5 Tips to start freelancing during COVID 19 – For Beginners

Author - Khalid AnsariKhalid Ansari
Sep 14, 2020
5 Tips to start freelancing during COVID 19 – For Beginners

How to Start Freelancing

Today we'll read about 5 amazing freelancing tips, I believe you have a lot of questions about How to go out freelancing? What is freelancing? & how to get your first project especially if you're a beginner in computer science and information technology. So, here are my top 5 freelancing tips for beginners. I have followed these throughout my freelancing career and this will surely help especially if you are a beginner or an IT or a computer science student.

Tip 1: Just Start

just for you - let's get started

The first step is just to start. You must be wondering, that’s not new. We know it. But, let me explain.

What is meant by “Just Start”?

If you are a beginner you don't have to be a master of a particular technology. Let’s take an example of “Web Development” even if you have a very basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and if you are wondering whether you are ready enough or not, perfect enough or not, master in particular technology or language. One thing which I learned in my freelancing journey is if you're running behind perfection at a very beginner level then you'll never start freelancing, you are always underconfident and believe that I'm not sure, I'm not prepared and that thought will procrastinate your freelancing. What I'm trying to say is just start with whatever knowledge you have and then you can build on top of it. clear this out let me give you an example from my personal experience.

 

My first project was a portfolio website for a fashion designer. I and my friend had approached the client and he wanted a portfolio website. Ask was, he needed a website to upload photoshoot images on this website and it has to be a dynamic website. But, we did not know anything about a dynamic website. After graduation, we had started with a little bit of web development & learned something about HTML, CSS & JavaScript by YouTubing & Googling & we were confident about building a static portfolio website. But, we did not know how to develop a dynamic website where a user can put a lot of content every week?

 

Still, we took that order as a challenge for just 5000 INR, money was not our primary criteria. We wanted to learn and master the skills which we learned. We came home and googled and came across this concept of WordPress. WordPress is the content management system and we did not get into a lot of details but just the basics of it which were needed to deliver the project. It gives you a dynamic template where you can drag and drop pages, posts, etc, and create dynamic stuff.

 

Since WordPress is built in PHP, we started learning PHP because we did not know PHP at that time and basics of WordPress. So, we took that order even when we were not sure if we can deliver it or not We just did it. And after learning WordPress we did that website & deployed …. Yes, it worked out pretty well. So when I say just do it I mean you don't have to be an expert in any kind of domain so this was just web development. Let’s see you are getting into software or android app development. You don’t have to be an expert you just need to start that’s why tips no. 1 just started.

 

Tip 2: Start With Contact -

To start with your contacts - you must be thinking about how am I going to start! And you must be very excited about this but you would be like:

Where do I get my first contact?

Where do I get my first business?

Where do I get my first freelance order?

 

The best way to start is your contacts, family, friends, mutual friends, or long-distance family members who ever have a business.

 

Why you should start with your family and friends?

The level of risk is low. When you are approaching a random person the risk of you making a mistake in the project is very high, the stakes are high. If your relative or your uncle is having a business…. this is just one example… let's say he is a chartered accountant and he has his firm, you can approach him and tell him that you are into web development and want to develop a website for his firm so and so the amount of time will require and probably want to charge or not. I would not recommend that you charge for the first time maybe. Especially if he or she is your family member but, you can do it if you feel and he/she is okay with this. I am not saying that you should not charge. But, the stakes will be very less, the risk will be very less because he or she is your family member or he/she is a friend. Even if you make a mistake or the time gets delayed you can still get off easily if you doing it for the actual client than you can get into some trouble.

 

The best way to start is with your friends and trust me guys a lot of your friends and family members definitely must be having some kind of business for which they want to develop a software or website and we can.

 

Tip No 3: Team Work

The next tip is related to the team. Now in teamwork, you need to form a team, you need to collaborate, to Partner up. You are ready to make your first move into the freelancing world. You're going to start with your contact, relatives, or maybe your own parent’s business.

 

Feeling a lack of confidence! - The best way to overcome just to make a partner with your friend. He has experience of a few months or years and proceeds for the web development in which you want to develop a website for your own family. Your Dad or Mom has business and wants to develop a website for that. For example, If your Mom or Dad is a dentist or a doctor and he or she has her clinic & you want to develop a website for that clinic.

 

What you can do?

You can approach your friend who is also into web development and you can tell him you know I'm trying to develop a website let's do it together, the biggest advantage of this is that you will have one more smart mind working on the project. When you have one or more than one mind working on a project there is a lot of knowledge transfer happening between the two. If you are stuck in some module maybe your friend can resolve that or vice versa. Maybe he or she is stuck in some problem and you can resolve it. The speed of the development increases and the success rate also increases and you'll learn a lot from your friend and one more amazing thing that you can learn how to work in a team. When you go to start your corporate career after education you already have a good knowledge and experience of working as a team. You can get more experience by freelancing and by collaborating with others.

 

Teaming up is important it will also boost your confidence because the risk has been dived, the work divided among the members or your partner and that will give you more confidence.

 

Tip 4: Get Social –

It is not essential but it will help you when you want to grow your business or freelancing project.

 

Spend some time on digital media that is social media platforms. Create a Facebook page, Instagram page, small blogger website If you can. But, I would recommend this because creating a social media page will help you than your friends, family. It will help you reach out to the world. You might feel there is a lot of negativity like people will say you will get addicted to Facebook, Instagram, etc but, use these platforms as your career development tools. Even YouTube is a social media platform where you can watch a lot of information, you need to use it for your benefit in a positive way. Being social is very important, you might get your next project or freelance order from the social media platforms as you move ahead.

 

Once you have exhausted your list of contacts, list of family members you can go social you can promote your pages promote your work online, and that would help you a lot and creating a digital identity on social media creating a website, blog, the page gives it a professional look.

 

Tip 5: Be Jack Of All

It’s not exactly a tip but it will help you if you are a beginner. The tip is you need to be the jack of all and king of none.

 

When you start your freelancing career, assuming that you are a college student or IT student and you haven't gotten into the corporate world and you don't have a lot of experience. If this is the case I would suggest you try different technologies rather than focussing on just one. If you want to become a master of PHP and you are… you know that technology keeps on changing a lot of things become outdated and new technologies keep on coming.

 

What if PHP gets outdated? –

The first start with PHP then try ASP.NET as well then JavaScript this was for web development, You need to diversify yourself and knowing each and everything, at least the fundamentals. You don't have to be a master of one at least the beginner’s level but you need to know a lot of things on a fundamental level this reduces the risk. If tomorrow any of gets outdated you can easily switch to another. After completing your education you will be ready to work in corporate scenarios & where you will work on one particular technology. Learn more every day because it's always good to have a more technical background by which you can switch between your jobs.

 

It's not necessary to be a master in one particular technology at a beginner's level. I would not suggest it to you because I never did that. what did I do? I started with web development with PHP then I moved on to ASP, I also worked on software development, windows form application development using c – sharp. I was not an expert in java but later on, moved on to iOS & Android app development for mobile app development. Lot of things I've tried out and now going to be a master of one.

 

These are my 5 tips to start a freelancing career as a beginner. If you have any questions or need help, you can reach out to me in the comment box below. I will respond to all queries in the comments.



Last Modified: Sep 14, 2020
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