I have this image in my mind about most freelancers being people who went to their 9-5 software development job for 10 years before they started to freelance.

I have this image in my mind about most freelancers being people who went to their 9-5 software development job for 10 years before they started to freelance. I got my first freelance "project" on rentacoder.com in 9th grade. It earned me a whole $5.00. Few months later, I was winning bigger projects. I know lots of folks who have followed similar paths.