kedo posted:

1. Tell everyone you know (and I mean "everyone" literally) that you're freelancing and are looking for work. Don't rely on apps or websites unless you live in the third world and can afford to compete with other people who also live in the third world. Consider printing up business cards and handing them out to folks. If you're good at what you do and people need to buy the service you're offering, you'll get work.

2. Don't use a pseudonym because then how will you cash the checks people give you? This is silly. If anything, form a company (even a faux company if you don't want to register an LLC or S-Corp [which you should consider]) and go by your company name. This is what I do because as silly as it sounds, having a company name gives you an air of legitimacy. It says, "I'm smart and capable enough to at least form a company, so I'm probably smart an capable enough to do the job you need me to do."

3. Have a boilerplate contract ready. Do not do any work without a contract. NO REALLY, I MEAN IT. People take advantage of freelancers. If you have a contract, you send a signal to these people that you're not to be hosed with and they will avoid working with you (read: screwing you) altogether.

4. If you expect to have any significant amount of work, seriously consider forming a corporation. It's not nearly as hard or expensive as you think it is, and Legal Zoom is a perfectly valid and affordable option. Note that if you accept payment as a corporation you also have to jump through some hurdles to pay yourself (ie. payroll taxes), so use a third party service like Quickbooks Payroll or whatever to do that stuff. You do not want to try to do payroll by hand because it's insanely complicated. The benefits of having a corporation are: A) a layer of legal protection between you and angry, lovely clients, and B) numerous tax benefits.


That's basically it. If you're good at what you do, you can make a living doing this. I say this from personal experience because those four steps above are exactly what I did three years ago and I'm still living the freelance dream. If you don't already have experience managing clients that may be a bit of a learning process, but it's not really all that complicated.

Feel free to PM me if you have specific questions you don't want to post publicly, I'm happy to share whatever knowledge I might have.