Hi,

Been following you on twitter for some time and found most of your articles pretty interesting. Anyway, I didn’t expect to see one on this topic. I’m actually a high school freelancer (11th grade, turned 18 a month ago) but I’m working in a different area than the ones you mentioned; I’m working on programming (!web) jobs most of the time.

I’ve started working as a freelancer less than a year ago and ever since, I’ve kept myself tied to different websites providing employers with remote workforce. At first it seemed awesome & stuff and I felt all powerful and amazing
Some time ago, I’ve read an article somewhere telling people that such websites are just plain evil and make you sell your craftsmanship for little money. At the time, I thought the article was complete bullsh*t. Now that I think again of it, it was not. I’ve gained more experience over time and I believe it’s wrong for me to keep the old rates. I believe my new work is worth more than my old work…

It’s just frustrating how there’s always a “public abstract worker” charging less than half of most of the other bids. I can’t understand how an employer expects to see quality from a worker who thinks his work is worth that little. In the end, it’s all about paying as little as possible to get the job done. If the cheap contractor manages to screw everything up, they re-post the job and tell everyone how the project was not finished properly by the previous developer. What did they expect? They hired a programmer charging $100 for a job that was worth maybe more than $400.

Looking at my situation:
Right now, I’m getting more money from old clients that come back to me to help them on their new projects.
I always lose on freelancing websites to some random worker charging half of my bid and getting the employer’s approval.
I really think I need to change something. And fast.

I started signing my application under a name that makes people think “we’re” a firm, company or software dev studio. Perhaps I should take it further and actually make a name for mys… ourselves. Build some free software to become more ‘famous’. To build something like a fan base, if you wish. Build some commercial software and then sell it, to increase the income. Instead of hoping for some employer to show up on a website, willing to pay for an application, I should think of a good one myself and then try to sell it. Maybe it will get viral, just like Doodle Jump, haha. Still, making 10.000.000 dollars with a $.99 app is insane
My point is: an employer who wants to get the job done perfectly and he/she means it, won’t expect it to be done cheap. Most likely, such an employer won’t be lurking around freelance websites where “public abstract workers” lie. Such an employer tries to find out who/what are the most competent developers/companies and then tries to contact them to negotiate a price for the job.
In short, your portfolio looks best on your website. Not on a job marketplace site.

I bet more experienced developers laughed after reading all of my text above (mainly because I’m a stupid n00b thinking that I’m good enough to make business), but that’s how I think about everything right now. Might be wrong, might be right by doing this, but I advise all starting freelancers (especially hi-school/college ones) who use remote workforce websites, that they should try moving on once they believe their work is worth *more*. Working hard for little money is bad for your sanity. Still, occasionally bidding on such websites might be a good idea. Who knows, maybe lady luck will smile on you and you’ll find an employer not willing to pay $50 for a $400 job It’s also a good idea to keep the employers once they hire you. If you start working for them privately, your payment won’t get cut down by each website’s fees. Needless to say, if an employer is happy with your work, he will come back to you again.

Nice article really. I’m not doing $30k per year; I can only dream about such a sum of money right now I noticed that most web design projects are well paid for beginners but that’s not in my area of interests. I’m not a HTML/JS/PHP guy and I’m a sitting duck in Photoshop. I’m aiming to become a software engineer and won’t let anything stand in my way. Not even the differences between beginners’ pay @ programming and beginners’ pay @ webdesign

Great article. Are you really designing 7 sites a month? Thats amazing!

I suppose its possible, but I think its unlikely for me. Pretty much anyone who comes to me wants the whole caboose, design, coding and maybe even help with copy.

How do you convince the client that you will only be designing the site, or do you then add the coding onto it as a separate job?

Where are you finding so much work?

Keep up the good, informative work you’re getting a name for. (at least in my books)

Cheers
Nathan

From my experience, I feel the Web Development goals are a bit high. For a high school web developer, at least for me I didn’t have the experience or maturity that I did when I started charging $50/hour at 18, or even being able to handle a 50 hours a week work load (I even struggle doing that now! haha). Even handling clients at that age is difficult as the maturity is a big thing, for me I really did only see my way. I was lucky as I had a few middlemen who pulled me under their wings, they handled the clients and I handled the development, building up my skills.

However, at the age of 20, I’ve finally reached my goal of 100/hour however that is a serious amount of dedication and experience. It is possible, but they do need experience first, they just can’t pull $50/hour out of nowhere though.