a blog about working remotely for Millennials?
* Think about the location. Perhaps you want to cover predominantly the US market?
* Think about the education level. Perhaps you want to cover newly independent remote workers, who’re just starting out their careers?
* Think about income. Perhaps you’re looking to write for people with a limited budget, but who want to try digital nomadism?
* Think about gender. Perhaps you want to predominantly target women freelancers?

These are only some questions you should ask yourself, but they reveal a lot. For example, that you can write for fresh-out-of-college female Millennials from the US looking to start and cultivate a remote career while traveling abroad with a limited budget.

Set your freelance rates

Setting your freelance rates always seems like a challenging point, but it’s a lot more straightforward when you list the necessary parameters that help determine your ideal (and realistic) pricing:

* Experience (if any)
* Education level
* Supply and demand for your services
* The prices in your industry
* The average freelance hourly rates in your niche
* Your location

Once you have all this data, you’ll need to calculate your hourly rate based on it — higher education, experience, and demand for your niche will mean you can set higher prices. If you’re based in the US, you’ll likely be able to command higher rates than if you’re based in the Philippines. Of course, your living standards and expenses will be higher, so you’ll also need to command higher rates.

Create a website (and portfolio)

Once you’ve defined your business goals, found a niche, identified your target clients, and set your prices, you’ll want to create an online presence. And, the best way to do so is by creating your own website with a portfolio showcasing your previous work, skills, and expertise. There are plenty of amazing tutorials on YouTube.

Creating a website for free through a website builder like Wix is fine, but you’ll be better off if you were to buy a domain name from a hosting website. You’ll get a unique name for your online presence and a customized email address, so you’ll look much more credible and overall more professional to potential clients.

Regardless of what your industry is, it may be best if you were to choose your own name for the domain, especially when you’re mostly looking to showcase your portfolio. You’ll stand out better, and it’ll later be easier to switch to a different industry (or niche) if you find that you want to.

Once you’ve selected a host and domain name, you can install WordPress to your website, and choose the website’s theme. Then, you can add a landing page describing your services, and prices, maybe even a separate page for a blog where you’ll write about industry-related topics.

Find your first client

Your first client may contact you because of your personal website portfolio, but you should also actively pursue your first gig bearing in mind what employers look for. There are several ways you can do this:

* Get involved in your industry’s community
* Learn how to pitch through email
* Look through freelance job platforms/websites

Expand your network

Once you’ve landed your first client, you’ll need to work on finding recurring clients. Perhaps your first client will become a recurring one. And, perhaps the referral you’ve been given by said first client will inspire others to contact you and provide a steady stream of work.

In any case, it’s best that you expand your network — and here’s where the famous Pareto principle comes in handy. According to it, cultivating a good relationship with 20% of your clients will help you find 80% of new work through their referrals. Moreover, each new 20 referrals increase your chances of getting new projects by 80%.

To expand your network, you can:

* partake in industry webinars
* attend events
* join Facebook groups, pages and communities
* streamline your LinkedIn network
* send out invites to professionals in your field (or a field that often requires your services)

Work on additional skills

Apart from your core, industry-related freelance skills (i.e., your hard skills), you’ll need to work on some additional skills — your soft skills.

Soft skills are more personality-related: communicativeness and critical thinking are probably the most important traits to pursue, but, you’ll also need to be persistent, good at handling stress, an efficient scheduler, and skilled in time management.

The more you can skill up yourself, the more expensive you will become. Remember knowledge is priceless.

You’ll also need to be confident, to persuade your potential clients that you possess the skills and experience they’re looking for.

Conclusion

Entering the freelancing business may sound overwhelming and complicated, but it’s actually pretty straightforward, once you follow the right steps.

Take time and do what you find passionate about.

#freelance #freelancing #job #jobs #projects #money #earning #skills #dev 

How to Conquer my Email with Superhuman

I deal with email all day and week long and it's starting to become my main tool as an entrepreneur. I starting looking around for a tool that would allow me to handle my email faster and more efficiently.

Superhuman is gorgeous. Blazingly fast. And comes with advanced features that make you feel superhuman. A.I. Triage. Undo Send. Insights from social networks. Follow-up Reminders, Scheduled Messages, and Read Statuses. To name but a few. Superhuman is so fast, delightful, and intelligent — you'll feel like you have superpowers.

0:00 - Intro
1:20 - The problem with normal email
2:20 - Superhuman basics
3:40 - Powerful Email Tools
5:52 - Superhuman Commands
6:50 - Scheduling
7:58 - Inbox Zero
8:30 - Workflow

#BeSuperhuman #freelancing  #product 

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How to Make a Website like Upwork or Freelancer

Freelancer and Upwork are some popular websites that connect recruiters and people who are looking for work are Freelancer and Upwork and through these platforms, these people get a place to interact and meet.

For self-employed users, Freelancer and Upwork rank in the top 15 sites as there is a need for sites that allow interactions between job seekers and employers, and you can create the supply for that demand.Given the extreme uprise of the gig economy, many businessmen and entrepreneurs started to invest their resources into starting a freelance marketplace like the above-mentioned platforms.If you want to create a similar website, you might be intimidated by the amount of work that awaits you. Such sites can take months to build from the ground up. And if you don't have the right tools, you'll have to hire someone who is experienced in the field.

Read “Best way to develop a similar website like Upwork”

How to make a freelancer platform in the easiest way possible?

This essential guide will not only walk you through the process of creating a website, but will also show you how to do it without using any code. You will be able to make your dream best freelancing site a reality with a few simple steps-

• Start with having a plan- When you are having a mindset that you wish to have a website or an app that caters to a huge global audience you definitely cannot start without having a plan. So, plan your platform, features, domain name, hosting, etc. so that you can prepare your budget, and the other things that are required to be there in the platform.
• Have a budget- When you have perceived what kind of platform you want to create, you can have a budget in mind accordingly. You may invest all your resources or you might have a little less that what is needed, or it also may be that you completely rely upon the investors and stakeholders for starting with the platform.
• Have goals and objectives- Once you have decided a budget, you must also analyse what do your want your platform to be like, how do you want it to develop and flourish. How do you want to make it a profit model out of it. This is very crucial if you want a freelancing app or site like Upwork, then you must be acquainted with the same.
• Prepare a prototype- Before you start with your freelancing website or app creation, you need to start preparing a prototype or wireframe, which will give you the basic idea on how things are going to work out, what are the drawbacks of the model, what all can be added, how are the users responding to it, etc.
• Use NetworkPlus- NetworkPlus is the best quality Upwork clone script which can be used for creating a great freelancer business marketplace and you can talk to clients, get gigs, talk to recruiters, make connections. The user friendly interface with Search Engine Optimization and which can be easily customized according to preferences of the users.

Know about How is freelancing the future of Businesses? NetworkPlus – Upwork Clone

So, if you want to create a marketplace similar to Upwork or Freelancer.com, contact BSEtec today for the best freelancing clone scripts! Check out NetworkPlus in the app store for such a live demo!

#Upwork clone script #Network Plus #freelancing bidding websites #freelancer clone #freelance workplace clone #freelance marketplace

 

How I Landed My First Freelance Data Science Proje with NO Experience in Data Science!

Igraduated in 2018 with a Ph.D. in Operations Management and Operations Research. I had close to zero experience in programming, let alone Python. I was on the lookout for a job, and my first choice was getting into academia. But for some reason, it wasn’t working out. So, I started applying in the industry as well.

I reached out to a senior of mine who helped me get a foot in the door in the company he was working with. The role was that of an Operations Research Analyst. A week before the interview he told me I had to learn machine learning and a library called scikit-learn. I didn’t even catch the name the first time! He said I had to learn how to code in Python! Ding!

And the dings kept coming when he said I should learn about so and so algorithms. I was having an information coma!

Thankfully for me, I was interviewed mostly on Operations Research and Revenue Management, which I thought went fairly well. There were not many questions on machine learning except ‘what algorithm would I use if I had numerical as well as categorical variable?’

I swear, a couple of days ago, all these terms would have meant nothing to me, but now my job was hanging by the balance on those very terms. Luckily for me, I had learnt about the Radom Forest model, and blurted it out… and I got the job! 😅

The first job

I soon started my probation at my company, and was learning about the product, the algorithms in use and all. The training was for a month. I was supposed to take my senior’s place as he was quitting the company. A week before his last working day, he told me I was supposed to work on the implementation of a project in using ML, to enhance a module in the product! Okay!

So without wasting a lot of time, I started with a Python course on Coursera, offered by the university of Michigan. The course helped me gain some understanding of Python. I was suddenly not afraid to code. In the meanwhile, I had to check out this scikit-learn business. So I also took a course on Machine Learning, read up on a lot of blogs on each topic.

The freelance project

Five months into my job, I was gaining confidence in SQL, Python, Machine Learning, and the product itself. I went on to LinkedIn and described my job role and responsibilities clearly, and optimised my profile with the right keywords, a clear ‘about me’, and all my skills in detail.

By the end of the fifth month, I had a message in my LinkedIn inbox. It was from a serial entrepreneur who wanted an Operations Research Expert to help him on his Supply Chain Analytics startup. He was working on mid-mile logistics optimisation. He wanted to solve some key operational problems that he was trying to solve. I showed him a working POC (proof of concept) of two fo the problems, and asked him to pay me if he liked my work, and wanted me to work on his third problem. And…

…He never came back! I felt extremely hurt for having spent hours on discussions with him, getting the data, cleaning it all manually, and then brainstorming on the right solution approach and actually getting results. But noone could take away the experienc from me. So I brushed off the disappointment, and simply updated on my LinkedIn profile and updated the work I did under the Projects section.

#data-science-training #data-science #freelancing #gigs

5 Simple Ways to Kickstart Your Freelance Data Science Career

If you’ve been itching to get your feet wet in the field, these steps will provide you with lots of valuable ideas and suggestions to kickstart your career.

Delving into the world of freelancing can certainly be daunting. At first, you may feel a sense of euphoria as the shackles binding you to your office chair are ripped away. However, those restraints also brought a calming sense of security and a steady paycheck.

Some people thrive on the risk that comes from a lack of a safety net, while others struggle a bit. Regardless of which type of person you are, here are five steps to help you find your footing when life gets slippery.

#data-science #freelancing #artificial-intelligence #machine-learning #data #big-data #tech-careers #career-advice

Market intelligence Powered By Deep Learning

Based on a recent report there are 59M freelancers in US. The freelance workforce is global and very competitive; the talent supply is higher than the jobs demand. You can read more about this changing global marketplace and the covid impact in this financial results presentation.

Freelancers face multiple challenges two of them being:

• research the demand for their skills/services
• difficulty in finding and winning projects

Freelancer.com has an excellent API that can be used to extract project details. It is a rich data set with a respectable history (more than 5 years); it contains both contests and projects, although I will only cover the latter.

The above mentioned reports contain a lot of good information (freelancer profiles, average bids per project, gross market volume trends, etc.). In this post I will try to answer the following question: can a project probability to be awarded be determined accurately?

Given the extensive schema I have been focusing on 2 main components:

• project details
• users details

#freelance #freelancing #tensorflow #deep-learning #freelancers

The Only Time I Failed a Tech Interview

The most learning-intensive 3 hours of my life

Recently, I came across my notes from a technical interview I did back in 2017 with a funded tech startup. The interview consisted of a 30-minute video call, followed by a coding assignment that took about 2 hours, and a 30-minute feedback session the following day.

Despite doing well on the call and having a stimulating discussion with their CTO, I did a pretty mediocre job of the coding task. It was a full-stack to-do list project that required building a bunch of interactive features in a short timespan and I found it challenging to complete in time. Still, I was fairly optimistic about getting the job because I knew other candidates were in the same boat.

When I received my feedback tomorrow, I was told that they chose someone else for the position and they were kind enough to provide a detailed list of reasons.

Here is what went wrong and what I learned from the experience. The test project was in Laravel and Vue.js, but the concepts apply to all tech stacks. All italics below are from the client’s feedback.

The good

Having completed about a dozen of projects in Laravel, I was right at home with setting up the environment and project infrastructure. I built my model relationships, controllers, requests, and policies very efficiently.

Given the limited amount of time, I thought I did reasonably well on the testing front as well. The feedback reflected as much.

Good overall performance in Laravel

Wrote a good number of HTTP/feature tests

An attempt was made at all requirements

Good use of route-model binding, request validation, middleware

Notice something about those four items? They all refer to the back-end. The “attempt was made” made me a little wary of what was to come.

#productivity #interview #laravel #software-development #freelancing

Five Unconventional Ideas to Make Money as a Coder.

Software engineering jobs are the most sought-after in the currents market. Most of us start learning to code in hopes of having of getting a well-paid job.

But after the recent economic crash down due to COVID -19, many of those hopes are looking bleak. A batch of employees has already been laid off and some of them are suffering a wage cut.

Even if you are one of the lucky ones and you are comfortable with your salary. You might require some excess cash at the end of each month. May it be for early retirement, a yearly vacation, or owning your own business. An additional income is always valued.

As for my story, I have been coding since my school days making small apps or projects whenever possible. It was only after my 2nd Year in College that I landed my first internship, and a few months after that I got my first web development project. I am at present working at a renowned MNC with hopes of having my business in the future.

My experience has not been all sunshine and rainbows. It requires a lot of sleepless nights to develop a trustworthy portfolio. The competition is ever-increasing and the recent market fall has led even experienced professionals to chase after Jobs.

Hence having a less competitive income source is a blessing at times like this. And, if you are a student then you can even learn and earn simultaneously.

These are five such ideas that not very popular but are big go-getters.

Before we start, a thoughtful quote that has given me inspiration:

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life — think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.” — Swami Vivekananda

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

1. Selling Courses Online.

If you are a software professional or a student, chances are you already have visited sites like Udemy, Skillshare, or Udacity.

These sites offer great quality courses at cheap prices with intermediate degrees which can be put under resumes. Have you ever thought about who are these tutors?

They are people like you & me.

If you are already employed then you already have some skills that could be paid for. Be it Node JS, Oracle, or mobile development.

All you need is a camera and a microphone. Layout a simple course and pitch it to one of the mentioned sites. You can ask for help from your colleagues and friends to help you out with creating the tutorials.

Adding interactive animation or making a test series will make you stand out from the crowd. Think about ways in which you would have liked to learn!

It generally takes about a month or so to complete a tutorial but after it is online you basically turn it into a passive income. A great way to have a steady flow of money without having to actively get involved.

#entrepreneurship #software-development #side-hustle #coding #freelancing

Why You Should Make Your Own Boilerplate?

Same guide for hacking in statistics. Here are the details about how I managed to hack through mathematics.

Even though math seems really sophisticated and boring, it’s way more fun when you hack the system. Let’s go into how mathematics can be hacked.

1-Math doesn’t require strenuous effort

Instead, even half an hour per day is enough to generate massive progress. You just have to choose your resources carefully. The rest of the learning is being handled by forwarding topics because they’re all related to each other. As a result, you don’t have to recap different subjects at the same time.

2-It’s fun when you combine math with applications

I don’t mean conventional applications taught in colleges. Instead, they’re related to your field, your interests, and real life. Consequently, you’ll be motivated to learn math daily. And, your understanding of mathematics will become much wider to put your knowledge into your applications of interest.

3-Programming is added with statistics

Computers have made learning simpler for us, and mathematics is no different. Just statistics became way simpler to handle. But, you still have to work with ever-expanding datasets to cope with. If you don’t just work with statistics, it covers you when doing mathematical calculations. Thankfully, modern programming languages like python have solved the problem of complex calculations.

4-Math is a rabbit hole, choose your topics carefully

It depends on what you do with mathematics. What is your occupation, and why are you learning are the first steps in deciding what you want to learn. Then, the easiest part begins: to plan for your learning. Planning includes what should be learned and how it’s going to be planned with the timeframe available. As soon as you’re done with planning, you need a computer, a couple of good notebooks depending on the topics you want to learn, and consistency. There are not many requirements to be successfully implementing mathematics with your field of interest.

To sum up, there are not too many requirements to hack through mathematics. It only takes a computer, good notebooks where you can take notes, consistency, and curiosity in applications.

How did you hack through mathematics? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

#coding #design #programmer #freelancing #developer

5 Ways To Make Money as a Developer Without a Job

In this piece, I am going to be sharing five ways that you can make money as a developer without a job. Now, this is important because I know a lot of developers out there are not able to get a job right now. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to use your programming ability to make money on the side. The five methods I am going to address are the same ones I have tried before. You can try these different ways alongside your day job. Sometimes they may end up making you more money than your actual job.

1. Freelancing

Freelancing is such a great opportunity to take whatever skill set that you have and be able to get paid to use those skills. It does not matter what you are good at. If you are good at one specific thing, there is probably someone willing to pay for it. When I first decided to go the freelancing route, I opened different accounts from different platforms. I thought that the more account I have, the better my chance of getting projects will increase. So, I applied to Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer, Toptal engineering, PPH, guru, you name it.

I was not successful for a while until I got a client from Upwork from which all my other clients came. I came to notice that it does not matter how good you are to freelance. You do not have to be a pro at the different web development stacks or even at mobile development. All you have to do is to learn how better market yourself.

If you are beginning and have low rates, you might even get more clients because people want the lower price for what you can do. I am not asking you to sell yourself short. Do not be afraid to start small. You can build a website for $20k for a company, or you can make a little program for $20. It does not matter what skill you have. As long as you can market that skill correctly, you will be able to get clients and be able to make money. With online platforms like Upwork, you need to gauge yourself and your prices so that you will be able to land clients.

2. Tutoring

Tutoring is popular for most developers. Some may choose to do this through instructional videos on YouTube or creating courses online for websites like Udemy, Udacity and Skillshare. If you are a developer who enjoys interacting with people, you may do well in personal or online tutoring. The best part about this is that you can charge different rates depending on the clients. If you are a teenager in school, you can start offering classes to your classmates. Age is not a limiting factor.

#entrepreneurship #web-development #freelancing #software-development #programming

Ways To Make Money As A Developer

Developers are known to have quite high salaries which they can comfortably live on. However, there exist other developers who want to try side income ideas to add to their full-time salaries.

Developers are in higher demand than they have ever been, and there have never been so many opportunities to make passive income as a developer. Many companies are looking for your skills, but if you’re looking for a life free from a set schedule, clocking in, clocking out, and supporting someone else’s dreams, then passive income is the way to go.

As the world of tech develops, the value of people with development skills increases. The internet has given us an incredible number of opportunities without borders. With a little bit of programming knowledge, access to a computer, and the internet, literally, anyone can start making some money online, provided one has the right mindset.

It’s not so complicated to earn extra money. In this article, I will explain how you can earn extra income to help you pay bills without having to quit your full-time job.

#data-science #software-development #freelancing #programming #money

What Web Development Agencies Get Wrong

If somebody wants to pay you to build a wooden cottage for them, what do you do? Do you:

1. Name a price for building a wooden cottage.
2. Offer to build them a mansion with a swimming pool, solar panels, garage, alarm system, and an exotic garden, then try to bill them for that.

Common sense says that everyone should choose the former option. Yet, web development agencies routinely choose the latter. The fact that a mansion is objectively better than a cottage doesn’t negate the fact that some people want a cottage.

The $8000 script

An ex-client of mine once wanted a little app built. The app, as he envisioned it, was a one-page front-end application that did a few simple calculations and showed some results in a fancy format. When he approached a development agency with this project, they did an interview with him, then they had a second interview with the coding team 3 days later, and 2 days after that they quoted him $8000. In their detailed proposal, they had a full back-end framework, database to keep stats in, test-driven development, and custom design.

What the client wanted was…well, none of the above. After we laughed about the offer, I did exactly what he wanted in 8 hours and billed him the appropriate $400.

Why do agencies often take this route? And how can you, as a freelancer, profit from this?

The agency problem

The problem for agencies is that they have to follow a process. This process involves business development personnel, project managers, and teams of programmers. They have to plan their human resources to remain profitable. This inevitably creates a problem that I call redundant complexity.

After an agency representative speaks to a client, he can’t say “yes” or “no”. He has to consult at least a few people before even starting to build a proposal for the project.

He also doesn’t know who he can put on the project until he speaks to managers and team leaders, who then have to estimate their team members’ schedules. Only then, the decision can be made as to who might eventually do the project.

Whoever is supposed to do the coding for the project will need supervision, thus the client will be required to pay for a manager’s work hours as well, and this manager needs to be involved in the initial proposal.

#freelancing #teamwork #software-development #programming #business

The Ugly Truth About Beginning a Freelancing Career

What can you expect from a career as a freelance web developer in a couple of months or a year, even two? This article is not purposed to discourage anyone in any way. The goal is to inform and prepare beginners for the unforgiving parts of freelancing. Before everything else, I love being self-employed. I love the hours, freedom and flexibility. It would not be fair for me to sell you on the positive parts of being a freelance web developer without sharing some of the bad. The truth is, there is a dark side, a very unpleasant side at that. Temporary, but not for the faint-hearted. You are going to encounter hardships in your first year or two. If you are lucky, the storm may pass after a couple of months.

The main textbook reason that everyone seems to have succumbed to is that you have no credibility as a beginner. The reality settles in when you realize that no one is willing to take a chance on a newbie. Who is going to trust you to build their site? You cannot charge a lot of money and expect a lot of customers to knock on your door because you do not have that reputation or proof yet. So what do you do? You lower your prices, right?, This is by far the hardest thing you will have to do. You might get a few clients coming your way, but it is not going to be a happy experience. The first ones are always the worst, at least in my experience. The kind who gives you hell on earth. The kind who are not serious with their projects. The kind who makes you feel like it is a race to the bottom.

One of my earliest clients was from Upwork. I landed the gig by sending in a proposal about creating a blog submission form for his site. We did the first project without a lot of issues. A few changes here and there and we were okay. It was just a submission form, did not get to charge a lot for that. He pushed some clients my way. I talked about what I could provide for them because they wanted some e-commerce stuff. They told me they were struggling with web presence because the developer they had previously hired messed them up. They had started a site on GoDaddy using the drag and drop builder but could not finish it. They did not have what they needed, and they thought maybe was the one.

I was happy because, in my mind, I was going to make them my long term clients. They said they wanted to work with me. They had interviewed other guys, but they liked my vibe. So I did what any newbie freelancer would do? I said, yes. We had not talked to any numbers just yet, and they wanted me to start immediately. They said they were going to update me. I was feeling awesome because this was my first real referral client. They kept asking me to start without any pay. That is when I started seeing some red-flags. As a web developer, the protocol is usually to receive 50% of the pay upfront as a commitment fee. Then the rest comes after completion.

Later that week, they texted me on the platform saying they have found a person who could do the site for a lower budget. Another red-flag. I was so shocked and caught in disbelief. They were trying to low ball me! The sad part is that they wanted me to share some mock-ups first before they signed off on it. I spent all this time telling them about my process and what I can do them, and somehow they found someone who can do it for less? I did not give them the mock-ups they wanted because I knew that that was my leverage, and I did not want to feel used. I told them very nicely to go with the other guy if he can do it for less. Keep-in-mind I was desperate because this was like $1000. I might have even done it for $700. yes, I was that desperate. They said that they were going to provide more work for me after this if I share the mock-ups and agree to do it for $700. They promised to push some agency website my way, and they had another e-commerce project coming. The temptation was so real I nearly did it.

#freelancing #motivation #programming #web-development #technology

Six Things I’ve Learned as a Freelance Rapper

As unorthodox as it may sound I have had experience freelancing as a rapper for different individuals, brands, app developers, websites, Youtubers and more on Fiverr.com and other means through networking for the past six years.

In that time I have found a plethora of successes and the same amount of failures which have made me better at my craft and at navigating the tumultuous yet rewarding waters of the gig economy. Today I will share what I’ve learned after hundreds of completed orders and what a freelancer with any skill can expect when selling their services online.

1. Keep an open mind

Starting out I got some very odd requests. If I was carrying the attitude of your typical rapper in the music industry I would have said no to most of the requests I received. But because I was an artist who was young, hungry and eager to make money, I developed awareness of niches I didn’t even know existed. How many rappers do you know that do business advertisements, songs for new and upcoming websites and apps, theatre plays, kids educational programs and even crazier things I can’t recall off the top of my head.

I have some of these projects stored away in my mental file cabinet under “NEVER MENTION OR THINK ABOUT AGAIN!” Yet, on the other side of that coin, there’s this slight fondness of these same order requests as they forced me to step outside of my comfort zone, try new styles of creativity and ultimately grow.

#rap #freelancing #lessons-learned #freelance #gig-economy #machine-learning

Unlimited Free Web Hosting and Domain

Having a web profile is cool, right? It stays online for anyone to see and sharing it with anyone is just so easy. You can share your work or portfolio in just one web address.

You do not have to be a front end developer to make a portfolio!

There are some tips to make a web portfolio without knowing HTML, CSS, or front end development at the end

If you are a machine learning engineer developing cool machine learning and deep learning projects, making it interactive will be a perfect way to show people how powerful your model is.

If you are an entry-level web developer or software developer, you probably are looking for a way to host your codes so that you can express your work better. Otherwise, just reading codes can be boring! Visuals are a more effective way.

If you are a data scientist, data analyst, a freelancer, or planning to start a new business, need a landing page, but in a tight budget, you will appreciate these free resources.

I want to share some cool resources that will help you get a web portfolio for free.

#data-science #towards-data-science #machine-learning #freelancing #portfolio