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Freelancing takes some degree of ambition and if you're just starting it can be time consuming. What I'm hearing though is you want the benefits of freelancing
by upbeatlinux 9y ago
Freelancing takes some degree of ambition and if you're just starting it can be time consuming.
What I'm hearing though is you want the benefits of freelancing without having to do the work of a freelancer? That's a huge fallacy. Freelancing requires some degrees of ambition and most importantly work.
Unless you've built a reputation for providing these services its going to be difficult obtaining customers.
What should you do? At the very least
- build your profile and build your brand
- "become" an "expert" in your field by blogging, tweeting, etc to drive engagement
- get connected to other "experts" and start conversations
- build a simple landing page (site) for each area you want to provide services for. A/B test the landing page using Google Ad Words, etc
- sign up as an organization on freelancing sites and start doing jobs which can be done asynchronously
- become a maintainer or contributor to security auditing software
Alternatively you could buy an existing business and improve it.
Again, all this requires ambition and work.
If you don't have time or interest in finding the time it's probably not for you.
- 5_minutes 9y agoAren't these a bit of the cliches? Build your brand? Become a blogger? Seems like quite putting yourself out there for getting some pocketmoney, or extra as the OP requests.
- upbeatlinux 9y ago> Aren't these a bit of the cliches? To an extent. The op doesn't have to do one or any of these. They are suggestions which can be leveraged. As I mentioned in a previous comment I probably didn't quite understand quite what the op was asking.
- ge96 9y ago"A turn-key solution"
- vlokshin 9y agoI think you offer solid advice but I don't think the original author was saying "I want to be lazy". They were saying "I don't have that much time", which is totally different. There are solutions popping up that make freelancing much easier. UpWork is hit or miss, but an option. I co-founded https://turtle.ai/ https://turtle.ai/ -- we have a bunch of PhD students, developers with full time jobs. There are even a few people doing just a few hours per month. We need to unlock ourselves from the mentality that "40 hours per week, butt in seat" is the only way to do work. The future of work is remote, flexible, results-driven.
- upbeatlinux 9y agoYou're probably right. I think I conflated "it's too time consuming and I'm not so ambitious" with laziness but the ops statement is hard to unpack in its current form. I'd agree that Upwork is hit or miss and as a freelancer and a business owner would prefer something like turtle.ai. Will look into it :)