The transition from full-time to freelance, is the game worth the candle?

Question

Freelance

I have been working in a Czech company for a year and a half as a PHP developer, we mainly make corporate websites and online stores on a self-written CMS (based on Kohana), lately it has become boring, interest in work has fallen and there is not much development. I want to start combining work and doing some freelancing, sometimes I see interesting projects there.
I know well HTML, CSS, Sass (I also like layout, mainly in BEM), JS (knowledge of Vue.js and React at a basic level), PHP (Kohana, Codeignite, CMS Wordpress frameworks, I look towards Symfony and Drupal).
So, my current rate per hour is $ 8.5, but when I see that people need sites for example for 2500 rubles with a unique design and there are 28 responses, doubt arises.
I'm going to buy a pro account on fl.ru over the weekend and start writing reviews, is it worth it?

Answer 1

You have a modest rate. Although, perhaps, for the Czech Republic, this is normal.
I have been and have been freelancing for many years. And I have been working in the state for many years.
Therefore, I can say something.
1. All stories about freelancing are true.
2. You need to have iron discipline in order to work during strictly allotted hours, and rest at other times. And to get up on time, and not sleep until dinner.
3. Over time, you turn into a caveman, because you spend most of your time at home. Some people find it comfortable, some not so much. Some people can handle it, some can't. But the socialization available in the office is sorely lacking. Facebook and chats will not replace live communication.
4. There are a lot of assholes among clients. Over time, you will learn to identify them from the very first words in the correspondence. But before that, you will have to burn yourself a number of times.
5. Customers have a habit of delaying payment. There are no problems with prepayment, but in order to pick up postpaid, you often need to screw up the client. And this is quite understandable - young businesses come to freelance, and quite often they have cash gaps, budget deficits, a change in direction, and much more. Because of this, you yourself are already starting to have cash gaps. Like, you owe decent money, and when you get it - xs.
6. A good description of the project, a good product in itself - this is not enough on freelancing. You will be lucky if you manage to remotely fit into a team that does either a large project or does a lot of projects on stream. If these are one-time projects, then be prepared for a task like "well, I need a website with a form, messages and a robocash, and well, there's a basket, yes."
7. Forget stability. Today you have earned a double salary, and next month 50 percent. There is no one who will strictly transfer money to your card every two weeks.
1. Freedom in the choice of tasks and projects. It's a real thrill.
2. There is an opportunity to do your own business, because you and only you are responsible for the projects. Accordingly, you can take days off when it suits you, and not when they come on the calendar.
3. If you develop a client base, then you can eventually retire with your hands, and deal only with forward tasks or even grow into a full-fledged production.
4. There is an opportunity to learn. Not in the evening after work, in the afternoon when the head is fresh.
The office severely limits this possibility.
5. Have a lot of time and energy for your projects. What the hands of a whole year of office work did not reach could be done quite quickly.
Try everywhere. Both fl and upwork have their pros and cons.
But the best customers are, of course, those who come directly.

Answer 2

Look only towards foreign exchanges - upwork, guru.com, freelancer.com, and put ours out of your head.

Answer 3

I switched to freelancing when the number of orders from freelancing began to bring as much money as 70% of my salary, which I received at that time on a permanent basis, and took so much time that I had to leave my permanent job regularly (this is illegal of course - I tried to lengthen lunch breaks, etc.).
It's just that abruptly, without a preliminary set of customers / reputation / promotion on freelancing, I categorically do not recommend leaving the permanent position.

Answer 4

Oh how I understand you. Freelancing is scary. What if there are no customers? What if I get negative feedback? What if they throw me? In general, a bunch and all of a sudden. In 2010, I made the following preparations before going freelance on Upwork:
I found a client in 2 days. She paid me a fantastic 10 bucks an hour at that time, and then raised it to an unthinkable 18.
General recommendations:
Look at the Toptal exchange. It's like a full-time job, only the pay is good.

Answer 5

Why don't you ask "is it worth getting married", for example

Answer 6

Freelance. Definitely YES. Now I will explain why.
Stability / office work / work with one client - stops your development as a specialist and as an entrepreneur. The most important thing is that you do not develop in the first place as a person. For you, someone is responsible for the entire project, someone tells you WHAT to do, and someone is looking for tasks for you in the big sea called "open market". In the end, your boss gets all the money, and you only get $8.5 an hour.
Point B of your career at this stage should be creating your own products, and the easiest way to get there is through freelancing. Because it is freelancing that teaches everything that I have listed above - responsibility for what you do, decision-making, and most importantly - the ability to sell, first of all, yourself, your services, your skills.
Any doubts? Look. Once you start freelancing, you can set yourself an hourly target of $15 an hour. This is the normal price for the overseas market. For some time you will unrealistically plow 8-10 hours a day, the family may even lose you for a while. But this is all temporary. Because during this time you have to learn how to write good proposauls (and this is selling yourself). After you accumulate some portfolio, a list of positive reviews and learn how to write proposals - raise the bar. Look for long orders with hourly rates of $20-30. Such orders are rare, so you can spend a few days searching, but it will pay off with interest, because. you can reduce the amount of time you spend at work per day and return to your normal life again. Raise the bar again after six months. $40-50 per hour is not the limit at all.
This happened to me after reading the book "how to work 4 hours a week." I was then working as a freelancer for $10-15 an hour and made one simple decision. After that, I started working 2-4 hours a day and at the same time my profit increased by 3 times.
Although now I am no longer a freelancer (see about point B above), but without freelancing, it would be difficult to get there.
Therefore, once again - freelance and once again freelance. Take it like medicine.

Answer 7

Do not even consider Russian exchanges, for most customers $8.5/hour is already expensive there. Try world exchanges, improve your English. Well, get ready for a long-distance race, money will not flow like a river very quickly.

Answer 8

Why go freelancing?
1. A monthly salary (at the office) can be earned in a shorter time.
2. You can work at any time. For me, from 6 am to 12 noon.
3. Have time for yourself. And that's great.
4. In the office, I remember, before I went to freelance, I was very tired by 6 pm. Freelancing less often. You just need to take it as a rule - THERE IS TIME - DO IT, DO NOT POSTPONE.
5. Probably the most important point. When you start getting good money for your work, you will try to do quality work.
PS: if I were you, I would have already started looking for freelance projects.
Imagine, you will be 40 years old, and you still receive a small salary. And you are already afraid to change your life. And the thought that could change everything will not leave you alone. So, while young - go ahead.))

Answer 9

I tried all the options, settled on remote work with official design.
For me the most convenient option.
The salary is more than you can get in an office in my city, the schedule is more or less free. You only have to deal with IT people.
On freelance, it’s hard for me to accept many clients, I often connected familiar managers to write technical specifications and communicate with the customer, because it was easier for me to share the budget, but leave myself only programming.
In terms of money, freelancing is the most profitable, but very unstable. The spread from month to month was more than 10 times.
In general, I chose calmness and an interesting project.
Here above they wrote that projects must necessarily be diverse in order to grow. I agree that the first 2-3 years is important. Then he gets bored.

Answer 10

Before you leave, try to walk around the interview (choose positions that you like in terms of salary - technologies), why:
- find out your relevance to the market (whether such a stack of technologies is needed)
- find out gaps in knowledge (what needs to be tightened up)
Do not get an offer - see . higher.
Get an offer - great!
8.5 rate is very small for the Czech Republic in my opinion, here someone is deceiving someone :)

Answer 11

If you have such a rate in the office, where at that time you are still sitting on the toilet with your phone and eating cookies, and even vacations with sick leave -
It's not worth it.

Answer 12

Work on upwork
Http://upworkest.ru

Answer 13

So, my current rate per hour is $ 8.5, but when I see that people need sites for example for 2500 rubles with a unique design and there are 28 responses, doubt arises.

Unique design is a loose concept. Change the image on a standard wordpress template and a unique design for 2500r is ready.
And yes, it's in demand. For many this is enough, but not for everyone. Some people need something more, and they are ready to pay $10-100 per hour for the work of a designer, layout designer, programmer.
The most important skill in freelancing is finding clients, and choosing clients.
If you specialize in design in style - a site for 2500 you need to weed out customers with high demands. If your specialization is serious sites, you need to weed out low-budget customers.
And you can work and earn equally well in both cases.

Answer 14

There is also freelancehunt.com, which is also a good exchange. But if you are bored in the company, then I do not advise you to send responses to the creation of a site for 2500. It will be boring too.
I recommend filling out a very high-quality profile and portfolio (Here's an example of my profile https://freelancehunt.com/freelancer/VictorTrapeno... it doesn't even have reviews, but that's enough for me to find orders for myself) and every day (I do this once a day at lunch) view the order feed. For example, I find about 10 projects a year on freelancehunt.com, but for that they are interesting, and the pay is normal if you take on complex tasks, and not compete with schoolchildren in creating business card sites at a price below the cost of food.

Answer 15

My advice, go freelancing, it's much more convenient than office work, the only thing that's hard is time management at first, but then you somehow get involved)

Answer 16

And why don't you develop at a permanent place of work, add some of your personal service there for an additional reward ...

Answer 17

Although I am writing in the answer box, I would like to ask a question: is it worth freelancing while living in NY?
Usually a salary in foreign currency is a good plus for freelancing for the CIS, but what if you need a bar much more than 30/hour.