
Ask HN: What mistakes should one avoid as a new freelancer? - zabana
If you could go back in time and start all over again, what would you do differently ? What are the hard lessons that you learned throughout your career as a freelancer ?
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kirubakaran
I'm actually writing about this exact thing:
[https://kirubakaran.com/blog/consulting-
outline/](https://kirubakaran.com/blog/consulting-outline/)

But to answer your question:

It seems obvious that you trade the low variance pay of a salaried job for
higher variance but generally higher expected value of consulting pay + other
lifestyle benefits. But it is hard to actually internalize this.

That is, you're happy when your pipeline is full and you're making a lot of
money. But you can't work at this pace for ever. So, when there are natural
lulls and you aren't making any money for a bit, instead of being miserable,
you should know that it is a part of how it is and be thankful for the break
and catch up on all the sci-fi books you've been meaning to read.

It took me a while to not stress too much about these lulls and instead make
the best of it.

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DigitalSea
Don't charge too low for the sake of getting a freelance project. I recall my
first project was a travel site, I quoted way less than I should have ($700)
and I thought it was fantastic. I only charged so low to compete with overseas
freelancers. Once you take away tax and the fact the project took me 3 months,
not so great after all.

