I am creating a course on ‘freelancing for developers’. I would like to know from aspiring freelancers here what is stopping you from becoming a freelancer?
Thank you so much for your time.
1) Those who come from full-time employment jobs usually have obligations, families, bills, etc, and would like to do freelancing if they were reasonably sure they could make just as much or more as their current work. However, I haven't seen many stop-gap solutions which can bridge the time between when you are making above-average salaried income -> making practically nothing with high uncertainty while you build a client-base -> making good freelancing money. It's another way of saying "this is the same mental hurdle which prevents full-time people from starting their own business".
2) Part-time freelancing or moonlighting is an attractive option, but most of the freelancing opportunities I've encountered do not offer flexible timing; i.e. they seem to be a replacement 30+ hour per week commitment with no benefits that you would typically get from full-time employment. So the question here would be - how do people optimally find these sorts of engagements, while, as @beeskneecaps stated, not "competing on those freelance bidding war sites that are full of lowballing spammers".
3) Whether you are already employed or seeking freelancing from the start, how best to market yourself and find your first real clients? When I say real, I don't mean a $5 job where you update someone's resume, but I mean, like, how do you find a legitimate corporate entity or person(s) who will work with you closely to write a contract for a legitimate body of work, avoid legal potholes, and deliver, by yourself?
As it's probably obvious from my posts (my point of view is from someone working in FTE), how can you make the transition into freelancing 'actually make sense' for folks in FTE?
I don’t worry about “marketing”. I send an email out to 10-12 recruiters and they find jobs for me relatively fast at market rates. Most give you the choice of working for them either as Corp-2-Corp at a higher rate or as a W2 employee and they take care of employment taxes (the employees half of FICA), you can get insurance through them etc.
The real advantage of W2 contracting over FTE is that you actually get paid for every hour you work and you can “job hop” without being considered a job hopper.