7 ms·

Deleted my portfolio, made $30k in my first six months

182 points by jdminhbg 13y ago

programminggeek 13y ago
The best lesson to take away here is not to delete your portfolio, but to delete all the things you do that aren't moving the needle in a meaningful way towards whatever goal you have, monetary or otherwise.
- michaelpinto 13y ago
  I agree with your take: There is really a disease to mistake the notion of having "a perfect website portfolio" with actual marketing
- mindcrime 13y ago
  delete all the things you do that aren't moving the needle in a meaningful way towards whatever goal you have, monetary or otherwise Crap, guess it's time to delete my HN profile. :-(
  - jmduke 13y ago
    I know this was comedic, but I honestly think commenting (and reading) on HN has improved my employability more than anything besides actual employment. It's open my eyes to technologies I'd never learn about otherwise, it's gotten me contacts, and -- most importantly -- commenting is an exercise of writing, and clear communication is arguably the most important skill one can have regardless of discipline. A lot of scorn can be placed on HN for its echo-chamber qualities -- most of it fair -- but at the end of the day, arguing too much about JS frameworks is still a better use of one's time than animated cat pictures.
    - mindcrime 13y ago
      I know this was comedic, but I honestly think commenting (and reading) on HN has improved my employability more than anything besides actual employment. It's open my eyes to technologies I'd never learn about otherwise, it's gotten me contacts, and -- most importantly -- commenting is an exercise of writing, and clear communication is arguably the most important skill one can have regardless of discipline. Yeah, I kid, of course. I do learn a lot from my time on HN, both from reading the articles and from the ensuing discussions. I have days when I spend too much time on here though. Sometimes it doesn't matter, because I'm stuck on a client site for my $DAYJOB and they don't have anything for me to do, and there's little I could be doing to advance my goals while sitting there, so I wind up goofing around on HN. Other days, I spend time where when I should be working (like right now!) but nobody can just work, work, work all the time, so I don't mind the occasional "goof off on HN" day here and there. And, like you said, the discourse here is writing practice, and learning to write well is always a good investment. but at the end of the day, arguing too much about JS frameworks is still a better use of one's time than animated cat pictures. Very true.
rodriguezcommaj 13y ago
There's a pretty interesting discussion of this going on over at Designer News: https://news.layervault.com/stories/4266-deleted-my-portfolio-made-30k-in-my-first-six-months https://news.layervault.com/stories/4266-deleted-my-portfoli...
- sgdesign 13y ago
  That discussion is actually pretty stupid. It's funny to see how DN can be as biased as HN, except in the opposite direction…
- robmclarty 13y ago
  I just read all the comments on Designer News. All I can say is "wow". Did all those commenters even read the article? For those who didn't read it, the overall point was simply focus (don't get distracted with efforts that aren't directly contributing to your bottom line and measure your results so you can make informed decisions, honing in on what factually works for you). Sure, Robert may have put a particular website in a bad light, isn't earning $1M, and maybe tried to find some value in some lessons from online courses (omg), but the point was clear: the competition was homogenous and he wanted to stand out (good). The best marketing strategy is to speak to your audience's needs, not necessarily your industry's ideals. I'm making a broad assumption here, but I feel like most business clients (those likely to hire an agency or a freelance designer) are more concerned with making themselves more money (through effective design) than "looking pretty". I think Robert was accurate in that observation. Robert had some experience, found some stuff that worked for him, and is trying to share it with the community to help others learn where he maybe didn't have access to learn. I think that's admirable. I don't know why people on Designer News are shitting all over on him. Geez.
- kellysutton 13y ago
  Creator of Designer News here. We hellbanned the author and submitter of the story since this post is a thin veil for a get-rich-quick scheme.
  - robwilliams88 13y ago
bdunn 13y ago
What really impresses me most about what Robert's done is that he's realized that by selling the outcome that most clients want to hear (higher conversion rates, more leads) instead of what designers tend to emphasize (clean design, HTML5 compliance, etc.) he's pitching himself as an investment, not an expense. "Clean design" doesn't mean "I'll make more money in the long run than I'm spending on this engagement." Sure, better design can lead to that, but it's a proxy. Many designers and developers can learn a lot from what he's done. Focus on those outcomes that position ourselves as investment vessels, not expenses. This means realizing that — no matter how passionate we are about our hard-earned skills — it usually means diddly squat to our clients. They just want a positive ROI at the end of the day. So don't think of proposing to a potential client that you'll write "Ruby code." Rather, figure out how writing Ruby code can get your client more customers, more profit, decreased overhead, whatever and sell THAT.
- e28eta 13y ago
  Agreed, and it goes beyond just clients. This is great advice for life: Know your audience, know what's important to them, and use that to guide your discussion with them.
- ryusage 13y ago
  Reminds me of the book How To Win Friends And Influence People. All the way back in 1936, Dale Carnegie was trying to teach people that explaining why they should want something gets far, far better results than explaining what you would like about it.
- kintamanimatt 13y ago
  This boils down to the very old sales axiom, "sell benefits, not features". It would stand to reason that the more successful designers are good salespeople too.
  - fmavituna 13y ago
    This is not only "sell benefits, not features" thing. There are tons of designers out there who doesn't know what "conversion" means. Hence they don't or care about the conversion. Why would you get your website designed by someone like that, unless you know conversion very well and design and micro manage the design process?
rabble 13y ago
Am i the only one who thinks making $30k as a graphic designer freelancing in California for 6 months is incredibly low? In fact less than making at $42k annually as a salaried employee once you count in health care and self employment taxes? Since when did a blog post about being a barely surviving freelancer qualify for the HN front page? Sorry for being a bit of a jerk on this, but i don't get it. Maybe he got clients by being good at gaming HN?
- jdminhbg 13y ago
  He went from fired to $30k in six months. I had a plan, quit my job with a runway, and still didn't make that much in my first six months as a freelance developer. Finding leads, selling, delivering, and billing take time. I'm averaging a lot more than that now; hopefully he will too.
  - vacri 13y ago
    A good point - billing takes time. Usually it's a minimum of one week, often two, and usually it's a month (depending on industry). So even if he had been working for six months solid, he would only have effectively had five months 'worth' of billing land. As an aside, my mum used to run a bookstore, and I think it was Penguin books who used to prevent overdue accounts this way: If you're not paid up by the 25th of the month, your orders are halted. Only really works if you've got a decent amount of traction, but you can guarantee that the one distributor that got paid on time every month was Penguin.
- jmduke 13y ago
  I am confident the number of people who wish they could quit their jobs and then make 60K a year freelancing is quite high -- especially in the competitive design industry. People very rarely choose freelancing for the money. If I was told I could quit my job and freelance for two thirds of what I was making, I'd probably take it.
  - d23 13y ago
    Really? To me, the extra stress of dealing with clients and wondering about each paycheck would mean I'd have to earn more, not less. I'm happy to take a guaranteed 100k vs 100k with a potential 50k swing and dealing with clients who might not pay me.
clubhi 13y ago
Did anyone kind of feel bad that this guy is happy making $30k in 6 months? I think I'm excellent at what I do and think I deserve every dollar I make. However, I can't help but feel bad for people that are making so much less than me just because I might have been a bit luckier in my career path.
- turkeybone 13y ago
  Why don't you hire this designer for a project, then? If you really feel bad, he could use your business rather than your pity.
  - clubhi 13y ago
    Maybe I will Charley. Maybe I will...
- freework 13y ago
  Honestly, 60K is actually pretty good money I think. I make just about the same. Before my current job I made around the same. All my friends who are the same age as me make roughly the same. Last time I was doing interviewing, I tried asking for 80K, but not a single company pretty much told me I wouldn't be getting that.
  - eropple 13y ago
    Where are you located? In Boston at least, new-grad salaries at companies-I'd-work-at are $80K and up.
- tnorthcutt 13y ago
  He went from getting fired to making $30k freelancing in 6 months. I would imagine his annual income is trending up significantly and will end up being much more than $60k the first year of his freelancing "career".
Aqueous 13y ago
Honestly, this is not just something that works with design. Do you know how many programming jobs you can get just by talking to people? One-person design projects are like small, one-off web applications. You don't need a firm to attract business if the jobs end up being done by single individuals anyway. On the other hand there are good reasons to be a part of a company. The reason I work for a company that gets contracted for web application projects is because I don't like thinking about business, and I'm not good at selling. If you have a head for those things, that's awesome for you - I wish I did. But not having to think about those things too much lets me focus on what I can do and still get a decent salary and benefits.
salimmadjd 13y ago
"They all had very minimal copy, and usually a short designery phrase like, ”Pixel perfection,” or whatever. You know, you’ve seen them. Basically, sites like this: http://kerem.co/ http://kerem.co/ " Kerem is an amazing designer and in very high demand-I would know. He probably makes 2-3X more than this guy. So not sure why he is dissing him. To be honest 30K in six months is not that great. I'm guessing ultimately he wants to make big money like Kerem one day.
- leephillips 13y ago
  I didn't interpret this as dissing him, but just an example of a typical approach to a designer's website. He just wanted to try to do something different. 30K in six months long term would not be that great, but this is his first six months, which includes figuring out how to operate his business - so it sounds pretty good to me.
  - rmrfrmrf 13y ago
    It's a pretty big insult to imply that a designer's work is run-of-the-mill, as the author has done.
    - eps 13y ago
      No, it's not. There are trends and a lot of designers follow them, because that's what's currently in demand. It doesn't mean they aren't creative or execute poorly, which would've been indeed an insult.
    - vacri 13y ago
      Looking at that website, what's not run-of-the-mill about it? He may do great work for clients, but that particular website is yawnfully boring, and has employed that terrible current trend of low-contrast text on grey background.
sgdesign 13y ago
Ignoring the "delete your portfolio" and "making $30k is great" parts (which I don't really agree with), for me the big takeaway here is having a more active approach to finding work. If you're struggling to find work as a freelance designer, you should definitely be doing more to contact clients and meet their needs instead of simply showing them pretty pictures. Then again, if you're Kerem Suer (http://kerem.co/ http://kerem.co/) you don't need to do any of that because you've already established your reputation, and you can show up at any startup and they'll hire you on the spot. Disclaimer: I'm the guy behind Folyo (http://folyo.me http://folyo.me), the design job board mentioned in the article.
Felix21 13y ago
The 5 Why's Prospect: I need a designer ... Why? Prospect: Because my website is ugly and I want it to look beautiful. ... Why? Prospect: Because a beautiful website give me more credibility with my customers/audience ... Why? Why do you want credibility? Prospect: With more credibility, I can close more customers and charge each client more. ... Why? Why would you want to charge your clients more? Prospect: Duhh, so I can make more money. ...There it is! The saying goes that after you ask 5 why's you'll get to the root or the core reason why your client wants what you're offering. If you can show that what you're selling will satisfy this often unspoken desire, then you'll make the sale. The 5 why's is a good way to find out what this desire is. Bob already knows what his clients desire... Can the same be said of you?
- ronaldx 13y ago
  I'm sure I don't want to stop on "make more money" as the fundamental answer to "why" - surely there are healthier, more basic motivations than that. Go on, ask one more "why"...
  - Felix21 13y ago
    Why? ... All jokes aside I'll ask 5 or 6 why's so I can get to the core motivations, but I wont go deeper than the 3rd or 4th why in my marketing otherwise you'll risk making your prospect sceptical and weary of your motivations.
alexholehouse 13y ago
Ugh. I hate to be that guy, but after clicking on the get-started buttom (http://robertwilliams.wpengine.com/get-started/ http://robertwilliams.wpengine.com/get-started/) the copy at the start is "Lets bullet-proof your project in 7 days or less. Get started for free right now." "Lets" should be "Let's" (it's a contraction). I find that really off putting. I guess I shouldn't, but I do. Super-impressed that it's been fixed so fast. I hate it when people nitpick, but occasionally I feel like it's relevant/worth it. That said, I still feel a bit dirty now.
- erehweb 13y ago
  You're not being unreasonable. It's an indicator of lacking attention to detail.
- leephillips 13y ago
  He fixed it!
- snikch 13y ago
  Note: It has now been fixed.
- vacri 13y ago
  That is not a nitpick, as it's a fundamental part of visual design. If your promotional material is filled with Greengrocer's Apostrophes, that reflects badly on you, not your designer. I hate it when I see professional signwriters duly painting an incorrect apostrophe - if you're being paid for the job, you should know what to write, and if you don't, look it up. Likewise, I'll forgive a restaurant using one in a homemade menu, but a menu that's been touched by a designer? Loses any class that was applied by having a designer in the first place.
A1kmm 13y ago
It is depressing that 'the solution' to finding clients was basically to send spam (highly targeted spam, but nevertheless it was commercial e-mail sent to large numbers of people without prior consent of the recipient - where I live, that would be illegal, and I understand it is also illegal in California where the author of the article is based). The other options for finding freelancing clients are not very good - I've tried advertising on Google, and found that I pay a high CPC, get a low click-through rate, and despite my ad being clearly worded about providing services, most of the people come through on searches looking for jobs themselves, so it hasn't proved profitable (i.e. my cost to acquire a customer seems to be extremely high through that method). I have had success with ODesk but it is hard to get clients without spending a lot of time first, even with the highest possible rating, and so effective rates there are very low, and ODesk demands a 10% cut, with contractual terms that mean that you can't do any work for the client without going through ODesk unless you wait two years without doing any work. It is unfortunate that it is so hard for non-spammy consultants to get in touch with potential clients. Perhaps cold calling companies might prove to be a more cost effective strategy to acquire customers.
- robwilliams88 13y ago
  I didn't spam, I replied to job postings.
benzesandbetter 13y ago
I'm confused... is $60k/year above the poverty line in San Diego?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
ommunist 13y ago
Thank you, this reading was really very much inspirational. Anyone in the UK tried that in a similar situation? I feel like it is very rare occasion when people consciously jump from freelance pathway to corp full-time perm path and vice versa.

182 points by jdminhbg 13y ago

The best lesson to take away here is not to delete your portfolio, but to delete all the things you do that aren't moving the needle in a meaningful way towards whatever goal you have, monetary or otherwise.

michaelpinto 13y ago
I agree with your take: There is really a disease to mistake the notion of having "a perfect website portfolio" with actual marketing
mindcrime 13y ago
delete all the things you do that aren't moving the needle in a meaningful way towards whatever goal you have, monetary or otherwise Crap, guess it's time to delete my HN profile. :-(
- jmduke 13y ago
  I know this was comedic, but I honestly think commenting (and reading) on HN has improved my employability more than anything besides actual employment. It's open my eyes to technologies I'd never learn about otherwise, it's gotten me contacts, and -- most importantly -- commenting is an exercise of writing, and clear communication is arguably the most important skill one can have regardless of discipline. A lot of scorn can be placed on HN for its echo-chamber qualities -- most of it fair -- but at the end of the day, arguing too much about JS frameworks is still a better use of one's time than animated cat pictures.
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    I know this was comedic, but I honestly think commenting (and reading) on HN has improved my employability more than anything besides actual employment. It's open my eyes to technologies I'd never learn about otherwise, it's gotten me contacts, and -- most importantly -- commenting is an exercise of writing, and clear communication is arguably the most important skill one can have regardless of discipline. Yeah, I kid, of course. I do learn a lot from my time on HN, both from reading the articles and from the ensuing discussions. I have days when I spend too much time on here though. Sometimes it doesn't matter, because I'm stuck on a client site for my $DAYJOB and they don't have anything for me to do, and there's little I could be doing to advance my goals while sitting there, so I wind up goofing around on HN. Other days, I spend time where when I should be working (like right now!) but nobody can just work, work, work all the time, so I don't mind the occasional "goof off on HN" day here and there. And, like you said, the discourse here is writing practice, and learning to write well is always a good investment. but at the end of the day, arguing too much about JS frameworks is still a better use of one's time than animated cat pictures. Very true.

rodriguezcommaj 13y ago

There's a pretty interesting discussion of this going on over at Designer News: https://news.layervault.com/stories/4266-deleted-my-portfolio-made-30k-in-my-first-six-months https://news.layervault.com/stories/4266-deleted-my-portfoli...

sgdesign 13y ago
That discussion is actually pretty stupid. It's funny to see how DN can be as biased as HN, except in the opposite direction…
robmclarty 13y ago
I just read all the comments on Designer News. All I can say is "wow". Did all those commenters even read the article? For those who didn't read it, the overall point was simply focus (don't get distracted with efforts that aren't directly contributing to your bottom line and measure your results so you can make informed decisions, honing in on what factually works for you). Sure, Robert may have put a particular website in a bad light, isn't earning $1M, and maybe tried to find some value in some lessons from online courses (omg), but the point was clear: the competition was homogenous and he wanted to stand out (good). The best marketing strategy is to speak to your audience's needs, not necessarily your industry's ideals. I'm making a broad assumption here, but I feel like most business clients (those likely to hire an agency or a freelance designer) are more concerned with making themselves more money (through effective design) than "looking pretty". I think Robert was accurate in that observation. Robert had some experience, found some stuff that worked for him, and is trying to share it with the community to help others learn where he maybe didn't have access to learn. I think that's admirable. I don't know why people on Designer News are shitting all over on him. Geez.
kellysutton 13y ago
Creator of Designer News here. We hellbanned the author and submitter of the story since this post is a thin veil for a get-rich-quick scheme.
- robwilliams88 13y ago

bdunn 13y ago

What really impresses me most about what Robert's done is that he's realized that by selling the outcome that most clients want to hear (higher conversion rates, more leads) instead of what designers tend to emphasize (clean design, HTML5 compliance, etc.) he's pitching himself as an investment, not an expense. "Clean design" doesn't mean "I'll make more money in the long run than I'm spending on this engagement." Sure, better design can lead to that, but it's a proxy. Many designers and developers can learn a lot from what he's done. Focus on those outcomes that position ourselves as investment vessels, not expenses. This means realizing that — no matter how passionate we are about our hard-earned skills — it usually means diddly squat to our clients. They just want a positive ROI at the end of the day. So don't think of proposing to a potential client that you'll write "Ruby code." Rather, figure out how writing Ruby code can get your client more customers, more profit, decreased overhead, whatever and sell THAT.

e28eta 13y ago
Agreed, and it goes beyond just clients. This is great advice for life: Know your audience, know what's important to them, and use that to guide your discussion with them.
ryusage 13y ago
Reminds me of the book How To Win Friends And Influence People. All the way back in 1936, Dale Carnegie was trying to teach people that explaining why they should want something gets far, far better results than explaining what you would like about it.
kintamanimatt 13y ago
This boils down to the very old sales axiom, "sell benefits, not features". It would stand to reason that the more successful designers are good salespeople too.
- fmavituna 13y ago
  This is not only "sell benefits, not features" thing. There are tons of designers out there who doesn't know what "conversion" means. Hence they don't or care about the conversion. Why would you get your website designed by someone like that, unless you know conversion very well and design and micro manage the design process?

rabble 13y ago

Am i the only one who thinks making $30k as a graphic designer freelancing in California for 6 months is incredibly low? In fact less than making at $42k annually as a salaried employee once you count in health care and self employment taxes? Since when did a blog post about being a barely surviving freelancer qualify for the HN front page? Sorry for being a bit of a jerk on this, but i don't get it. Maybe he got clients by being good at gaming HN?

jdminhbg 13y ago
He went from fired to $30k in six months. I had a plan, quit my job with a runway, and still didn't make that much in my first six months as a freelance developer. Finding leads, selling, delivering, and billing take time. I'm averaging a lot more than that now; hopefully he will too.
- vacri 13y ago
  A good point - billing takes time. Usually it's a minimum of one week, often two, and usually it's a month (depending on industry). So even if he had been working for six months solid, he would only have effectively had five months 'worth' of billing land. As an aside, my mum used to run a bookstore, and I think it was Penguin books who used to prevent overdue accounts this way: If you're not paid up by the 25th of the month, your orders are halted. Only really works if you've got a decent amount of traction, but you can guarantee that the one distributor that got paid on time every month was Penguin.
jmduke 13y ago
I am confident the number of people who wish they could quit their jobs and then make 60K a year freelancing is quite high -- especially in the competitive design industry. People very rarely choose freelancing for the money. If I was told I could quit my job and freelance for two thirds of what I was making, I'd probably take it.
- d23 13y ago
  Really? To me, the extra stress of dealing with clients and wondering about each paycheck would mean I'd have to earn more, not less. I'm happy to take a guaranteed 100k vs 100k with a potential 50k swing and dealing with clients who might not pay me.

clubhi 13y ago

Did anyone kind of feel bad that this guy is happy making $30k in 6 months? I think I'm excellent at what I do and think I deserve every dollar I make. However, I can't help but feel bad for people that are making so much less than me just because I might have been a bit luckier in my career path.

turkeybone 13y ago
Why don't you hire this designer for a project, then? If you really feel bad, he could use your business rather than your pity.
- clubhi 13y ago
  Maybe I will Charley. Maybe I will...
freework 13y ago
Honestly, 60K is actually pretty good money I think. I make just about the same. Before my current job I made around the same. All my friends who are the same age as me make roughly the same. Last time I was doing interviewing, I tried asking for 80K, but not a single company pretty much told me I wouldn't be getting that.
- eropple 13y ago
  Where are you located? In Boston at least, new-grad salaries at companies-I'd-work-at are $80K and up.
tnorthcutt 13y ago
He went from getting fired to making $30k freelancing in 6 months. I would imagine his annual income is trending up significantly and will end up being much more than $60k the first year of his freelancing "career".

Aqueous 13y ago

Honestly, this is not just something that works with design. Do you know how many programming jobs you can get just by talking to people? One-person design projects are like small, one-off web applications. You don't need a firm to attract business if the jobs end up being done by single individuals anyway. On the other hand there are good reasons to be a part of a company. The reason I work for a company that gets contracted for web application projects is because I don't like thinking about business, and I'm not good at selling. If you have a head for those things, that's awesome for you - I wish I did. But not having to think about those things too much lets me focus on what I can do and still get a decent salary and benefits.

salimmadjd 13y ago

"They all had very minimal copy, and usually a short designery phrase like, ”Pixel perfection,” or whatever. You know, you’ve seen them. Basically, sites like this: http://kerem.co/ http://kerem.co/ " Kerem is an amazing designer and in very high demand-I would know. He probably makes 2-3X more than this guy. So not sure why he is dissing him. To be honest 30K in six months is not that great. I'm guessing ultimately he wants to make big money like Kerem one day.

leephillips 13y ago
I didn't interpret this as dissing him, but just an example of a typical approach to a designer's website. He just wanted to try to do something different. 30K in six months long term would not be that great, but this is his first six months, which includes figuring out how to operate his business - so it sounds pretty good to me.
- rmrfrmrf 13y ago
  It's a pretty big insult to imply that a designer's work is run-of-the-mill, as the author has done.
  - eps 13y ago
    No, it's not. There are trends and a lot of designers follow them, because that's what's currently in demand. It doesn't mean they aren't creative or execute poorly, which would've been indeed an insult.
  - vacri 13y ago
    Looking at that website, what's not run-of-the-mill about it? He may do great work for clients, but that particular website is yawnfully boring, and has employed that terrible current trend of low-contrast text on grey background.

sgdesign 13y ago

Ignoring the "delete your portfolio" and "making $30k is great" parts (which I don't really agree with), for me the big takeaway here is having a more active approach to finding work. If you're struggling to find work as a freelance designer, you should definitely be doing more to contact clients and meet their needs instead of simply showing them pretty pictures. Then again, if you're Kerem Suer (http://kerem.co/ http://kerem.co/) you don't need to do any of that because you've already established your reputation, and you can show up at any startup and they'll hire you on the spot. Disclaimer: I'm the guy behind Folyo (http://folyo.me http://folyo.me), the design job board mentioned in the article.

Felix21 13y ago

The 5 Why's Prospect: I need a designer ... Why? Prospect: Because my website is ugly and I want it to look beautiful. ... Why? Prospect: Because a beautiful website give me more credibility with my customers/audience ... Why? Why do you want credibility? Prospect: With more credibility, I can close more customers and charge each client more. ... Why? Why would you want to charge your clients more? Prospect: Duhh, so I can make more money. ...There it is! The saying goes that after you ask 5 why's you'll get to the root or the core reason why your client wants what you're offering. If you can show that what you're selling will satisfy this often unspoken desire, then you'll make the sale. The 5 why's is a good way to find out what this desire is. Bob already knows what his clients desire... Can the same be said of you?

ronaldx 13y ago
I'm sure I don't want to stop on "make more money" as the fundamental answer to "why" - surely there are healthier, more basic motivations than that. Go on, ask one more "why"...
- Felix21 13y ago
  Why? ... All jokes aside I'll ask 5 or 6 why's so I can get to the core motivations, but I wont go deeper than the 3rd or 4th why in my marketing otherwise you'll risk making your prospect sceptical and weary of your motivations.

alexholehouse 13y ago

Ugh. I hate to be that guy, but after clicking on the get-started buttom (http://robertwilliams.wpengine.com/get-started/ http://robertwilliams.wpengine.com/get-started/) the copy at the start is "Lets bullet-proof your project in 7 days or less. Get started for free right now." "Lets" should be "Let's" (it's a contraction). I find that really off putting. I guess I shouldn't, but I do. Super-impressed that it's been fixed so fast. I hate it when people nitpick, but occasionally I feel like it's relevant/worth it. That said, I still feel a bit dirty now.

erehweb 13y ago
You're not being unreasonable. It's an indicator of lacking attention to detail.
leephillips 13y ago
He fixed it!
snikch 13y ago
Note: It has now been fixed.
vacri 13y ago
That is not a nitpick, as it's a fundamental part of visual design. If your promotional material is filled with Greengrocer's Apostrophes, that reflects badly on you, not your designer. I hate it when I see professional signwriters duly painting an incorrect apostrophe - if you're being paid for the job, you should know what to write, and if you don't, look it up. Likewise, I'll forgive a restaurant using one in a homemade menu, but a menu that's been touched by a designer? Loses any class that was applied by having a designer in the first place.

A1kmm 13y ago

It is depressing that 'the solution' to finding clients was basically to send spam (highly targeted spam, but nevertheless it was commercial e-mail sent to large numbers of people without prior consent of the recipient - where I live, that would be illegal, and I understand it is also illegal in California where the author of the article is based). The other options for finding freelancing clients are not very good - I've tried advertising on Google, and found that I pay a high CPC, get a low click-through rate, and despite my ad being clearly worded about providing services, most of the people come through on searches looking for jobs themselves, so it hasn't proved profitable (i.e. my cost to acquire a customer seems to be extremely high through that method). I have had success with ODesk but it is hard to get clients without spending a lot of time first, even with the highest possible rating, and so effective rates there are very low, and ODesk demands a 10% cut, with contractual terms that mean that you can't do any work for the client without going through ODesk unless you wait two years without doing any work. It is unfortunate that it is so hard for non-spammy consultants to get in touch with potential clients. Perhaps cold calling companies might prove to be a more cost effective strategy to acquire customers.

robwilliams88 13y ago
I didn't spam, I replied to job postings.

benzesandbetter 13y ago

I'm confused... is $60k/year above the poverty line in San Diego?

deleted 13y ago

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ommunist 13y ago

Thank you, this reading was really very much inspirational. Anyone in the UK tried that in a similar situation? I feel like it is very rare occasion when people consciously jump from freelance pathway to corp full-time perm path and vice versa.