Advice for novice freelancer

Hi, I'm a new freelance web developer. Other than the stack I use, what advice would you give?

Comments

[Joe Mainwaring]

• Practice, practice practice. Not only will you be refining your craft and skills, but it'll sharpen your reflexes for when you do take on paid work. I have my own developer sandbox at mainwaring.dev where I regularly am trying new OSS packages or doing exercises where I'm building features.
• Find a boilerplate MSA and SOW and tailor as necessary to meet your needs. Having those two is a basic requirement for working with certain customers.
• Charge by the hour and always round up on your time. If you charge a flat rate, you risk diluting your hourly rate if a customer is excessive with your time.
• Manage expectations. If you think the job takes 2 weeks, tell me 4. And if you find out after 1 week that it's actually a 12 week job, you stop what you're doing and we reset my expectations in terms of when I will receive the deliverable. Be ready to negotiate a change in scope or timeline if adjusting expectations catches resistance due to deadlines.
• Try to research potential customers before engaging in an agreement, looking for red flags. Last thing you want is to get in bed with someone who has a public history of not paying their invoices.
• Know your limits. It's okay to fake it until you make it to a certain point, because ultimately you have to deliver. I've had to pass on several opportunities this year because I don't have a proficiency with ML/AI and developing models. I can certainly learn, but could I learn on the customer's desired timeline? I'd rather set myself up for success.
• Work smarter, not harder. Always look for efficiencies with your work, and if you find yourself repeating the same processes across customers, look at what templating options may be available to you to reduce the repetitiveness.
• Take time off. We're on this earth to live, and it's easy to get sucked up in the rat race and lose sight of the bigger picture.