This is the first of a series of public mentorships I intend to write. The topics come from people who have interacted with me on Twitter, and this one came from Lucas and 6Frois. I hope it helps them and anyone else interested.

Now, the long and more useful answer.

Freelancing, working for yourself, being your own boss. It all sounds tempting, right? Who has not pictured working in pyjamas, skipping the commute, hand-picking projects?

But let me be straight with you: freelancing is not a magic path to easy money or an easy life. It is more challenging than it looks. It will be hard. Income at the start is unstable, and you will sweat to win your first clients and get your name in front of people.

The hard truth is that a lot of people are seduced by stories of "so-and-so quit everything and now bills a fortune as a freelancer". The internet is full of success stories that make it look like anyone gets rich freelancing overnight. That simply is not the case.

The freelance market grows every year (in Brazil, more than 31% of people look for some kind of side work to supplement their income), but it is also full of people competing for space. Without preparation and dedication, most end up failing or giving up along the way.

I am not saying this to discourage you. I am saying it to prepare you. Freelancing can bring freedom and good earnings, but only if you treat it as a real career, with constant learning and patience.

Why do so many people want to freelance?

The first thing you need to understand is why you want this. And more importantly, what the urgency behind that desire is.

The reasons vary:

Urgent money or extra income. Maybe you needed cash yesterday, you are paying overdue bills, or you want to top up your salary. Financial pressure is a strong motivator, but be careful not to assume freelancing will solve everything immediately. Spoiler: it will not.

Learning and experience. You may be looking to practise skills, build a portfolio and gain real experience. Many beginners treat small projects as a practical school outside formal employment or the classroom.

Freedom and quality of life. Being your own boss, working your own hours, travelling while you work, or spending more time with family. The flexibility attracts people who value autonomy.

Career transition or unemployment. A lot of people land in freelancing for lack of options: a layoff, difficulty getting hired, or a desire to change fields. Sometimes it becomes a way to reposition yourself professionally, or to buy time while you look for something better.

Building something of your own. Some dream of building their own thing and see freelancing as the first step. You can treat your freelance work as the embryo of a future company or product, testing the ground and gathering contacts.

There is no right or wrong motivation. What matters is being honest with yourself about yours, because that is what lets you build a strategy that fits your reality.

What to do depending on your scenario

If you need money urgently

If money is tight, wanting work yesterday is understandable. But adjust your expectations: you will rarely replace a fixed salary in the first few months. Freelancing takes time before clients and income become steady.

So if the money is urgent, treat freelancing as part of the solution, not the whole of it. Look for simple, fast jobs on platforms (they pay little, but they help cover some bills) while keeping or seeking temporary work.

Never quit everything counting on immediate freelance work to pay essential bills. That breeds desperation and bad decisions, like taking a doomed project or accepting a rate far below fair.

That said, focus on work that pays quickly: short projects, small online jobs. Negotiate better payment terms. Some clients will advance a portion. And above all, use this period to build a portfolio and a reputation, so that in a few months you can grow your income on more solid ground.

It is also worth cutting expenses and holding the line financially while things take off. Initial financial security buys you the calm to do good work and win the next contract.

If you are after learning and a portfolio

Maybe money is not the immediate concern and what you really want is experience. Your approach can be different: accept projects for the learning they offer, even if they do not pay well.

It can be worth creating projects purely to practise (a personal app, a fictional site for an imaginary business), or taking on volunteer work for NGOs or people you know, in exchange for the case study.

Treat every project as a laboratory. Take work in areas or technologies you want to master, with the good sense not to promise what you cannot minimally do. If something goes wrong, treat it as a lesson and write down what you would do differently. Ask clients for feedback on your work. That is worth gold.

Since the focus is skill, spend your free time studying and sharpening. At the end of the process you will have a robust, real portfolio, which makes better-paying clients far easier to win.

If what you want is freedom and flexibility

If your main motivation is owning your time, freelancing can deliver that, but not without initial effort. The advice here is discipline.

It may sound contradictory, but freedom requires organisation. Without a boss telling you what to do, you have to become your own. Build a working routine, set hours and daily goals. That is how you earn the freedom to adjust your schedule without falling into chaos or laziness.

Remember too that freedom does not mean working less. At the start you will probably work more hours than in a traditional job to establish your client base. The difference is that you organise those hours.

If the dream is travelling while working or spending more time with family, plan for it: choose clients and projects that allow remote and asynchronous work, tell clients your available hours, and hit deadlines religiously. Do not be on the beach leaving a client stranded. Use the flexibility in your favour, but always deliver professionalism.

If you are changing careers or out of work

If freelancing is your plan B (or plan A) after leaving a job or switching fields, the main tip is: treat freelance work with the same seriousness as formal employment. Keep a routine, set weekly objectives (X proposals sent, X courses done, X networking).

If you came from another career, use the contacts you already have. Former colleagues may need services in your new field and could be your first clients.

In a career transition, be willing to start small. You may have been senior in the old field, but in the new one you might be junior. Take basic projects at first to build confidence and show what you can do. Consider keeping a financial reserve or a parallel income while things get going.

If you are unemployed and betting on freelancing, diversify the bet: pursue freelance work but do not abandon traditional job hunting if that is a goal. One path does not exclude the other. A freelance gig can become a permanent job if the client likes you enough, and a permanent job can fund experience while you freelance on the side.

What matters is not standing still: keep learning, executing small jobs and putting yourself out there. Continuous action generates opportunities from one side or the other.

Build practical projects before chasing clients

A common beginner mistake is trying to win paying clients with nothing to show. Clients trust people who have already demonstrated skill. If you are starting from zero, create a few projects of your own to build a shop window before you go offering services.

What kind of projects? Fictional or volunteer work that simulates a real job:

  • A developer can build a complete site or app for an imaginary business (or for their uncle's bakery, free of charge) to demonstrate programming, design and deployment.
  • A beginning graphic designer can take a known company's logo and redesign it, or create visual material for a local NGO at no cost.
  • A writer can set up a personal blog and publish articles as if they were commissioned, showing command of a subject and the ability to research and write professionally.

These "pretend" projects are worth a great deal. First, they teach: you go through the full cycle of making something, dealing with technical problems and self-imposed deadlines. Second, they are a portfolio. Even unpaid, it is something concrete you made and can show. Third, some become public case studies. Who knows whether that bakery site attracts a real client in the same trade?

I know freelancers who landed their first paid contract because a client saw a personal project on GitHub or Behance and got interested.

So invest some initial time in two or three solid projects of your own. Put the same care into them as you would for a real client. Then put them online and use them as your calling card. When you finally approach clients, you will have far more confidence and material to impress them with.

Have a site, a blog and a digital presence

In the digital era, if you do not appear online you practically do not exist. Building a digital presence matters for two reasons: learning and positioning. Creating a site or blog teaches you a great deal, about technology and about communicating, while showing the market who you are and what you can do.

Site and portfolio. Start by registering a domain with your name or professional name and building a simple site presenting you and your work. Do not know web design? Good, you will learn by doing. There are templates and easy builders today, but even if you are a programmer building from scratch, what matters is publishing something.

Put an honest bio on it, a list of skills, and above all the projects you have made. A well-built online portfolio carries real credibility. When a client searches your name on Google (and believe me, they will), they find something professional instead of an empty profile. Your site is a business card that works 24 hours a day.

Blog. Keeping a blog, whether on your own site or somewhere like Dev.to, has several benefits. Writing about your field consolidates your knowledge and demonstrates authority. It does not need to be elaborate: a tip, a tutorial, a case study of something you built. Besides training your writing, you are practising content marketing, attracting people through useful material you publish. Imagine winning a client because they read a post of yours explaining something and saw that you understand the subject. It happens.

Social media and communities. Digital presence is not only your own site. Be where your audience is. LinkedIn is close to mandatory: keep the profile current, with a decent photo and a clear description of what you do. Join groups and forums in your field. On Twitter and Instagram you can share the behind the scenes of your work and what you are learning, building a connection with potential clients and collaborators. If you are a developer or designer, GitHub, Behance and Dribbble are indispensable shop windows.

What matters is being present in a professional and authentic way. No abandoned personal profiles with photos or comments that could burn you.

Study marketing, copywriting and writing

A successful freelancer is not only technically good; they know how to sell themselves. It may feel strange if you have never dealt with marketing, but a grasp of marketing, copywriting and branding can be the difference between a full calendar and no projects at all.

Remember that you are now your own company. So you need to attract clients the way a company does: with good presentation and a clear communication of value.

Copywriting is the art of writing persuasively, leading someone to take an action: to click, to hire, to reply. How does that apply to you? On your platform profile, on your site, or in a proposal sent by email, the way you write either hooks the client or scares them off.

Avoid generic descriptions like "I am a programmer and I make websites". Instead, lead with benefits: "I help companies build a professional online presence with fast, modern websites." You are selling a solution, not just a raw skill. Learning copywriting teaches you to emphasise what the client actually values.

Personal branding. Think about how you want to be seen. What is your niche or specialty? What style do you bring? Building a personal brand means consistency in your message, your visuals and even the way you speak. This is not fluff. It sticks in clients' minds. Maybe you are "the developer who specialises in sites for restaurants", or "the designer who understands fashion marketing". A focus helps people remember you when they need that service. Personal brand also covers reputation: delivering what you promise and being courteous are part of it.

Clear communication and writing. Being excellent at code or design is worth nothing if you cannot explain to the client what you are doing or understand what they want. Study effective communication: active listening, asking the right questions, and writing professionally. Very often the freelancer who wins the project is not the most technically skilled, but the one who best presented a proposal and answered the client's questions.

Investing in marketing knowledge is investing in your career. A digital marketing course can be a serious upgrade in perspective. You start to understand what generates value for the client and how to communicate it. Include some books or courses on marketing, sales, negotiation and writing in your study plan. It may feel like "not my thing" at first, but once you apply it you will see the difference.

Learn to sell (even with no sales experience)

You may never have worked in sales, but guess what: as a freelancer, you are a salesperson. You sell your services, your image and your ideas every day. The good news is that you can learn sales in practice, even starting from total ignorance.

Study the basics. Start with the principles. There are many books and courses on consultative selling, negotiation and consumer psychology. It is worth some time to pick up concepts like understanding the client's pain, value proposition and objections. You do not need to become a shop-floor salesperson with a memorised script; focus on understanding how people decide to hire someone.

Practise for real, even if simulated. No theory replaces doing. If you get the chance, a short internship or temporary work involving sales or customer service builds real instinct. As an experienced freelancer once put it, real working experience beats any class for learning sales. If that is not viable, simulate: try selling something from your daily life to friends, whether an item you want to get rid of or an idea, like convincing friends to travel somewhere. It sounds silly, but every time you try to persuade someone you are training.

Use freelance work to train sales. The act of looking for projects is itself training. Every proposal you send is a pitch. Rather than doing it on autopilot, analyse what works and what does not. Try variations in how you present your price and package; note the questions clients ask, because those are the doubts you should answer up front next time. If you get a no, or silence, do not be discouraged. It is part of the process. Ask for feedback where you can: "Could you tell me what was missing from my proposal?" Most will not answer, but when someone does it is valuable.

Focus on solving, not pushing. A golden tip for anyone without a commercial streak is to change the framing: you are not trying to push something useless onto someone, you are offering to solve their problem. Sell value. Listen carefully to what the client needs and then show how you can help. That consultative approach sells by itself, without you needing a salesperson's patter. Often, being honest about your limits, and even pointing the client toward the best path when it is not you who wins that job, builds trust, and that trust brings future sales and referrals.

At first, selling yourself is nerve-racking. But remember that everyone who is great at it today started from zero, took plenty of noes and got better. Practise constantly. Every meeting, every proposal is a chance to improve. In time you will come to enjoy negotiating and closing deals that are good for both sides.

Common beginner pains, and how to avoid them

Many obstacles on this path come from classic rookie mistakes. Here are some, with how to prevent each.

Running out of money for lack of planning. Freelance income is irregular: it comes one month and maybe not the next. Many beginners suffer from not preparing for that. How to avoid it: before going full time, build an emergency fund to survive the lean months. Do the financial planning: know your fixed costs and estimate the minimum you need. When good money comes in, do not spend it all; reserve part for the thin months. Where possible, keep multiple income sources so you do not depend on a single stream.

Procrastination and no routine. With no boss and no clock to punch, some fall into leaving everything for later and working only when they feel like it. How to avoid it: build working discipline. Set a start time and an end time, even at home. Use productivity techniques: Pomodoro, daily task lists. Have a workspace free of distractions. Freelancing is freedom with responsibility, or the deliveries do not happen and your reputation goes down the drain.

Taking projects without defining scope. Excited to close the first job, the beginner agrees to everything verbally and never makes clear what is included. The result: the client asks for a thousand extras and endless revisions, and you work twice what you planned. How to avoid it: always specify things in writing: a formal contract, or at minimum an email recapping what was agreed. Detail the deliverables, the deadlines, how many revisions are included and what counts as extra. Do not be afraid of seeming rigid; that is professionalism. Agree something like "up to three rounds of design changes", so beyond that you can charge more or close the scope. Clear rules from the start prevent abuse and headaches.

Charging far too little. In their eagerness to win work, many charge derisory amounts and then get frustrated working a lot for little. How to avoid it: research the market for a price reference at your level. Calculate your costs and the value of your hour. Starting at a competitive price makes sense, but do not undervalue yourself. Clients who only want the cheapest usually bring the most trouble. Have the courage to adjust your prices as you gain experience. And always put the financial agreement in writing: how much, method of payment, deadline.

The client disappearing without paying. Unfortunately this happens. You deliver the work and the client vanishes or delays payment indefinitely. How to avoid it: establish a safe payment process. Charging a portion up front, 30% or 50%, is common practice and already deters the bad actors. On long projects, use milestones with partial payments along the way. Freelance platforms have escrow systems that protect payment, so use them. And again: a signed contract, or at least an email where the client agrees to the terms, helps enormously if you ever need to chase.

Isolation and overwork. Some new freelancers get into a frantic rhythm, take everything that appears and pull all-nighters, ending up burnt out and alone, with no social life. How to avoid it: look for balance. Take breaks, keep weekends or free days to recharge. Stay in contact with other professionals: join online communities, meetups, talk to friends about work. If you feel overloaded, learn to say no to projects, or to negotiate longer deadlines. Your mental and physical health are essential to sustaining a long freelance career. Discipline includes knowing when to rest.

Those are only some of the traps. Notice that all of them are avoided by professional attitude and good process: planning, clear communication, contracts, time management. Making mistakes is part of it, but you can learn from other people's and skip several pitfalls by preparing the ground now.

Read beyond technology

A mistake many technical professionals make is staying locked inside technical content: courses, tutorials, documentation. Of course you need to master your specialty, but to stand out as a freelancer you need to understand people and business, not only code or design. An excellent way to do that is reading outside your bubble.

Psychology and behaviour. All work involves dealing with human beings: your client, your client's client, end users. Reading about psychology, human behaviour, negotiation and emotional intelligence gives you an arsenal of insight into interacting better. Understanding persuasion triggers helps when writing a proposal. Robert Cialdini's Influence is close to mandatory for anyone who sells something. Knowing a few cognitive biases helps you make more rational decisions and understand clients' sometimes illogical choices. Empathy is a key skill, and reading about behaviour (or simply good literature and good stories) expands your capacity to put yourself in someone else's place.

Business and entrepreneurship. Your clients are almost always trying to make money or improve a business with what you deliver. If you understand business notions (business models, marketing, cash flow, success metrics) you can talk to them better and deliver more value. You do not need to become a tedious MBA; start with company case studies, entrepreneur biographies, basic management books for non-specialists. It also helps you run your own freelance business: pricing, planning, growth strategy. When you talk to a client showing that you understand their business, you stop being "just another technician" and become a potential partner.

Communication, writing and the creative fields. Reading about writing, studying storytelling, learning a little design, art and general culture makes you a more complete professional. A developer who understands UX/UI builds better products. A designer who understands language communicates more clearly. A writer who understands business writes with more impact. The disciplines complement each other, and varied references feed the creativity you need for solutions outside the box.

Other subjects. Do not limit yourself. Read about economics to understand market context. Read about law (at least the basics of employment and tax) to know your rights and duties as a self-employed person. Read about time management, productivity, philosophy, whatever interests you. What matters is leaving the technical bubble. It sharpens your mind and gives you something to talk about with clients.

In short, being a freelancer in technology (or in any field) is not only about technique. It is about dealing with people and businesses. So educate yourself in those humanities and in the real world too. That mixture is what will set you apart.

Think like a generalist and like the product's owner

When you work at a large company your role is often well bounded: do your part and that is it. In freelancing, especially on small or solo projects, it pays to have a generalist mentality and act as if you owned the client's product.

What does that mean? Looking beyond your code or your specific task and understanding the larger context. If you were hired to build a site, do not see only the lines of HTML and CSS. Try to understand the client's business, the audience for that site, the end goal. Is it sales? A portfolio? Publicity? With that wider view you make better decisions during the project. You stop being merely an executor and become a consultant too.

Having an owner's mentality means asking yourself: if this project were mine, what would I do to make it more useful and efficient? That might mean suggesting features the client had not thought of, pointing out improvements to the user flow, or politely warning that one of their ideas may cause problems later. Always with respect (the final word is the client's), but very often the client is not technical and values a freelancer who thinks alongside them and proposes solutions, rather than obeying blindly.

The generalist posture is about moving between the various parts of a project. It is not being shallow at everything and good at nothing; it is having enough range to integrate the pieces. If you are a developer, understanding a little interface design and user experience helps you build a better site without needing everything spelled out. If you are a writer, knowing some SEO and marketing makes your text perform better. A generalist learns quickly whatever is needed to reach the goal.

Early in a freelance career this is essential, because you will not always have a team of specialists at hand. Often you are the whole team. The more subjects you can handle at least minimally (server, front end, back end, a bit of marketing) the more independent and quick you will be. Where you do not know, have the humility to research or ask for help.

Never use "that was not my job" as an excuse for a project's failure. Take the owner's responsibility: if something went wrong, even if theoretically it was not your part, help find solutions rather than pointing at the problem and washing your hands. That attitude makes clients trust you completely.

In time you may specialise more in a niche, which is good for becoming a reference, but never lose the holistic view. The best freelancers I have known understood technology and business, users and implementation, and knew how to connect the dots. Be one of them.

A final tip: platforms are mostly a waste, with exceptions

The promises are beautiful: clients all over the world, work from anywhere. The reality:

  • A race to the bottom on price.
  • Unfair competition.
  • Little recurring work.
  • Little appreciation.

Only a few are worth it:

  • Contra, if you have a portfolio and offer something differentiated.
  • Arc Dev, for part-time work.
  • BossaBox, Brazilian, also offering part-time work.
  • PeoplePerHour, popular, and you can get fairer rates.

But no platform replaces building reputation, authority and a channel of your own. Most serious freelancers migrate to referrals and their own network over time. And that only comes from work done well, plus positioning.

Conclusion: it is a long game, but it is possible

If you are still inexperienced, the biggest mistake would be trying to sell before knowing how to build. The second biggest would be trying to build without understanding why.

Freelancing can be freedom, but before that it is responsibility, learning, patience and a long-term view. So do not get into it, if you are getting into it the wrong way. But if you are here to genuinely learn, to build consistently and to think like a professional from the start, then welcome to the game.

Finally, know that being a freelancer means constant learning. The market changes, technologies evolve, and you will evolve as a person and a professional. That is a good thing. If you enjoy learning, overcoming challenges and having autonomy, you will find yourself on this path.

You do not need to start perfect. You just need to start with clarity.

I hope this helps. Many sales to you.