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As a freelance web developer, what are you actually selling?

Devon Campbell on April 19, 2019

To make money, you need to sell something. Most new developers think we’re selling Javascript, Python, CSS, or React. That may be what you’re selli...
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Tim Smith

I find that I’m not selling react, WordPress, or other stuff. I’m not even selling a website. They could use wix or WordPress to build a site. I’m selling my experience with design and ux. I’m selling my knowledge of using websites to market a business and how to most effectively do that. The website is just a result of my knowledge and experience in the field.

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Prahlad Yeri • Edited

Its very difficult for a freelancer to become a "one man army" and step into the shoes of a designer, tester and a solution architect too (based on the kind of work you intend her to do).

The client doesn't necessarily have to do all the leg-work. There's this concept of "division of labor", so the client can go about hiring specialists skilled in only their kind of labor (coding, testing, designing, architecting, etc.) rather than a "jack of all" dude who knows only a little bit of everything (there is a limit to how many skills one single dude can have).

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jherzeybruhl profile image
Erl

Hello.
I would like to know if i need to learn ux design to become a freelance front-end web developer

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Devon Campbell

Short answer is no, although it depends on what services you want to offer.

Long answer: If you want to be a lone wolf, building projects yourself from the ground up, it's useful to have a diverse foundation of knowledge across a wide array of disciplines, UX included. If you're not building web sites – for example, maybe you're building process automations on top of web technologies – it might not be as important. If you intend to bring in other contractors to work on projects with you, you could always bring in a UX expert to help out on that aspect of your projects so that you can focus on your areas of expertise.

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Erl

Okay. Thanks a lot for the reply.

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jherzeybruhl profile image
Erl

Okay. Thanks a lot for the reply