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Introducing Freelance Playbook

At the beginning of my freelancing career, I took any projects I could get – from simple logos to building fully-fledged websites. I worked 80 hours a week, mostly without weekends, to please my clients and deliver the best possible results.

Alex Dovhyi
Alex Dovhyi
— 2 min read
Introducing Freelance Playbook

I used to play with Photoshop and some HTML/CSS back in high school. And even made some cash for making a logo for a music band and an album cover. In 2015 I made a decision that changed the direction of my career.

At the beginning of my freelancing career, I took any projects I could get – from simple logos to building fully-fledged websites. I worked 80 hours a week, mostly without weekends, to please my clients and deliver the best possible results.

Something had to change, so I transitioned into UI/UX design. This allowed me to focus on a much narrower variety of projects. One-off jobs turned into monthly contracts. Simple logos and business cards turned into more complex apps and websites.

After making a decision to start working with international clients, in a couple of months, I was making a full-time income.

This journey taught me various lessons, and I’m giving all of them to you in this guide. I went in the wrong direction and had to change my approach repeatedly. I didn’t go from A to B in a strain line. Instead, I started and stopped multiple times.

Introducing Freelance Playbook

This is a series of posts where I'll highlight the most important lessons learned from my freelancing journey. There's a lot to cover, but we'll dig into the deepest roots of what it takes to build a successful freelancing career.

Here is what you will learn during this series of posts:

  1. The what, why, and how of freelancing
  2. Core principles of freelancing
  3. Freelancing requires a mindset shift
  4. How to choose and build a skill for freelancing
  5. How to find a market?
  6. How to craft the offer?
  7. How to establish the client-finding process?
  8. Create MVP (Minimum Viable Portfolio)
  9. How to present your work to win freelance deals?
  10. Using job boards to get your first freelance clients
  11. How to write a cold email that wins freelance clients?
  12. Talking to potential clients
  13. Calculating your rate
  14. Asking for budget
  15. Charging more
  16. Turning one-off clients into clients for life
  17. Finding dream clients
I hope you will find it helpful and insightful. This guide should save you from falling into those traps so that you can start and build your freelancing career immediately.
Freelance Playbook
Alex Dovhyi

Alex Dovhyi Twitter

Product designer giving unsolicited advice on design, freelancing, career and personal growth.

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