1

this is my first time posting in here, so please let me know if this kind of question is inappropriate.

I will be an IT graduate this coming April, and wanted to be a programmer since I entered college.. Though a software developer sounds nice, I wanted to work with my time in control, then arises the freelance thing, so I thought to myself, if I will be a freelancer, how can I earn money for myself and my family, the answer is: "I don't really know how"

Just saw this Q&A in stackexchange and decided that you guys could give me some head start on how I can work out myself to have passive income from home.
I am still an intern and I am not entirely sure if I can land a job, so this will help me a lot. thanks

AdorableVB
  • 113
  • 4
  • 3
    This is a similar question to "How to build passive income instead of just selling work hours?" http://freelancing.stackexchange.com/q/1124 – Neil Robertson Jan 18 '14 at 10:41
  • I can't do that, I am really bad at making a content on a page, but I've seen so many people earning through blogspot or wordpress. – AdorableVB Jan 21 '14 at 01:18
  • Hi AdorableVB, and welcome to Freelancing.SE! Unfortunately, this question is quite broad to give the type of answers we expect. We need to find a real, clear, defined question that can be answered; as it stands right now, it's very open and vague. Feel free to [edit] it to make it a little more specific and definable. Thanks – Canadian Luke Jan 21 '14 at 04:24

2 Answers2

2

Sell your work directly as code libraries, installable apps, mobile apps, and virtual machine images. You can do well if you figure out the right market (specialty), but it will take some time. Marketing is important, don't underestimate the need to include that part.

Xavier J
  • 5,333
  • 13
  • 23
1

I will be frank: it will be hard to become a freelancer just after you graduate. Almost impossible. Why? Because there are very few junior positions offered to freelancers and most clients wants the job be done by some expert. So once you join any freelancing website, you will see that there is no job for you.

So basically, you are a step beyond this group. This does not mean you cannot ask questions, it's just you have nothing to offer to a prospective client.

What would be your next steps:

  1. Find a trainee or junior job locally and see how things work in IT industry. try coding, be learned by senior colleague how to code, how not to code, etc. This way you will learn the very basics which are not thought on the college. Most successful freelancers first worked for some large company, learned proper procedures and then decided to work as freelancers because you can earn the same working when you want in pyjama eating pizza and being unshaven :).

  2. If there is not IT job locally, then decide what you want to do: .NET, Java, web, mobile, games, etc. Then find THE BEST book which will most probably have 1500 or more pages. Do extensive training of at least 6 months. Try to create an real app while do the training - you can later publish it and earn money + you will have a real experience on good/bad coding practices. While training yourself, keep looking what jobs clients are posting and features they are requesting (from your chosen domain, of course). After that time, you will be able to find a job. Start with small jobs, then slightly move to larger.

All successful freelancers started either of these 2 steps.

And yes, don't be misled by people saying that there is a shorter way. There isn't. If you want to be good and be able to have a good living from your work.

Peter MV
  • 14,379
  • 1
  • 34
  • 67
  • Also read popular topics from http://freelancing.stackexchange.com/questions?sort=frequent – Peter MV Jan 18 '14 at 15:32
  • Hi Peter, I think the OP is asking about creating a passive income rather than finding freelancing work if I understand correctly. – Neil Robertson Jan 19 '14 at 04:53
  • @NeilRobertson Passive income is for existing freelancers. I think she wants to become a freelancer, at least based on here sentence if I will be a freelancer, how can I earn money for myself and my family – Peter MV Jan 19 '14 at 12:35
  • In step 2 : I have created something like a timer system for computer cafe's.. Where clients' PCs are managed by one server and controls their renting time instead of writing it on a log book. My question is, how do I know how much my app can be sold? – AdorableVB Jan 21 '14 at 01:21
  • @AdorableVB Either by multiply work hours spent on the app with your hourly rate (http://freelancing.stackexchange.com/questions/3/tracking-hours-you-are-working-for-clients) or setting some market price of lower segment and then increase it over time. – Peter MV Jan 21 '14 at 08:06
  • In first approach you will get pretty large amount. Then decide if you want to return that money in 1 year for example. Divide to 12. The amount will become smaller. Then see how many new customer per month you can attract. Then divide the amount to this number, and you will get your final price. For example: $10.000 / 12 / 10 = $83 meaning I must get 10 new customers in the fist year to return my time invested in the app. After that, it's all profit excluding time you spent upgrading app. – Peter MV Jan 21 '14 at 08:08
  • Its not that polished and its created from VB6. But in time, I think I want to upgrade it since its the first major app that I made myself. I was thinking of selling it for like $5. But didn't know there was a computation like this. Also, english is not my native, so I don't really get what you said, can you give it in simpler terms? – AdorableVB Jan 21 '14 at 08:44
  • @AdorableVB English is not mine native as well :). If you're satisfied with $5, it's OK. Try to find a top topic here where all of this is explained better. Summed up, calculate workHoursSpentInProject x yourHourlyPrice to get how much money you invested in the project. Then divide totalMoneyInvested / 12 / howManyClientsPerMonthYouCanAttractToBuyYourApp and you will get the app price. If you sell your app at that price to the number of customers you planned, you will return invested money in 1 year. – Peter MV Jan 21 '14 at 08:55
  • You may change 12 to any number. It's a number of months. Basically you try to calculate how soon can you return your time (time is money) invested in the project. – Peter MV Jan 21 '14 at 08:56
  • then its for me to decide how much is myHourlyPrice? – AdorableVB Jan 21 '14 at 08:58
  • @AdorableVB True. there are many topics on hourly price here. Just browser a bit. – Peter MV Jan 21 '14 at 11:04