This is how I made my first $ 1000 (actually 988) with freelancing ..
First a little backdrop. I had good "hands on" on LAMP technology, I had also started a venture of my own . But somehow it was not doing good thereby leaving me in a negative personal cashflow. I was back from my new year holidays dead broke, the Financial Year was ending and I had no money to pay off my life insurance premium. I had no urge to be involved in the venture I already metioned. So i was practically unemployed !!!
I decided to do some freelancing and earn a few bucks so that I could atleast have some breathing space and dont make a decision out of acute financial pressure. This was my first attempt on freelancing ; In fact, I had tried casually once long time ago, had no luck then and had given up the whole idea of freelancing thinking its really tough and meant for the pros who started much ahead of this time.
I got my account created and profile uploaded on the protals. Starting with I tried on all the search engine chart busters like rentacoder.com(RAC), getafreelancer.com(GAF), scriptlance.com, getacoder.com(GAC). After probably posting for 50 projects i got my break on getafreelancer.com yippie !!! and I did okay afterwards ;)
Basic concepts :
1) Escrow - This is like a no lien account. Once a buyer accepts a bid, he needs to transfer the amount in escrow and only after the completion of the project seller(freelancer) gets it. Till that time its with the site (A beautiful way to hold money but its okay in this case.) On some sites like GAC, escrowing the money is not necessary. In such cases buyer would ask you to deal offline thereby saving on commissions but I would strictly advise you to stay away from this. This kind of deals result into "you not getting paid" most of the time. I had both pleasant and bad experience on this but now I feel I shouldnt have taken the deal offline with the first time buyers atleast.
2) Payout cycle - This is something which you need to know beforehand. Every site out there wants to hold your or the seller's money as long as possible for their own good. Generally the payout cycle depends on a time period, it may also depend on the threshold money (this is really bad). RAC - has a bimonthly payout cycle, so if you have money in your account you can get it out every 15th and 30th of the month - these are the marked dates though. It actually takes 4-5 more working days after these dates. GAF - has a very nice feature, you can initiate a payout every week's monday and 1 dollar will be charged for the same. which really is resonable and gives you your money much in advance. GAC has has a payout limit of $100 which means you cannot take out your money unless its atleast $100, this is the worst way to hold freelancer's money. I still have my 50 dollars stuck up there.
3) Arbitration - stay away from this. This is the case when you have landed up in a dispute and money is in the escrow. RAC sucks on arbitration, they have such a lengthy schedule for doing it. If you ever get into an arbitration on RAC it will go on for a month atleast.I believe its again a way to hold money but its really bad. Some times even a simple arbitration like "I want my money because i have done my job but the buyer has stopped communicating" or "This project was wrongly conceptualized and both me and the buyer want out" would take months on RAC. GAF- Here again GAF rocks and they have really a good way to close it soon. GAC - not as bad as RAC.
4) Auction type - closed or open - Most of the sites out there are open aution types i.e., a freelancer places a bid and the next freelancer who wants to bid on it can see the previous bid amount. RAC is a closed aution type, so you cannot see the previous bidder's bid. GAF and RAC are open. I may not be correct here but typically open auction sites have higher bids than the closed ones. I mostly have experience of GAF and RAC and I found RAC bids to be far lower than GAF. On RAC it used to come as a shock to me - as they would notify later saying your bid was unsuccessful the winner bid is ... and I usedto think how could someone work at such a low cost .. phfff ..
5) Ratings / feedback - No need to elaborate on this, this is something which you get with perseverance and its like your IPR on freelance space. Always take ratings from a satisfied buyerand rate him back too. On RAC the ratings are visible only after 2 weeks so dont get baffled if you dont see the ratings immediately.
Freelancing marketspace is a buyer's market, there is always someone out there who can do the job better and cheaper than you. Moreover, you will be fighting with developing coutry's cheap geeks and the professional teams too. So getting a break on any of the site will be really difficult initially and continuing to work as a freelancer is a difficult stuff too.
To get a break as I already said you may have to bid umpteen times. The bids too should also not be general in nature or the buyer wont get impressed. The bids should be specific in nature than a general one like :
- Yes I can implement client side validation using live validation (http://www.livevalidation.com/).
- I could write a stub to achieve that single sign on feature you are looking for.
If the project is unclear do ask for more details before quoting a price .... be sure to have a pic of yours in the profile so that you look genuine .. I think I would have started to sound boring by now ... these things are common sense after all !!! I would wrap up in a couple of lines now.
I really would have loved to continue on GAF but didnt get much buisness on it. If I happen to start my freelancing again I would definitely prefer GAF than RAC. Also, after I got on to my regular job it was difficult to freelance so I m keeping off .....
NB : There are a couple of other good freelancing sites too like guru.com and odesk.com. Guru.com is good for teams not very good for individuals ( dont quote me on this !!!) . I tried odesk briefly long time back but couldnt get a break so no comments. Scriptlance.com is useless.
I got my account created and profile uploaded on the protals. Starting with I tried on all the search engine chart busters like rentacoder.com(RAC), getafreelancer.com(GAF), scriptlance.com, getacoder.com(GAC). After probably posting for 50 projects i got my break on getafreelancer.com yippie !!! and I did okay afterwards ;)
Basic concepts :
1) Escrow - This is like a no lien account. Once a buyer accepts a bid, he needs to transfer the amount in escrow and only after the completion of the project seller(freelancer) gets it. Till that time its with the site (A beautiful way to hold money but its okay in this case.) On some sites like GAC, escrowing the money is not necessary. In such cases buyer would ask you to deal offline thereby saving on commissions but I would strictly advise you to stay away from this. This kind of deals result into "you not getting paid" most of the time. I had both pleasant and bad experience on this but now I feel I shouldnt have taken the deal offline with the first time buyers atleast.
2) Payout cycle - This is something which you need to know beforehand. Every site out there wants to hold your or the seller's money as long as possible for their own good. Generally the payout cycle depends on a time period, it may also depend on the threshold money (this is really bad). RAC - has a bimonthly payout cycle, so if you have money in your account you can get it out every 15th and 30th of the month - these are the marked dates though. It actually takes 4-5 more working days after these dates. GAF - has a very nice feature, you can initiate a payout every week's monday and 1 dollar will be charged for the same. which really is resonable and gives you your money much in advance. GAC has has a payout limit of $100 which means you cannot take out your money unless its atleast $100, this is the worst way to hold freelancer's money. I still have my 50 dollars stuck up there.
3) Arbitration - stay away from this. This is the case when you have landed up in a dispute and money is in the escrow. RAC sucks on arbitration, they have such a lengthy schedule for doing it. If you ever get into an arbitration on RAC it will go on for a month atleast.I believe its again a way to hold money but its really bad. Some times even a simple arbitration like "I want my money because i have done my job but the buyer has stopped communicating" or "This project was wrongly conceptualized and both me and the buyer want out" would take months on RAC. GAF- Here again GAF rocks and they have really a good way to close it soon. GAC - not as bad as RAC.
4) Auction type - closed or open - Most of the sites out there are open aution types i.e., a freelancer places a bid and the next freelancer who wants to bid on it can see the previous bid amount. RAC is a closed aution type, so you cannot see the previous bidder's bid. GAF and RAC are open. I may not be correct here but typically open auction sites have higher bids than the closed ones. I mostly have experience of GAF and RAC and I found RAC bids to be far lower than GAF. On RAC it used to come as a shock to me - as they would notify later saying your bid was unsuccessful the winner bid is ... and I usedto think how could someone work at such a low cost .. phfff ..
5) Ratings / feedback - No need to elaborate on this, this is something which you get with perseverance and its like your IPR on freelance space. Always take ratings from a satisfied buyerand rate him back too. On RAC the ratings are visible only after 2 weeks so dont get baffled if you dont see the ratings immediately.
Freelancing marketspace is a buyer's market, there is always someone out there who can do the job better and cheaper than you. Moreover, you will be fighting with developing coutry's cheap geeks and the professional teams too. So getting a break on any of the site will be really difficult initially and continuing to work as a freelancer is a difficult stuff too.
To get a break as I already said you may have to bid umpteen times. The bids too should also not be general in nature or the buyer wont get impressed. The bids should be specific in nature than a general one like :
- Yes I can implement client side validation using live validation (http://www.livevalidation.com/).
- I could write a stub to achieve that single sign on feature you are looking for.
If the project is unclear do ask for more details before quoting a price .... be sure to have a pic of yours in the profile so that you look genuine .. I think I would have started to sound boring by now ... these things are common sense after all !!! I would wrap up in a couple of lines now.
I really would have loved to continue on GAF but didnt get much buisness on it. If I happen to start my freelancing again I would definitely prefer GAF than RAC. Also, after I got on to my regular job it was difficult to freelance so I m keeping off .....
NB : There are a couple of other good freelancing sites too like guru.com and odesk.com. Guru.com is good for teams not very good for individuals ( dont quote me on this !!!) . I tried odesk briefly long time back but couldnt get a break so no comments. Scriptlance.com is useless.
PS : I couldnt pay my insurance even then . . higher priorities took over and I finally paid it a few days back with fine :D
